"The Waste Land" E-Text (Digital Text)

by T.S. Eliot

Read one version of interpretation of the poem The Wasteland by my students based on their classnotes

Overview:
The decade of the 1920's, while filled with happy-go-lucky flappers and drugstore cowboys, also contained a deep sadness, apathy, and loss brought about by the horrors of the Great War.  It is more enjoyable to teach about the new mass media of radio and motion pictures, the dance marathons, and transatlantic flights, but students will benefit greatly from exposure and understanding of the darker side of the Roaring Twenties.

Objectives:

  1. To analyze primary source material, namely the poetry of American expatriates T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, and compose an essay to demonstrate their understanding of the post-war disillusionment of the so-called Lost Generation.
  2. To integrate their knowledge of the actual war, its strategies and conditions, with an understanding of the conflict's psychological impact on the generation who participated in it.
  3. To utilize the following skills: teamwork, critical evaluation, research,  as well as interpersonal, intrapersonal, artistic and linguistic intelligences.

Vocabulary

The Lost Generation / Ezra Pound/ disillusionment/ apathy/ idealism/ elusion/ atheism

Motivational Activities:

Do Now:

  1. Select one poem written by Wilfred Owen
  2. Read critical essays on the poem , criticism 1, Criticism 2 , criticism 3 ,  and share with the class some ideas of how we should  approach reading this "intelligible" poem.
  3. Use the Reference to help us understand the poem.

Procedure:

I. The Burial of the Dead

Stanza 1

  1. How is April described? Why is it the cruellest month of the year?
  2. What color "lilac" symbolize?
  3. Who is the speaker of the first stanza? Where  and how did she meet "him"? What did they talk about at their first meeting?

Stanza 2

  1. What imagery do you see? List the key words that describe the imagery.
  2. Who might the speaker be? Why?
  3. In what way is this stanza apocalyptic ?
  4. What feelings are expressed in the German ballad "Fresh blows the wind..."?
  5. Who might be the "Hyacinth" girl?
  6. Why couldn't "I" speak?
  7. Interpret "Looking in the heart of light, the silence/ Desolate and empty the sea."

Stanza 3

  1. What events did Madame Sosostris predict through the Tarot cards?
  2. Who is Madame Sosostris?
  3. What does  the reading,"the drowned Phoenician Sailor (Those were pearls that were his eyes) ", indicate?

Stanza 3

  1. Where is the "unreal city"?
  2. Who might be the "crowd "flowing "over London Bridge"?
  3. What doe "I had not  thought death had undone so many"? In what way does this image remind us of Dante's Inferno?
  4. What does the crowd look like?
  5. Why does Stetson ask "That corpse you planted last year in your garden,/ Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year? Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?" Remember death is the only consistent existence in the wasteland where sterility and infertility are the everlasting tune.
  6. The insane or seemingly senseless remarks made by Stetson also remind us of someone who just returned from the war and suffered from the war syndrome . Why?
  7. What contradictory feelings are expressed when Stetson says "'Oh keep the Dog far hence, that's friend to men, Or with his nails he'll dig it up again!"?
  8. Who is Stetson referring to when he says " You! hypocrite reader!- my double,-my brother?"

II. A Game of Chess

Do Now: In your journal, describe what imagery are evoked by the title "The Wasteland"? What 's the opposite to the wasteland? Describe it.

Stanza 1-7: These seven stanzas describe a high class woman's yearning for love and how she conveys such love to the man she loves.

  1. What does the subtitle "A Game of Chess" suggest?
  2. The woman described is a high class woman who lives in an expensive environment and she is linked to Cleopatra. What's the significance of this connection? (Hints: both belong to the high society unlack of material possessions; burning with love, suicidal end to the frustration).
  3. Select some words and phrases that depict the rich environment such as burnished throne, marble, etc.
  4. What does the "carved dolphin" in the colored stone image indicate? How does it remind us of the woman described? Why?
  5. In what way is the woman Philomel, the mythological character in the Sylvan scene?
  6. What feelings are expressed in the description of her hair (remember hair in Eliot's poem connotes sexual contents) "Under the firelight, under the brush, her hair/Spread out in fiery points/Glowed into words, then would savagely still"?
  7. In the dialogue between the woman and her lover, how does the man respond to her persistent inquiry? Why is he reacting this way?
  8. What is suggested in the response "I think we are in rat's alley/Where the dead men lost their bones"?
  9. Why does the dialogue between the man and woman suggest about their future?
  10. What would be the solution for each of them( woman: "rush out and walk the street /with my hair down..."; man: "we shall play a game of chess;/Pressing lidless eye and waiting for a knock upon the door".)

Stanza 8

  1. Who are the speakers? Where are they?
  2. What happened to Lil? She is the only woman mentioned who has "reproduced" children and yet she looks "antique". Why does her physical decadence suggest?
  3. The ending of the stanza imitates the last lines spoken by Ophelia from Shakespeare's Hamlet. Ophelia commits suicide after realizing Hamlet does not love her and drowned herself in a brook. How can we apply this reference to this poem?

III. The Fire Sermon (from Warren's translation of The Fire Sermon or the Sermon on the Mount which can be  found in the Gospel of Matthew, Chapters 5-7)

  1. What season is described in stanza 1? What scenes do we see? What feelings are instilled through these imagery?
  2. Who might be the speaker of the 1st stanza? And why does he sit down by the water of Leman and weep?
  3. What's the relationship between Sweeney and Mrs. Potter according to the myth?
  4. In Stanza 4, what relationship is suggested between the speaker and Mr. Eugenide?

Stanza 5-6(Lines 215-256)

  1. What hour of a day is "violet" hour?
  2. Who is the speaker ? How is he described? What power does he have?
  3. In what way does the typist live her life? How would you describe the  relationship between the typist and the man wearing "a silk hat"?
  4. Why does Tiresias lament that "I Tiresias have foresuffered all/ Enacted on this same divan or bed; I who have sat by Thebes below the wall/ And walked among the  lowest of the dead"?
  5. After the unwanted s ex, the typist " smoothes her hair with automatic hand,/And puts a record on the gramophone." What kind of music might she be playing? Why?

Stanza 7, 8, 9 10. 11 and 12 (Lines 257-311)

  1. How is the past described in stanza 7?
  2. How does this image "where the walls of Magnus Martyr hold/ Inexplicable splendor of Ionian white and gold" create such a contrast to the present?
  3. How is the relationship between Queen Elizabeth and Leicester described?
  4. Why does the poet use the references "To Carthage then I came" by At. Augustine and "Burning burning burning" from a book on Buddhism to end this part?

Part IV Death by Water

6.  Group work:  Students will join desks together to work on the following poem selections.  Each group will have to read the section as a group, then discuss how the section makes the reader feel and what the poet might be trying to say.  The students of each group will write a paragraph about their poem selection's point and their emotional responses (one paragraph per group). 

 read both their poem selection as well as their group's response. 

Homework:
    "Having read selections from TS Eliot's most famous poem The Waste Land, critically read The Hollow Men and try to discover what Eliot was trying to tell about people after World War I.  Think about these questions: What is the poem about?  Who are the characters?  What is the mood of the poem?  Who could the poem be addressed to?  Does Eliot talk about other books or stories in his poem?  Which ones?  As a response,

YOU HAVE A CHOICE:

Choice 1.  Write a three paragraph grammatically-correct essay on The Hollow Men.  Your grade will be decided on evidence of time spent on the paper, correct spelling and contraction, and overall impression of understanding.

Choice 2. Draw a picture illustrating your response to the poem or World War I.  Your grade will be decided on evidence of time spent on the drawing, skill, and overall impression. 

 Choice 3. Write a poem of your own as your response to the poem or the war.  You can write like Eliot or choose your own style.  Your grade will be decided on evidence of time spent on the poem, correct spelling, and overall impression. 

Choice 4. Go to the library and read a copy of Ezra Pound's Hugh Selwyn Mauberly, which is another poem about the war.  Write a one paragraph essay about the poem and what it says about the war.   Your grade will be decided on evidence of time spent, correct spelling and contraction, and overall impression of understanding."