Characteristic of 20th century in “The Waste Land”

Assignment Topic:   Characteristic of 20^th century in  “The Waste Land”

Name: Jinal B. Parmar

Paper no.: 9 The Modernist Literature

M.A. Semester: 3

Roll no.: 11

Year: 2014-15

PG Enrolment no: PG13101025

Submitted to: Department of English

Smt. S. B. Gardi

Maharaja Krishnakumar sinhji Bhavnagar University

Introduction of T. S. Eliot:

Born - 26^th September, 1888

Died - 4^th January 1965

                 T. S. Eliot is one of the major poets of the Modern age in English literature.  He has written greatest poems in the twentieth century. His influence has been very great on English poetry.  He uses the different language like effectively to communicate the predicament of modern world and modern man. The waste land is considered one of the most important poetic documents of the age. It expresses poignantly a desperate sense of the poet, and the age’s lack of positive spiritual thinking.

Introduction:

The Waste Land

In this poem there are five parts of this poem

1.    The Burial of the dead

2.     A Game of Chess

3.    The Fire sermon

4.    Death by Water

5.    What the Thunder said

                The Waste land is one of the modern poems of the English literature. It is widely regarded as “One of the most important poems of the 20^th century” and a central text in Modernist poetry. The waste land published in 1992, poem first appeared in the United Kingdom in the October issue of the “The Criterion” and in the United States in the November issue of “The Dial”.

               T. S. Eliot’s poem follows the legend of the Holy Grail and the Fisher King combined with vignettes of contemporary British society. Eliot employs many literary and cultural allusions from the Western canon, Buddhism and the Hindu Upanishads. The poem shifts between voices of satire and prophecy featuring abrupt and unannounced changes of speaker, location and time and conjuring of a vast and dissonant range of cultures and literatures.

Introduction:

The Modern Age

                 The modern age is very different from the other ages in English Literature. The modern age is known as “Modernist Movement” in English Literature. The period of modern age is 1915 to 1945 and this age is totally different from the Victorian age.

               The people of modern age reject old forms and trying to do a new technique and new style. Even in literature also many of the poet and writer wants to do different and bring something new in their writing.

                 The term “Modern” is generally known as an adjective expressing the state of being contemporary or possessing the qualities of current style. In art and culture, however, the terms modern and modernism pertain to the beliefs and philosophy of the society during the late 19^th to the early 20^th century. Because the concept has two different accepted meaning,

“The Waste Land as a modernist poem”

“The Modern Age a period of sudden and unexpected breaks with traditional ways of viewing and interacting with the world. Experimentation and individualism became virtue, where in the past they were often heartly discouraged”

                The waste land considered as a modern epic of the English literature. The best example of modernist literature is T. S. Eliot’s “The waste land”. Throughout this poem Eliot shows us the real image of culture and society after the World War 1 and 2.

                This poem depicts an image of the modern world through the perspective of a man finding himself hopeless and confused about the condition of the society.

“The waste land illustrates the contemporary waste land as a metaphor of modern Europe.”

                Eliot’s the waste land is very hard to describe and analysis because this poem mainly deals with the idea of modern age and its new technique. In this poem the waste land there are so many features and influence of the modern age, and we can apply some of the characteristics of the modern age in this poem the waste land.

Characteristics of the modernist literature:

o  The impact of the two world wars

o  Anxiety and Interrogation

o  Art for life’s sake

o  Using disjoined structure to reflects the disfunction of western society

o  Breakdown the tradition or breakdown of established values

o  Realism

o  Urbanization

o  Psychology and literature

o  Bad treatment of love and sex

o  The influence of Radio and Cinema

            The modern age is the most complex, complicated and revolutionary age in the history of the world. The people of this age challenges everything like,

The Modern Age

T. S. Eliot said that modernist literature is….

“…. A way of controlling, of ordering, of giving a shape and significance to the immense panorama of futility and anarchy which is contemporary history….instead of narrative method, we may now use the mythical method. It is, I seriously believe, a step toward making the modern world possible for art”

Characteristics of the modernist literature in the waste land:

o  The waste land made a tremendous impact on the post war generation, and is considered one of the most important documents of the modern age.

o  The poem is difficult to understand in detail, but its general aim is clear. Based on the legend of the Fisher King in the Arthurian cycle, it presents modern London as an arid, waste land.

o  The poem is built round the symbols of drought and flood, representing death and rebirth, and this fundamental idea is referred to throughout. Other symbol in the poem are, however, not capable of precise explanation.

o  In a series of disconcertingly vivid impression, the poem progress by rather abrupt transition through five movements:

The Burial of the Dead

                 This first section deals mainly with issues of death and introduces the diverse themes of disillusionment and despair. In this section the opening lines begins with the protagonist musing on spring:

“April is the cruellest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.

Winter kept us warm, covering 5

Earth in forgetful snow, feeding

A little life with dried tubers.”

                 This passage is an indication of the extent of the degradation of man. He sunken son low into depravity that he has prefers to live a life of ignorance and to disregard the fact that he is living a half life. April, the month in which spring begins, is no longer a joyous time in which new life is celebrated, but a cruel time of rebirth that reminds man that his own life is terribly empty.

                The burial of the dead can also possibly refers to the agricultural practice of planting the dried or dead seed just before spring, so that the seed may germinate and sprout in summer. The title also recalls the Christian burial service in the Church of England’s “The Book of Common Prayer and hence suggests death”

             These starting lines of the poem strike an ironic contrast between the modern waste land and that in remote and primitive civilizations. Ancient societies celebrated the return of spring through the practices of their vegetation cults with their fertility rites and sympathetic magic. These rituals demonstrate the unique harmony that then existed between human cultures and the natural environment.

                  In the starting lines of the poem we can define that there is vast difference between ancient societies and modern waste land. And is not kindest but “the cruellest month”. So in these lines of the poem poet has reflects the characteristic of “variety of technical experiment” that Eliot has use differences of ages and time and also use of new technique to describe natural environment and also experiment on nature. This lines often compared to the description of April in the general prologue of Chaucer’s “The Canter bury Tales” which adopts a more “conventional and cheerful treatment of spring”.

                     “And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.

Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt

deutsch.

                   And when we were children, staying at the archduke’s”

In these lines speakers seems to have changed and we, apparently, here the narration of Countess Marie Larisch about her childhood memories and present life. This passage of her reminiscences, her wanderings through Europe as a political refugee from her native resulting from her life as an ex-royal exile.

                  This section creates a picture of an emotional waste land in the lives of aristocratic women like Countess Marie who suffered great physical hardships and psychological dislocations as a result of the political turmoil soon after World War 1. In these lines poet reflects the characteristic like “Psychology and literature” that Eliot uses the character Marie and he tells about her state of mind and psychology.

“What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow

Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man, 20

You cannot say, or guess, for you know only

A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,

And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no

Relief,

And the dry stone no sound of water.”

               In this part of the section we can hear again the voice of Tiresias, who depicts a sort of spiritual waste land. The tone here is Rimini scent of old Biblical littering their somber prophecies. The speaker describes a true waste land of “strong rubbish” in it he says, man can recognize only “A heap of broken image” yet the scene seems to offer salvation shade and a vision of something new and different. The vision consists only of nothingness. In this episode again memory serves to contrast the past with the present. In the episode from the past, the “nothingness” is more clearly a sexual failure, a moment of importance. In these lines of the poem poet has reflects the characteristic like, “Emptiness and Nothingness” and “Anxiety and Interrogation” and also “Pessimism” because he talks more about Spirituality and Religion.

               In this poem poet uses the mythical stories to describe modern society. Eliot picks up on the figure of the Fisher King legend’s waste land as an appropriate description of the state of modern society. The importance difference, of course, is that in Eliot’s world there is no way to heal the Fisher King perhaps there is no Fisher King at all. The legends imperfect integration the lack of a unifying narrative in the modern world.

               In this use of mythical story Eliot present the modern society in which he reflects the characteristic like “using disjointed structure to reflects the disfunction of western society”

“Unreal City,

Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,

A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,

I had not thought death had undone so many.”

                   In this lines of the poem Eliot describe the London Bridge. The speaker observes the “Unreal city”, London, after the war. It presented the surreal and foggy image of London. The final episode of the first section allows Eliot finally to establish the true wasteland of the poem, the modern city. Eliot’s London references Baudelaire’s Paris, Dickens’s London and Dante’s Hell. Eliot uses the poetic an image of the physical desolation of the war-torn society and also communicates a sense of spiritual, disillusionment and despair.

                 According to Eric Svarny, the dry, barren, lifeless images in the poem and the undeniable sense of futility from an “evocation of post war London”. Svarny notes that the image of London in the poem characterized by “guilt, shock, and incomprehension of traumatized society manifested… through historical, cultural, psychic dislocation”.

                In these lines of “Unreal city” Eliot shows us the image of London city after world war and how it impacts to the society of the western culture. In these lines poet has reflected the characteristic “The Resurgence of poetry” and “The impact of Two world wars” throughout his poem we can understand the situation after the world wars to the western countries.

A Game of Chess

               This second part of the poem deals mainly with issues of sex and employs vignettes of several characters alternating narration that address those themes experientlly.

               In this part the two women of this section of the poem represents the two sides of modern sexuality while one side of this sexuality is a dry, barren interchange inseparable from neurosis and self destruction, the other side of this sexuality is a rampant fecundity associated with a lack of culture and rapid aging.

               The second scene in this section further diminishes the possibility that sex can bring regeneration either cultural or personal. The comparison between the two is not meant to suggest equality between them or to propose that the first women’s exaggerated sense of high culture is in any women’s form of sexuality is regenerative.

               In this section poet has reflects characteristic like “bad treatment of love and sex”. In this part poet has used one line repeatedly “HURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME” it shows one of the characteristic of modern age like “The speed of life” may be poet has uses it to the importance of time throughout this section.

Meaninglessness of relationships:

               In a modernist literature society that lacks hope and a sense of significance; many aspects of life lose their meaning and are reduced to trivial things. In the waste land relationships between people in the modern society are reduced to something that is sterile, lifeless, and dry. The various characters that appear in the poem are unable to carry a logical and coherent dialogue.

                This impossibility of meaningful communication corresponds to the dismal and hopeless reality of the modern society and also intensifies and dramatizes the speaker’s anguish and frustration at world. For example, in “A Game of Chess”, demonstrate the impossibility of communication and thus relationships:

“Speak to me. Why do you never speak? Speak.

What are you thinking of? What thinking?

What?

I never know what you are thinking. Think.”

               The speaker of these lines is unable to communicate with the person he is speaking to, thus failure in communication reflects the isolation and lack of connection that characterize relationships with in disillusioned and dismal modern society.

“What is that noise?”

The wind under the door.

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

Nothing again nothing. 120

“Do

You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you

remember

“Nothing?”

                 This lines suggest a sense of chaos and obscure the meaning of potentially unequivocal expressions the speaker is unable to communicate anything articulate and meaningful. Through this depiction of relationships and communication, Eliot demonstrate that one of the social effects of the war is the lack of harmony and community and the ultimate isolation of the individual resulting from the sense of despair and meaninglessness in the midest of the desolation of modern Europe.

The Fire Sermon

              In this third section its deals with sexual issues and offers a philosophical meditation in relation to the imagery of death and views of self-denial in juxtaposition influences by Augustine of Hippo and Eastern religion. In “The Fire Sermon” the depravity of man is further illustrated. A woman is shown in her apartment eating dinner with her lover. Their encounter after dinner is described thusly:

“The time is now propitious, as he guesses,

The meal is ended; she is bored and tired,

Endeavours to engage her in caresses

Which still are unreproved, if undesired.

Flushed and decided, he assaults at once;

Exploring hands encounter no defence;

His vanity requires no response,

And makes a welcome of indifference”.

                This attitude of indifference can be seen as even more depraved than lust and expresses the apathetic attitude of many after the war.

Fragmentation:

                   The single most prominent aspect of the from and content of the waste land is fragmentation. The waste land does not progress in a linear direction as most other poems do. In “The Fire Sermon” incomplete and choppy phrases are followed by an obscure expression:

“Weialala leia

Wallala leialala”

                Clare R. Kinney also gives an example of deliberate fragmentation in the poem demonstrated in the structure of “The Fire Sermon”.

                The fragmented nature of the waste land is not merely a stylistic element or an effect that a reader perceives from the poem but most importantly a principal concept of modernism. Eliot himself shows that this is significant concept in the poem, the speaker’s recurring implying or mentioning is an essential aspect of the picture of modernity that is presented in the poem.

Death by Water

                  This section is deals with issues of death and includes a brief lyrical petition. This is one of the shortest sections of the poem. In “Death by Water” the way of escape from the degradation of society is revealed. The protagonists tells us of Phlebas the Phoenician, who experienced death by water, which can be seen as a representation of baptism, the shedding of the sinful nature, and the acceptance of the “living water” of Christ. Phleb as is now dead to the world. He has forgotten,

“The cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell and the profit and the loss”

                He is no longer affected by the sin of modern society but lives separate from it. The narrator then addresses the reader:

“Gentile or Jew

O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,

Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall

as you.”

                  With this address, the narrator reminds us that we are as mortal as Phlebas, and we also require this “living water”. This passage is a direct contrast to “The Fire Sermon” quenching the fires of lust with the “living water” that provides spiritual cleansing.

What the Thunder said

                  This is the fifth and final part of the poem. It is mainly about resurrection or restoration, which may or may not be attainable. This part concludes with an image of judgment. The protagonist concludes by explaining his own realization that, like “Jerusalem Athens Alexandria” modern society is deteriorating: “London Bridge is falling down”. At this time he has a decision to make: “Shall I at least set my lands in order?” will he avoid the decay of society and abandon his meaningless life for one with significance? His decision is evident in the stanza of the poem. Amid the madness of the ruin of society.

                The protagonist finds, “Shantih  Shantih  Shantih” – peace that passes understanding like Phlebas, he has chosen to bid farewell to his dishonest, worldly self and surrender to the living water that has the power to quench the fire of corruption.

                 It is through this passage that Eliot suggests his own discovery and his decision to experience the peace that passes understanding by surrounding the corrupt part of himself. The poem composed of seemingly fragmented ideas and stream of consciousness thoughts, end on a note of peace, a peace that Eliot has attained and wishes modern man to experience.

                 In this final part of the poem poet again uses the Bridge of London which is falling down which shows that the culture of London is also falling down. Throughout this section poet has uses the Hindu Upanishads which is the voice of God repeats, the thunder, when it rolls “Da Da Da”, that is “Damyata, Datta and Dayadhvem”. Therefore these three must be learned, self-control, giving, compassion.

               In this part there are some reflection of the 20^th century’s characteristic they are: “The breakdown of established value”, “The impact of two world wars” and “The resurgence of poetry” in that Eliot has uses new kind of technique and method to give his ideas toward modern age.

                 Eliot’s “The Waste Land” is characterized by fragmentation, discontinuity, and disjunction- quality descriptive of modern society. In this entire poem we can see all the characteristics which are given above and describe as a very difficult and modern epic.

Conclusion

                 The waste land, because of its complexity and depth, is a difficult poem to understand and analyses. The most notable aspects of the poem that have been discussed in this analysis illumine some, though not all, characteristics of modernity that are depicted in the poem.

                According to Eliot’s image of the modern world in the waste land, the modern society is surrounded by obscurity, chaos, disillusionment, and a desire to return to the ancient times of security and order. The waste land is one of the best examples to the modern age and it also reflects the characteristic in “The Waste Land”.