Thursday, May 30, 2019

Week 10-12 Oranoos Shirvani


Week 10-12
Modernism

What does The Wasteland mean (Lol)?

1. How has it been interpreted? Use citations.  2. What are some of its key features?

3. In what ways has it been influential??

The “Wasteland” is a long poem, a modernist style of literature which is known for fragmented forms. If we date modernism from poetry it started from1913 when new modern modes of writing started writing about their experiences and reality. The Wasteland is the most important poem of 20th century published in 1922 by T.S. Eliot (1888-1965) an American poet who lived in England for years (1914). The Wasteland style and content reflect the literary movement of modernism which breaks the traditional form of writing and invents new forms. T.S. Eliot’s poem Wasteland was really affected by World War I and it is a major modernism work, rich beyond modernism. Wasteland changed the way people saw the world but it is still so difficult to research The Wasteland because there are many critical analyses and many critical readers who try and tried to analyse and understand it.
Although Eliot is not the first modernist poet to write about the war he took the technique of new poem to higher levels. For example, a fascinating poem by Ford Madox Ford” Antwerp” (1915) was admired by Eliot himself. Another example is the British female poet called Hope Mirrlees(1919) who wrote a notable ultra-modern poem, “Paris” which is similar to Eliot’s poem in the way it starts way. There are so many key features found in the Wasteland poem but the key features are fragmentation, allusions and tone e.g. APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land. The best way to analyse the Wasteland poem is to look at the importance of literary allusions. Eliot used a huge number of literary, religious and traditional forms also, he used a method called “mythic method” (imaginary method) which is a mythic narrative structure. Maybe he got that idea from James Joyce who uses that method in his novel “Ulysses” which was published in the same year with The Wasteland (1922). Eliot himself wrote an essay to praise Joyce because of using ancient myth and borrowed this for his poem e.g. the Fisher King copied from the Arthurian Legend and other different literary traditions and religions. The Fisher King myth is very helpful to give clear details about the poem’s imagery and themes. Eliot was under influence of 19th  century French poets Baudelaire’s in his poem “The Wasteland” and he quoted Baudelaire’s in the ‘ The Burial of the Dead: the first part of The Wasteland. Also, he learned from French poetry about how poetry can be ‘free verse’ which means he doesn’t have to confirm to a strict rhyme scheme or metre. As a result of that Eliot used free verse in the finishing part of The Wasteland such as The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, Preludes and Rhapsody on a Windy Night which all shows Eliot cityscapes and the urban scene inside his work. Obviously, Eliot’s work reflected certain impersonality in his poem which means not being influenced by his personal feeling.
He has been influential in turning reality into myth such as APRIL powerful cruel.


Reference:

A Very Short Analysis of T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, (n.d.). Retrieved from
https://interestingliterature.com/2016/10/06/a-very-short-analysis-of-t-s-eliots-the-waste-land/


2 comments:

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  2. Great Post! I like how you understand and how valid and true on what you think. If you go to my post i have mentioned The Great Gasby an example which I found when researching for this question. Jay Gatsby was imagery shown in a ruined tower. We see the prince in the novel starts with having great plans for his future but comes home with nothing at the end (Willms, 2018, para 4). The novel was influenced by T.S. Eliot's poem because it shows key features about "Hopelessness and disenchantment" ( Willms, 2018, para 1) as to where Jay gives up on his dreams and ambitions. Maybe we have the same opinion and maybe not but that fun will it be to see our assumptions

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