The Structure of the poem '' The Waste Land "

            

Name :-  Hetal  D.  Dabhi  

Paper name :-  The Modernist Literature 

Sem :- 3

Years :-  2018-19

Submitted to :-  smt. S. B Gardi  Department of English,  MKBU. 

The  Structure of the poem  ‘’The  Waste Land ‘’

                          The Waste Land. The Waste Land is a poem by T. S. Eliot, widely regarded as one of the most important poems of the 20th century and a central work of modernist poetry. ... The poem's structure is divided into five sections.

THE STRUCTURE AND THE MAJOR THEMES IN THE WASTE LAND

What makes this poem a modernist fruit is both its unconventional structure and themes Despite Pound's pruning and modification of the first manuscript, this poem remained a combination of many poems arranged into a pattern", but due to the lack of transitions between these poems, "the pattern does not unity and organize the material into a single meaning." (Gish, 1988, p. 29) With all the allusions to many other literary works, and the emotions they evoke, The Waste Land abounds in themes, and consequently in vast amount of interpretations However, the themes of futility, alienation and the quest for redemption are predominant. Just before the beginning of the poem, Eliot did not forget to employ the epigraph, "whicla serves as an introduction... Into the core of the poem." (Anchevski, 2003, p. 183) What makes this poetic device crucial in his poems is the importance of establishing the mood, before the reader goes on to the main body. As far as the poem as a whole is concerned, the final published version consists of five unequally long parts with sudden and unexpected interruptions, which impede a linear...narration." (Anchevski, 2003, p. 201) The five parts of the poem, which is 434 lines long, are titled The Burial of the Dead, A Game of Chess, The Fire Sermon, Death by Water and what the Thunder Said, the third of which is the longest one hundred and thirty nine lines, and the fourth is the shortest, consisting of only ten lines. All of these titles are allusions to other works, in one way or another

In the onset of the poem, Eliot gives us a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events" (1921, Hamlet and His Problems, para 7) to help us evoke the emotion of futility, hopelessness, impossibility of resurrection, realized in phrases and words such as dead land, stony rubbish, dead tree, dry stone no sound of water, etc. These themes, whether explicitly or implicitly, are present throughout the poem but the intensity is most felt in the first part.

In the second part we encounter two types of complex, "in a world devoid of man relationship or love", who "cant speak to each other. They are totally cut off from each otherve and manually alone" (Gish, 1988, pp. 58-59) Both of these couples suffer from dissociation of sensibility." (Abrams. 19932180 The former are alienated verbally and most important psychologically, by the continual one-sided discourse, whereas the latter couple's animal love, or senseless love is what makes them alienated. These themes are still present in the rest of the poem, but now with a slight possibility of resurrection and redemption. What heralds this possible hope is the tide nf the third part, The Fire Sermon, which is a Buddhist ritual to purity the "fires of love and other passions that destroy people and prevent their regeneration." (Abrams, 1993, p. 2152, footnote 9) After the different types of lecherous deeds given in the third part, the quest for redemption draws even nearer with the repetitive burning in line 308, which is followed by a redeeming prayer. But at the end lines 428-429, from the last stanza in the fifth part, bear the strongest reference to the desired salvation, due to the reference to the refining fire of Dante's Purgatorio and the swallow, as a symbol of spring, and hence rebith. At first reading, this poem may leave us boh flabbergasted and mesmerized With a poem elaborating themes of futility and alienation, hardly someone can not feel repulsion or at least ambivalence, but this is Eliot's view of a modem society. And in fact it is a philosophy that

he used constantly to urge us to see that there is something wrong, Indeed, and we should act as soon as possible to improve our plight. His way of doing so is by purifying ourselves of all pagan customs, lecheries and alienation, ar more precisely by regaining and maintaining the faith inGod. No matter how depressive his poetry may seem to be, it is the contrary, optimistic and hopeful, but only if we unlock the person of our own selves. (Abrams, 1993, p. 2159, fotonote .

• References,

Gish, Nancy K. (1988) The Waste Land: A Poem of Memory and Desire. New York, NY:

Twayne Publishers

Anchevski, Zoran (2003). T. S. Eliot Pesni. Skopje: Magor

Eliot, T. S. (1921), Hamlet and His Problems In The Sacred Wood. Retrieved January

23. 2014 from hp//www.banby.com/200sw9.hml#

Eliot, T.S. (1993) The Metaphysical Poets. In Abrams M. H., Donaldson, E.T., David

A, Smith, H Lewalski, B. K., Adams, R. M. Stallworthy, J. (Eds.). The Norton Anthology of

English Literature Vol 2 (6 edp. 2180. USA: W. W Norton & Company, Inc.

Elio, T. S. (1993) The Waste Land. In Abrams M. H., Donaldson, E.T. David, A., Smith,

H., Lewalski, B. K. Adams, R.M.

Stallworthy, I. (Eds.). The Norton Anthology of English

Literature Vl 2 (6 ed.) (pp. 21522159 USA: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.