Louise, as always, has chosen the perfect title because at the very core of this magnificent novel is the notion of rebirth and as the Gamache quote (at the top of page)-and Eliot’s own “April is the cruelest month” line-so profoundly illustrate is that rebirth can be accompanied by astonishing pain, even death. Conrad Aiken called it, “One of the most moving and original poems of our time” while Ezra Pound- who had a heavy hand in editing Eliot’s masterpiece-called it a “justification” of “our modern experiment”.Īt its heart, The Waste Land is about rebirth-the revitalization of society after the catastrophes of war, the restoration of the mind after the ravages of mental illness, and the reinvigoration of the spirit after prolonged dejection. just a piece of rhythmical grumbling.” Despite the poet’s own downplaying of his work, a vast number of significant critics disagreed with him. The poem defines the prevailing desperation of the post-World War I generation as well as Eliot’s own tortured time.Įliot described his epic poem as, “the relief of a personal and wholly insignificant grouse against life. Originally published in The Criterion in 1922, The Waste Land was conceived by Eliot during what has come to have been described as a nervous breakdown and was heavily influenced by many things, including the Grail Legend, the work of James Joyce, Homer, and Hermann Hesse.
Eliot’s The Waste Land-that has provided one of the most recognizable lines in modernist poetry. How serendipitous to offer this post up in the month of April when the novel itself is set and the month-by way of T.S.
( The Cruelest Month, page 248, Trade Paperback Edition) How difficult it was for those who didn’t bloom when all about was new life and hope. Eliot and thought the poet had called April the cruelest month not because it killed flowers and buds on the trees, but because sometimes it didn’t. Gamache took the bread to the long pine table, set for dinner, then returned to the living room.
0 kommentar(er)
