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?

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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.