The Waste Land (Magill Book Reviews)
At a glance:
- Author: T. S. Eliot
- First Published: 1922
- Type of Work: Poem
- Genres: Poetry, Narrative poetry, Symbolist literature
- Subjects: Mythology or myths, Twentieth century, Alienation, Death or dying, Folklore, Rites or ceremonies, Knights or knighthood, Tarot
At first glance, THE WASTE LAND appears fragmentary, even incoherent. The themes of the cruelty of physical existence and the unreality of modern life which dominate the poem’s difficult first part, “The Burial of the Dead,” give way to the simpler but no less horrifying portrayal of upper and lower-class life in “A Game of Chess": the materialism and fearful ennui of the one, the abortions and physical decay of the other. Parts 3 and 4 are more deeply and overtly ironic. In “The Fire Sermon,” the reader finds neither the spiritual love that Buddha and Augustine advised nor...
[The entire page is 674 words long]
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