Well, dear friends, such is the time when we must part ways with T.S. Eliot and The Waste Land. Although the text is confusing as hell, it is safe to say that Eliot's verses and allusions moved the reader and provided an excellent insight into emotion and pain.
Enough of that sentiment! Below is a bibliography of all of the works used in this blog.
Goodbye, and thanks for reading!
-Taylor
Carr, Mary. “How To Read ‘The Waste Land’ So It Alters Your Soul.” Chronicle of Higher Education 47.24 (2001): B7-B12. EBSCOhost. Web.
Levenson, Michael H. “Does the Waste Land Have a Politics?” Modernism/Modernity 29.4 (2006): 194-200. Project Muse. Web. 14 October 2009.
North, Michael, ed. The Waste Land: Authoritative Texts, Contexts, Criticism. New York: Norton, 2001.Print.
Pericles, Lewis. “The Waste Land.” modernism.research.yale.edu. Yale University. 12 December 2007. Web. 12 October 2009.
Ransom, John Crowe. “Waste Lands.” The Waste Land: Authoritative Texts, Contexts, Criticism. Ed. Michael North. New York: Norton, 2001. 167-70. Print.
Wylie, Elinor. “Mr. Eliot’s Slug-Horn.” The Waste Land: Authoritative Texts, Contexts, Criticism. Ed. Michael North. New York: Norton, 2001. 145-48. Print.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Seventh Post
In my studies of The Waste Land, I have been assigned the task of drawing upon the resources of online articles and periodicals, texts similar to the previously studied "How To Ready the Waste Land So It Changes Your Life". Although the actual search will not be shown here (you have already seen how it went the first time), I will comment that the actual selection process was about as smooth and well as any search could possibly go, and on the very first search on my second selection, I found a wonderful article by the name of "Does the Waste Land Have a Politics?" (odd name) by Michael Levenson, published in Modernism/Modernity. As you can imagine, the article deals with the political and economic issues that Eliot (allegedly) discussed in him poem, using many textual examples as well as a few from Eliot's letters in England.
The beginning of the article is about as run-of-the-mill and habitual as any other; with a brief overview of T.S. Eliot's biography (something that we have never seen before!). This history, however, is more focused on his famous exodus to England. Levenson explains how difficult it was, and maybe still is, for an American to rise to respectable stature in Britain. For Eliot, this certainly applied, but was made considerable easier due to his commercial success. Still, Eliot sought out the elite through his many letters, and "[b]y 1919 Eliot can boast that he has 'more influence on English letters than any other American has ever had, unless it be Henry James.'" By the end of his time in England, he was one of the most respected literary figures in England, as well as the world.
Moving along, the article breaks into a post-war view of his poem, integrating what he saw and experienced in London when he moved in. Levenson provides interesting insight into this:
Written so soon after the carnage of the war, the poem has naturally been understood as an engagement with the civilization of violence. But a burden of this argument is that The Waste Land needs to be located within the immediate surround of the postwar city, the city cursed not by military violence, but by hectic peace. It's the city of the dead, as we have always known, but these are peculiar corpses: they twitch so spasmodically.
This particular view, I find, is extremely interesting, especially seeing the context of the statement. Not being particularly privy to post-World War 1 history, the fact that London was a "hectic" city starting in 1919 was new to me, but makes much sense. Restless youth returning from Europe, as I understand, was the ignition for the Roaring 20's in the United States, so something of a similar effect must have occured in Britian. From what Levenson describes, however, the youth are portrayed more as "peculiar corpses", stricken with disgust and guilt from the atrocities of war and yet restless from going back. This seems to be a large faction in The Waste Land's overall mood and tone, such as with the "Unreal City":
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.
The rest of the article skirts around social implications in the post-war era and how it impacts Eliot's work.
The beginning of the article is about as run-of-the-mill and habitual as any other; with a brief overview of T.S. Eliot's biography (something that we have never seen before!). This history, however, is more focused on his famous exodus to England. Levenson explains how difficult it was, and maybe still is, for an American to rise to respectable stature in Britain. For Eliot, this certainly applied, but was made considerable easier due to his commercial success. Still, Eliot sought out the elite through his many letters, and "[b]y 1919 Eliot can boast that he has 'more influence on English letters than any other American has ever had, unless it be Henry James.'" By the end of his time in England, he was one of the most respected literary figures in England, as well as the world.
Moving along, the article breaks into a post-war view of his poem, integrating what he saw and experienced in London when he moved in. Levenson provides interesting insight into this:
Written so soon after the carnage of the war, the poem has naturally been understood as an engagement with the civilization of violence. But a burden of this argument is that The Waste Land needs to be located within the immediate surround of the postwar city, the city cursed not by military violence, but by hectic peace. It's the city of the dead, as we have always known, but these are peculiar corpses: they twitch so spasmodically.
This particular view, I find, is extremely interesting, especially seeing the context of the statement. Not being particularly privy to post-World War 1 history, the fact that London was a "hectic" city starting in 1919 was new to me, but makes much sense. Restless youth returning from Europe, as I understand, was the ignition for the Roaring 20's in the United States, so something of a similar effect must have occured in Britian. From what Levenson describes, however, the youth are portrayed more as "peculiar corpses", stricken with disgust and guilt from the atrocities of war and yet restless from going back. This seems to be a large faction in The Waste Land's overall mood and tone, such as with the "Unreal City":
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.
The rest of the article skirts around social implications in the post-war era and how it impacts Eliot's work.
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