The Wasteland

1. The Wasteland

2. Modernism • Rebellions against traditional litterature • There were no agreed principles for the artistic programmes • T.S Elliot is one of the writers who broke with prevailing formal conventions.

3. Style 1 • No uniformity in stanza length and meter. Fragments of • End rimes • Rythem • Opening lines there is lack of rhythm, but instead there is a use of –ing verbs which actually contributes to the poem as a form of rhythm.

4. Style 2 Language • The surprise value of strange connections: • April is the cruellest month? Winter kept us warm • Line 71: That corpse you planted last year in your garden, Has it began to sprout? Will it bloom this year? • Includes the readers early on in the poem with the use of the personal plural us

5. Title • Doublemeanig of the title • Devastated land • Wasted land

6. Narration • The poem collates modern voices, the narrator, and ancient beauty and wisdom in forms of myths. • Many allusions – Shakespeare, Dante etc. • But who is the narrator?

7. The narrator • The narrator is a spectator walking through the waste land which is a consequence of the war • line 218 I Tresias, though blind, throbbing between two lines -The narrator introduces himself ad blind, which contributes to the fragmented style. • Line 228 I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs perceived the scene, and foretold the rest – here he tells in his own words, that he is in fact a spectator.

8. Themes • Elliot is describing the post-war London in a very horrid way. • Symbolises post-war delussion as a deserted land • The poem describes a devastated world Wasteland. • Many sub-themes besides the main theme.