T.S. ELIOT (1888-1965)
He was born in Missouri (USA) but he moved to England in 1914
He was a poet, playwright
and literary critic
No faith in contemporary society/
not identity/ no sense of bilonging
no truth/ no certainty
He was one of the main MODERNIST poets
He refuses traditional narrative sctructure
The Burial of th Dead was
also an anglican tradition
Depicted like an "unreal city"
crowded by dead people, pessimistic vision
gloomy city
THE WORLD AFTER WAR IS
A DESOLATED AND STERILE WORLD
WITHOUT HOPE OR JOY
In which: SPRING "is the cruellest month"
because it triggers "memories and desire"
and it gives us only the illusion of rebirth in a "no man's land"
Paradoxically WINTER is better because it "keeps us warm" and preserves "memory and desire" under the snow (lines: 1-7)
LAST LINES : the DEAD CORPSE
is connected to the image of the ROOTS
at the beginning of the poem
like the ROOTS the CORPSE is unable to come back to LIFE (lines: 59-64)
MAIN THEMES
we find in Eliot's poem:
One of his main poems
Written in free verse
no rhyme, free length
of verse, free punctuation
use of figures of speech
(Paradox; oxymoron ...)
OBJECTIVE CORRELATIVE
innovative technique
created by Eliot:
a set of objects or
chain of events
describe a feeling
or emotion without naming it
Frequently found in his poems
Before War Life was cheerful and nice (lines: 13-17)
LONDON
The inhabitants of modern London are spiritually dead and are compared with the damned souls in Dante's Divine Comedy (Inferno) who live without praise or blame.
there are only "sounds of death" , "sighs" "brown fog" ... (lines 48-60)
On the contrary CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY
is depicted like a dry and sterile Land
without water
There are many references to IMAGES conveying feelings and emotions of DEATH and DESPAIR
ex.: heap of dust, stony rubbish, sun beats, no shelter, dry stone etc.. (Lines 20-30)
MODERNISM
THE WASTE LAND
First part: The Burial of the Dead
full of references and quotes from:
the Classics; Dante, the Bible, Shakespare