Thomas Stearns Eliot: The Wasteland

Preface

            Eliot has gripped my interest with several things. At first, he gained his education at the world's best schools such as Harvard, Oxford or Sorbonne. He left the USA and became the British citizen. He had worked as a stupid teller by Lloyd's, till he turned famous and rich. He went through a serious nervous breakdown. The culmination of his profound inner moves is expressed in the Wasteland. The poem which actually brought the Nobel prize to T. S. Eliot in 1948.  I dare say that this work fits among the similarly conceptualized compositions that reflect the misery within its merits. I claim there is a number of art works which are particular in the way they are created. They yield to be written/painted/seen… Virtually, they emerge from some concealed perches of human soul, being expressed instinctively without hesitation, without obstacles with a scent of infinity. Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, Blake, Poe, Ginsberg, Miller and great deal of others are making the best possible case for my argument- as well as the Eliot's Wasteland. A quite interesting matter to point out would be the fact that The Wasteland and Joyce’s Ulysses- both very significant works of the modern literature were published in the same year- 1922 independently of each other.

I must admit my initial obtuseness toward it. But after a few readings, misbelief flies away and happy smile falls through. The outside wind switches to the more anxious one and the light over my room is not dimmed enough. The curtain turns into the thick veil and the image of unhappiness takes off wig and mask. That is the right time to concern about this poem. Afterwards man will begin to admire him. I surely did. An expedition to the world of the Wasteland begins.

Time-space message

            The Wasteland is structured into five individual parts, each has its own name, pointing us to the right direction with a bare clue what is to come.  Not only will I focus on the aspects of time and space but also on the details, emphasizing the most inciting images. I have put down many notes while reading. Thanks to them a genuine chaotic flair of modernism shall be included. (written with more sarcasm than would be appropriate)

            Since we have to conceive it as the whole object due to the fragmental cubistic composition, let's focus on the complex. I assume the poem partly must react to atrocities and unbearable pain of WW. The single lines still smell as if bombs were dropped onto them. The visible dust of desperation must have been undeniably overall in the air. Visions of flawless future forever gone. Church, which ran out of frankincense- (to ease the pain with incense of the white smoke)-and patches of smog instead. (O Lord Thou pluckest me out, O Lord Thou pluckest me.) I am not quite sure whether this sort of atmosphere was truly intended. The own rhythm and melody bring their portion of expression to the Wasteland- especially in the way we perceive it/ hear it. The integrity of an art piece lies between capability of instrument (language) and power to express the ideals gradually. The form is breaking the rules, having used to the Whitman's free verse, following exceptional suit. There is the usual aspect of modernism- complicated references to famous books, quotations, events, etc. Eliot sometimes switches to another language to point out the complexity. Satires of society will always be part of poetry; we can find it here for sure. That would suffice for the introduction.

            Now we can simply move on to more specific space. We are faced with both worlds- the spiritual one and the earth one. Those are built, let’s say, on degraded mythological standards. It evidently connects levels of time- banal as well as complicated types- these are mixed and create cycled form of time. This process had laid the background for postmodern principles. Cycled times- where ‘the actual’ drowns in ‘the passed’- is the crucial method of cubism. That is a reason why am I going to compare the poem to vision art at the end of the text. The eternal centuries are faced with sudden destruction, has it been deserved? I am not said to answer, neither the poem is... Significance of motion provides more premises. It moves from interior to exterior, landscape rotates to city.

            The city, crucial motif of the space. City is a specific place for the modern society. It is a lively, organic space- artificially created and suitable for a man to live, to be the home. It stands for society of people whose dreams cannot come true. Everyman pursuing after salvation and longing for save. Anyhow, his soul is already lost. While reading the poem, we travel through ‘real’ cities as London, ancient as Alexandria, mythological as Jerusalem. A city is the great place for individual suffers; plumes of hope torn out of thy hands, fear of the day which isn’t day- fear of the dark that is light. Stained minds of abandoned children, in fine violent color. Unreal city. Illusion represents the wrong principle of the entire manmade effort to rebuild the world. All that standing on the trust rules that we cannot comprehend. Let me leave ‘the city’ to its own faith.

            In what direction the time tends? It seems as if it was moving forward, although it is not true. The Wasteland does not have a punch line either the final resolution. Dreadful ocean in the Death by water spreads it to the circle. Missing waves of innocence, cheap sacrifice as money. Empty feelings disordered into a very negative scent of life full of destruction. Depicting the crowd of people roaming in circles- they won’t find their way out. Strayed are the paths of fortune. Character leads only to horror and boredom. Fake promises are accepted with enthusiasm whereas love is confronted to cruel mechanical sex. He has definitely managed to set up images describing the ultimate chaos credibly and incredibly at the same time. It is always a stiff dose to write a poem involving the eternal world. Set up mirror and perceive effects which are concealed to the others.

“The personal development of an artist is never-ending self- devotion, it is constant negation of character.

Any poet is important for himself, his importance and value lean on the relation to the dead poets and artists.”

( Martin Hilský, Modernisté- from Eliot´s essay)

Time- facing traditions to the uncertainty, the old to the shivering new. Passages mild as a touch of silk are roughly approached with really cruel ones. Not a luminous ray in the deep sea of frustration.

            In the modern ages the symbols re-emerge, dug for spiritual needs of Europe. In dramatic flair of poem the bones are buried and the raw flash of reality screams at us. Our minds are traveling from London Bridge to the ways of characters. Our fantasy has got no need to take part in. Illusive perception of parallel acts is a remarkable part of the composition. Rags of remorse painted on a canvas, according to the descent into moral crisis, settled impressions. Collocations among separate concepts of the poem bring gnarled roots which express the integrity of Europe, of Europe whose river floats through plowed sense of dignity in rural fields of cursed industry.

“Eliot was seduced by Dante’s distinctive ability to turn suffer into purgatory- Dante was for Eliot the poet of transcendence to which naturally attempted Eliot himself. (Martin Hilský, předmluva k Pustině)

Citations

Here, I am going to give the evidence for my statements to make my point. Everything is rewritten exactly from the Wasteland. I chose them to give a delicate example. They do not need any comment. Those are the most inciting moments.

 ‘April is the cruelest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire...’

‘You cannot say, or guess, for you know only’

‘I will show you fear in a handful of dust’

‘Looking into the heart of light, the silence.’

‘That corpse you planted last year in your garden,

Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?’

‘And the other stumps of time

were told upon the walls: staring forms..’

‘Leaned out, leaning, hushing the room enclosed

footsteps shuffled on the stair’

‘V:”I never know what you are thinking. Think.”

A:”I thing we are in rats alley

where the dead men lost their bones”’

‘“What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?”

“Nothing again nothing.”’

‘HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME’

‘The nymphs are departed.’

‘At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives

Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea’

‘Her drying combinations touched by the sun’s last rays’

‘The river sweats

oil and tar..’

‘He who was living is now dead

We who were living are now dying’

‘We think of the key, each in his prison

thinking of the key, each confirms a prison

Conclusion

            I promised to compare it to the one specific piece of visual art. ´Guernica´ by Pablo Picasso is that one. The cubism points to the idea of many forms of time, not only are there linear layers of time, but also cyclic and parallel ones. The poem recalls identical feelings as this famous cubistic painting. All parts appear at the first glance of quite different purpose- the measures of experiment remarkable and still better the deep collocations revealing the cruel sense of reality. Two artists, crucially breaking standards and settling out the questions for the next generation. Both have founded specific rules that have influenced the art scene and achieved goals we could not even dream of.

            Blake saw the world as the Devil’s creation. Eliot created the image of the wasteland. Perhaps little knowing it, but Eliot has made very authentic stimulation of at least one feeling that hold the whole world together.

“God cannot change what is passed but he can change the image of it.”(J. L. Borges)

A poet has got a similar power- creating artificial and divine space in his work. And Eliot will thanks to the Wasteland stand as a prophetic poet in further decades/ centuries of literature. The art does not a priori have to content all spheres- apparently, two lines of sadness and despair can build the Universe. That is all I meant to write about this poem- whose contribution to literature as a supreme cubistic work is said to be never forgotten. “The broken Wasteland evokes the feeling of ruin, death and nothingness which is the cure of Eliot’s poem. In the very heart of the Wasteland is a negative scent of life, empty world, horror and boredom.” (M. Hilský)

Thomas Stearns Eliot died 1965 in London. The Wasteland remains.

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The Quotations which are written in italic are taken from the Wasteland.

Sources: Martin Hilský- Modernisté (1993)

Thomas Stearns Eliot- The Wasteland (česká i anglická verze)