Thread: The Waste Land - By TS Eliot

Hey guys, I'm not usually a poetry fanatic, but it looks like I'm going to be faced with a 4,000 word essay on this particular masterpiece. I was just wondering what you all thought of it? I know it's a bit long, but I like long poems, and I think this is pure genius.


I won't post it on here due to the size, but here's a link to a copy of the text:

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Waste_Land

You definitely need a book that explains all of the many references. There's probably more allusions in this poem than anything ever written.

April is the cruelest month,
breeding lilacs over the dead lands

Yeah, I love this poem.

"April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing"

Yeah, you have to love this poem.

Yeah, you have to love it if you enjoy it when people masturbate all over a page and call it poetry.

I like "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."

But "The Wasteland" is just Eliot saying, "look at how educated I am!"

I would say that that was a little harsh, though I too would take "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" over "The WasteLand" any day.

Love the poem.

A very appropriately named poem. Right up there with great eponymous hits like Jacko's "Bad", the band called "Garbage" and the TV show host named Robin Leech.

the main problem with the Wasteland and many other of his work is the way its been taught. The commentaries destroy what Eliot was striving for which had little to do with meaning through intellect and much, much more to do with sound as another means to achieve understanding or meaning.

Read the Wasteland out loud - or better yet get a first rate recording and do what Eliot asked, sit still and listen. Forget the 'sense' through the commentaries and just go with the words. Its the sound, the cadence, the rhymes and rhythms of his work. Eliot was a master poet so ahead of teachers that they dragge3d him into this stupid realm of here's what he was thinkinbg as if Eliot sat down and wrote copipous notes before writing the poem.

No he, like all of us, dragged out the connections via his unconscious, via the Muse if you will, the connections came after the poem - as a way of explaining for those that could not simply sit still and listen because they had lost that art. We have become so visual and that's why I love poetry, and why he inspired me.

Poetry is sense through sound. The rest is just crap to fill the lectures with.

why does everyone go on about The waste land...
and ts eliot in general...

frankly, i don't see the appeal

Originally Posted by dannyboy

the main problem with the Wasteland and many other of his work is the way its been taught. The commentaries destroy what Eliot was striving for which had little to do with meaning through intellect and much, much more to do with sound as another means to achieve understanding or meaning. this is so true, but too many of us get loss in our own view points and histories.

Read the Wasteland out loud - or better yet get a first rate recording and do what Eliot asked, sit still and listen.you give great recommendations and one can see you love poetry. Forget the 'sense' through the commentaries and just go with the words. Its the sound, the cadence, the rhymes and rhythms of his work. Eliot was a master poet so ahead of teachers that they dragge3d him into this stupid realm of here's what he was thinkinbg as if Eliot sat down and wrote copipous notes before writing the poem. true true!

No he, like all of us, dragged out the connections via his unconscious, via the Muse if you will, the connections came after the poem - as a way of explaining for those that could not simply sit still and listen because they had lost that art. We have become so visual and that's why I love poetry, and why he inspired me.amen!

Poetry is sense through sound. The rest is just crap to fill the lectures with.

thank you Danny...your comments are inspiring.

The poem is beautiful,w onderful. It is not at all vague or hard to understand. some people hate it when a foreign language is used, but even if I did not speak German I would feel the atmosphere, he was taking me into the memory of a part of his life. I do not understand why it is scorned as intellectual.

I think many teachers teach poetry poorly, they search for meanings via the unlocking of 'codes' - So they fell in love with Eliot who gives us so many 'codes'

How to teach students to sit still, listen and let the sounds take you where they will?

How to write essays on that?

How to grade that?

How to gain anything from that?

Sadly, since I'm not a poet, I feel like I don't get as much out of this as others might. However, I do like some of the wording and imagery:

And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

I liked this part best for some reason.Wish I could be more help, Banzai.

When I first read this poem ... it was without the benefit of commentaries, instructors, or anyone else for that matter. As I read ti, though I didn't understand the German parts, I still found a deeply resonant poem ... for precisely the reasons mentioned above. The cadence, the rhythm, the imagery, the narrative ... one of the best of all time, IMHO.