Eliot: Questions for Discussion and Further Research
Many critics see The Waste-Land as T.S. Eliot’s call for a return to spirituality and community, in the aftermath of collective trauma. To work toward your own understanding of the poem, you must first analyze the multitude of intertextual references within it.
Discuss:
- Eliot refers to a number of characters from Greco-Roman mythology, within the poem. Name one, and explain how the myth helps shape Eliot’s portrait of post-war Londoners.
- When one of the poem’s narrators opines that “April is the cruelest month,” what do they mean by that? What does the season elicit? Why is this painful for the poem’s subjects?
- The Waste-Land does not simply contain a multitude of voices and perspectives; it contains multiple languages. What is the effect of these multilingual fragments? What is Eliot attempting to portray or suggest, by quoting French and German speakers?
- Who is the one who walks beside “you,” in the poem’s final section? What clues in the text lead you to endorse this interpretation?
Do further research:
- Eliot uses a number of religious references from both Eastern and Western faith traditions. Toward the end, his narrator appears to have a conversation with thunder. What Hindu text does this conversation come from? Using your college library’s resources, find an English translation of this text, and explain its relevance to Eliot’s final message, at the poem’s conclusion.
