The Waste Land
Waste Land, The,poem on the theme of the sterility and chaos of the contemporary world by T.S. Eliot, published in 1922. This most widely known expression of the despair of the postwar era has as a structural framework the symbolism of certain fertility myths that reputedly formed the pagan origins of the Christian Grail legend.
The Waste Land itself is a desolate and sterile country ruled by an impotent king, and the poem is divided into five parts: “The Burial of the Dead,” representing the rebirth of the land after the barren winter; “The Game of Chess,” a contrast between the splendor of the past and the squalor of modern life; “The Fire Sermon,” vignettes of the sordidness of modern life; “Death by Water,” the vision of a drowned Phoenician sailor who at least dies by water, not thirst; and “What the Thunder Said,” representing the decay of modern Europe through symbols of the Grail legend. The poem concludes with...
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