Informal annotation: There is another way to interpret the role of prophecy in "The Waste Land." Perhaps Eliot has intentionally characterized the prophets as creators instead of foretellers of the future. This is certainly true in the case of Huxley's Mme. Sesostris (Mr. Scogan), from which Eliot's clairvoyante takes her name -- his predictions are only true because he renders them true (i.e., he will hit his client with a hammer; he will ask the village girl about heaven outside the local church). In the context of Eliot's poem, it could be argued that it is exactly Mme. Sosostris' vision of the Phoenician Sailor that drowns him in later sections of the work.

Having established this, the final line of this stanza could be directed at prophets and interpreted in another way. It warns them of their reality-morphing powers in the modern world.

9.25

On many levels of interpretations, the section “A Game of Chess” depicts the rape of one or several female characters. The meticulous steps of the sport of chess bring to mind a careful, calculated series of sexual manipulation, and the rather disjunct imagery throughout these stanzas seem to be linked together by the metaphorical or literal subjugation of the female body. Of great interest to me here is the portrayal of Philomela’s metamorphosis, framed and “[displayed] above the antique mantel” (97).

In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Philomela transforms into a nightingale after revenging King Tereus for the assailment and mutilation of her body. In Eliot’s poem, however, she is forever frozen in this frame of incomplete mutation. In a way, her fate-like tragedy endures through this artwork; even from the modern observer’s perspective, “still she cried, and still the world pursues” (98). Philomela’s animalistic freedom is unachieved or at least incomplete. Recalling Sibyl’s male-given “liberation” from the natural laws of mortality and Marie’s temporary freedom sledding with an unnamed man “down [...] in the mountains,” Eliot seems to characterize female autonomy with a sense of ephemera throughout the poem (14-7).

As Ira points out, the female nightingale is naturally mute in terms of singing – it is factually impossible for their voices to permeate the desert air. Rather, female nightingales can at best produce a soft collection of sounds resemblant of the “crying” that Eliot attributes to the pronoun “she” (98). Given that it traverses biological gender boundaries, one could argue that this line is yet another example of the disembodiment of perspectives.

But I think there’s more to it. We cannot confirm what this intrusive non-female voice has filled the desert with, but we notice that the only sound emphasized in the rest of the stanza is an onomatopoeia “Jug Jug” (103). Having had her tongue cut off, the violated female exemplified by Philomela does not regain her voice through the transformation to a nightingale. Moreover, this transformation – this scene hanging over the ancient mantel, this “withered stumps of time” – can only generate impact through the interpretation of the (presumably male) observer (104). Sadly, all that the “dirty ears” of the viewer can perceive from the image is condensed into the obscene “Jug Jug.” The strength and resolution that Philomela supposedly represents does not resonate in the modern waste land. Only the vulgar, filthy perception seems to live on.

9.23

The choice of using “undone” to describe death’s consequence on the inhabitants of the Unreal City is significant (Eliot 63). According to the Oxford English Dictionary, “undone” as a past participle bears the meaning of “unbounded; released or freed from a bond, bandage, covering, etc.” Interpreting the word in this fashion, it seems like Eliot is suggesting some liberating force within death – perhaps from social norms, from life’s hardships, etc. But then we remember that the line is almost entirely borrowed from Dante’s Inferno – it serves as Dante’s first visual impression of the marginal space beyond Hell’s Gates, where the “neutrals” must endure eternal suffering (Dante 57). How could they possibly be considered “freed,” trapped in this inescapable pool of blood, pus, and melted flesh?

Then, we must consider a reinterpretation of the word. We ask ourselves: What happens when a knot, a computer command, or a damage is “undone”? Very simply, they are restored to a previous, more natural state: the knot is unraveled to a linear rope, the computer command is reversed, and the effects of the damage are offset. It seems, however, that such an explanation hardly applies to an individual’s death. In any case, what original state would the citizens of the Unreal City be restored to upon their death? Certainly the answer here doesn’t involve a physical decomposition to dust, since the swarming crowd comprises men with functioning “eyes” and “feet”; neither is there a complete loss of consciousness, for that the people still “exhaled sighs” along their paths (Eliot 65-6).

But I still think this restoring connotation of the word is at work in the poem. Recall Eliot’s original decision to incorporate a quotation from Conrad's Heart of Darkness as his epigraph. When death nears Mr. Kurtz, his response fascinates me – at that moment, for the narrator, it seems as if Mr. Kurtz “lived his life again in every detail of desire, temptation, and surrender” (Conrad 4). Indeed, in a particular sense, Mr. Kurtz is “undone” by death. Death descends upon him dramatically, rewinding his life many decades, forcing him to witness every pain and suffering he once experienced. Death, then, is no retreat. It provides no sense of closure.

Inferno suggests a similar message. The neutrals, having died, are nonetheless portrayed as “[having] no hope of death” (Dante 46). This characterization can only be considered logical if we accept the restoring definition of “undone” above – those unfortunate souls are forced to live painfully and perpetually beyond their deaths. Similarly, we are reminded of Eliot’s finalized epigraph, where the oracle Sibyl craves a never-attainable death. Thus, the word choice of “undone” becomes an important illustration of Eliot’s conception of death in “The Waste Land.”

An unexpected figure is introduced in line 43 of “The Waste Land” by T. S. Eliot: Madame Sosostris. On first glance, the intrusion of the character is merely another brushstroke of culture Eliot decided to add to the dissonant landscape – we’ve had Latin references, Greek myths, and German lieds, so it seems fit that we now have a French magicien.

But the choice of Madame’s Sosostris’ name is most curious. Perhaps the Egyptian mythological King Sesostris? It seems fit, since Tarot cards did originate as a method of water level prediction in Ancient Egypt (Weston 8-9). That said, another reading of the name would prove substantially helpful to understanding the development and visions of the poem.

In Aldous Huxley’s Chrome Yellow, Madame Sesostris is a faux Tarot reader played by a deceitful Mr. Scogan. Perhaps we should first notice the gender duality present in the character. The Sosostris in Eliot’s poem is likely a transvestite male, immediately reminiscent of the epicene nature of another fortuneteller in the poem – “I Tiresias, [...] / Old man with wrinkled female breasts” (Eliot 218-9). Given Eliot’s general vision for the poem, Eliot’s choice of la madame’s name has allowed disembodiment to extend beyond that of the borderless speaker. Now the characters have become amorphous as well.

Another essential feature of Huxley’s Madame Sesostris is this: he practices magic not for the sake of truth, but towards his own benefit (namely, to arrange a likely sexual encounter with a village girl). Then what about Eliot’s Madame Sosostris, the “famous clairvoyante”? It seems like we must accept her incredibility as well. Considering the postwar context, how bleak and hopeless this waste land has become – even the “wisest woman in Europe” knows not the future, only how to toy with it for her own benefit.

In fact, rather than the future, Madame Sosostris’ cards evoke more images of the past. From characters carrying Christian undertones to mythological figures, we are presented with a kaleidoscope towards historical cultures. For instance, we can identify an important purpose in this specific presentation of the Tarot reading: it blends the Grail quest and the more historic quest in Aeneid together. The tale of the Fisher King, present throughout “The Waste Land,” is brought to mind immediately by the “man with three staves,” who stares motionlessly at a body of water; the “one-eyed merchant,” suggestive of a cyclops, and “Belladonna,” whose name is indirectly associated with one of the Greek Fates, are famous features of Virgil’s Aeneid. Eliot has used Madame Sosostris’ reading to dilute the dimension of time.

Lastly, the impotence of Madame Sosostris in enlightening us about the truth is reminiscent of yet another prophet referenced to in the poem – that “son of man” from Ezekiel. This character can wield no individual power; even in the final scene of the Book of Ezekiel, the namesake prophet can only intervene in death through the power of God. Through the character of Madame Sosostris, Eliot has connected all the fortune-tellers in “The Waste Land.”

9.21

The point I want to raise concerns flowers. Lines 35-42 of the poem is a recount of experience. Here, the hyacinth flower seems to be of particular importance. It is a multidimensional symbol – on one hand, the cognate name of a Greek celebration; and on the other, the mythological story of Apollo and his lover. The excerpt from John Lemprière’s work suggests the unique cyclical nature of the Hyacinthia celebration: starting with the mourning of a death, it develops into a mass rejoicing over Apollo (a bright, life-giving force) before returning to a time of public grief.

Similarly, we can identify an analogous cycle of life in the story of Hyacinthus. The young boy, while sharing his love and vitality with Apollo, dies by an unfortunate accident, and yet is resurrected by the god himself soon afterwards. In the most accepted version, Hyacinthus’ soul is preserved in the purple hyacinth flower – strongly reminiscent of the vegetatively resurrected Adonis mentioned in Weston’s work, an aboriginal deity of fertility. In such a manner, we conclude that the hyacinth is a likely symbol of the natural, even primitive pattern of vegetative virility.

Notice now that these lines are not set in the titular waste land. The section only comprises spoken dialogue, self reflection, and descriptions of specific bodily features, allowing us to approach it as a geographical void – the only imagery of setting we see here is the “hyacinth garden” from which the speaker has departed. Then, it seems convincing that this “garden” does not coexist with the waste land spatiotemporally. Instead, we can interpret it as a precursor to the waste land: a land that hasn’t been wasted, a land characterized by the healthy, cyclical vital/reproductive forces that the hyacinth represents.

Unfortunately, this hyacinth garden undergoes levels of degeneration – or better, will undergo this degeneration, given that the Tarot reading foretells the future. By the time readers reach line 49, they have returned to the titular landscape. The “Rocks,” whose tutelary figure is some Christian-toned goddess “Belladonna,” brings to mind heaps and piles of deteriorating waste. The namesake plant (full name atropa belladonna) was heavily used in cosmetic products; considering the negative connotation given by the plant’s toxic nature, we can almost infer that the plant represents a form of poisonously irresistible seduction. In contrast with the natural reproductive forces identified with the hyacinth before, the Belladonna seems to represent a more artificial, unhealthy form of regeneration.

The irresistibility evoked by the plant is corroborated by the name’s etymological root. Coming from the Greek goddess Atropos, “she who may not be turned aside,” it carries a clear sense of determinism. Further, the finality suggested by this mythological connection – in Greek tradition, Atropos is tasked with the responsibility of cutting moral life-threads as an execution of destiny – similarly contradicts the cyclical nature of seasonal vegetation patterns discussed before. The speaker has truly taken readers away “from the hyacinth garden” (37).

This contradiction confirms our suspicion about the consistency of “The Waste Land.” Indeed, there is no mentioning of the Fisher King in this section, nor any explicit mentioning of reproductive or social debilitation, but we can now be certain that a coherent message of reproductive degeneration is carried throughout the sections, from the hyacinth-turned-belladonna to a rushed sexual encounter, then to the Fisher King, etc.

9.17

Though the section takes its title from a burial ritual of Orthodox tradition, and readers originally expect to be invited to a sterile, visually dissonant landscape, it begins counterintuitively with an awakening. April, a time of resurgence and revival, is chosen as the first imagery readers encounter. In this annotation, I am interested in a very specific feature of this opening. In lines 2-3, the speaker uses curious language as he describes April “mixing / Memory and desire” – what do “memory” and “desire” refer to? What is their relationship? A review of The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, which Eliot likely drew inspiration for his opening lines, can provide us with some insight.

The Canterbury Tales begins its Prologue with a similar depiction of a waking world. Spring has returned, flowers are blossoming, and the land teems with a newfound vitality. In one view, considering the setting of Tales – a journey to visit the relics of a Christian saint – these lines evoke a divine sense of rebirth. Indeed, plants undergo a dimension of physical maturation in the spring, but they do not regain vitality through natural processes of the material world. Instead, life must be “breathed into” by a personified “West Wind,” an embodiment of supernatural life-giving forces similar to that of God’s in Ezekiel 37 (Chaucer 5). Likewise, flowers can only be engendered by a certain “vertu,” once again reminiscent of Christian allegories of spiritual resurrection and cyclicality (Chaucer 4).

Conversely, however, the passage can be approached through a perspective completely detached from the idea of religious revival. Rather, we can identify a pagan, or at least secular, form of awakening – more specifically, of sexual revival. The blossoming of flowers are emblematic of both sensual and poetic renewal; as the April showers "bathe every vein in such liquor,” a clearly carnal appeal is evoked, as if the rain is not merely nourishing but also stimulating. Such a perspective corresponds to ancient pagan celebrations of fertility in the spring, intended to bring physical rejuvenation to the world.

The above duality of perspective/interpretation is carried into “The Waste Land.” For instance, as the showers in Tales bathe plant veins in liquor, the spring rain “stirs / Dull roots with spring rain” in Eliot’s work (3-4).

In “The Waste Land,” April, the medium of both Christian renewal and pagan revitalization, brings a blend of two forces: “memory,” the traditional conception of divine life-giving faculties, and “desire,” a seemingly primitive yet universal sexual awakening. To reinforce the connections I have established, even the types of life-instillation in the two approaches, as their corresponding names suggest, are distinct,: the “memory”-type is concerned with returning to a prior state of vitality, while the “desire”-type seeks a forward, creation-based virility.

What can we conclude? Perhaps that Eliot is, for disembodiment purposes, blending two historically distinct approaches to life in nature; perhaps he is highlighting some multidimensional nature of the modern sense of progress (a life-giving force). But this will require further justifications.

9.16

Joseph Conrad marks a pivotal transition from Victorian styles to what is now known as “modern” literature. Conradian impressionism, as we see in the excerpt from Heart of Darkness, takes away the omniscient consciousness completely and, as if inspired by the Buddhist concept of ksanas – unthinkably short moments of time – captures plots with fragments of setting and imagery that only vaguely constitute a “whole.” Indeed, in this sense Eliot accords with Conrad, with his emphasis of human epistemological incompetence beyond a “heap of broken images.”

Likewise, we can infer that Eliot’s original title, “He Do The Police In Different Voices,” was intended to deliver a similar message. As an intensified extension of Conradian style, which is characterized by the constant mashing of distinct points of view, Eliot’s original opening involves stark transitions between marked different, and even dissonant, speakers. Furthermore, readers immediately notice a glaring inconsistency between internal and spoken narrations, evident in Eliot’s unpredictable use of speechmarks throughout the opening section (Eliot 19-34).

That said, an examination of the revised opening of The Waste Land reveals a clear movement beyond Conradian literary thinking. Two details stand out; I will highlight one here and discuss another in class.

First, let us consider the ending of Heart of Darkness, specifically the narrator’s – and what he suggests to be Kurtz’s – characterization of death. Marlow implies that Kurtz’s desperate cry “The horror! The horror!” as death nears expresses not a fear of death in itself; rather, it denotes some horrific realization of the hollowness of the concept. Similarly, when Marlow is briefly approached by death, he finds himself in “an impalpable greyness, with nothing around, [...] without the great desire of victory, without the great fear of defeat” (Conrad 5). This sentiment is characteristic of two historical philosophical stances that re-emerged in the 19th century: Epicureanism and Skepticism. Thinkers from both schools contend that, due to the lack of (or the impossibility of justification of) a percipient after death, we can logically assign no meaning or value to it, since things only “mean” in some direct or indirect relationship to human concerns.

In the published opening of The Waste Land, Eliot has clearly moved beyond Skepticism. I have established elsewhere that the poem’s first speaker is likely a buried corpse – consequently, we are met with a form of postmortem consciousness unacceptable in Conradian thinking. Soon, the speaker asks, “That corpse you planted last year in your garden, / ‘Has it begun to sprout?” (Eliot 71-72). It seems like a sense of prolonged/renewed life has been instilled in death.

9.14

The Waste Land does not exist in an arbitrary time – in fact, the title is delivered much like a description, or even definition, of the year stamped next to it. What image or impression of the 1922 postwar world is Eliot trying to evoke in the reader? A semantical examination could prove useful. The Oxford English Dictionary provides two contrasting definitions: in one, the word refers to a “natural, uncultivated” state; in the other, this land is one “unfit for cultivation and left to run wild.” Interestingly, the latter definition only first emerged in 1922, coinciding with the publication of Eliot's poem. It seems that Eliot has successfully reinvented a word.

But how could the change in interpreting the word “wasteland” have been so drastic, rapid, and uniform that reachers reached a collective new conception so efficiently? Eliot’s separation of the original word “wasteland” played a significant role. We are left with an unsettling composition of two separate concepts: “waste” and “land.” Most importantly, “waste” is no longer simply a descriptive feature of the land, but a much more extensive, pervasive force that diverts the land (and more) from its natural state. In other words, the addition of the space directly allows a dynamic interaction between a subject and an object, which the new definition incorporates. From Eliot’s notes crediting the Grail legends, as quite comprehensively retold by Jessie L. Weston, we reach the likely suspicion that this pervasive force is brought about by the inhabitants of this 1922 desolate landscape – humans, with whom the land shares its virility.

So, what does the barrenness of land correspond to in humans? Lethargy? Immorality? Impotence? It seems like each of these options could be analogous to what the Fisher King experiences in the Arthurian legends, which is then projected onto the state of his “land.” To understand what Eliot identifies as the primary problem in the human dimension, perhaps we can interpret his separation of “waste” and “land” through another lens.

Take “land” now to represent the postwar world and its inhabitants. Then, the addition of the space could be viewed as a gesture of complete discontinuity – the land has lost connection with what it now regards as “waste (adj. or n.),” something that is either 1) no longer considered useful or 2) overly rich/extravagant to the point of being superfluous. What is this entity? Further investigation is necessary, but discontinuity of culture/civilization is a plausible answer, as it continues to be illustrated by a long series of specific imagery throughout the poem (e.g., the immediate departure of the nymphs as the speaker zooms into the River Thames, 174-9).

Despite the heavy messages carried in the title, Eliot decides to open his stanzas with two distinctly optimistic elements: 1) the season of April, a time of restoration for the natural dimension, and 2) the consciousness and sprouting of a dead corpse, symbolizing renewed vitality for the human dimension. Eliot’s aim in this work, then, becomes clear – to bridge the discontinuity that is the waste land.