Response to Sophie Perkel

Reading the Brihadaranyaka source that connects to this section of the poem, I notice in Chapter five that the descriptions of "truth" and "falsehood" remind me of the third/fourth person from our previous readings. "The gods worship truth (satya), pronounced with three syllables, "sa-ti-yam". Sa and yam represent Truth, ti represents falsehood. "falsehood is surrounded on both sides by truth, and becomes truth." Falsehood being in-between is similar to how the "third person" is in-between, and if falsehood becomes truth by being surrounded by truth, then could the entity that is the third person, what does the "third person" become?

Sophie has an intriguing point here about the "third (or fourth) person." Following her analysis of the three syllables "sa-ti-yam" of satya (truth), where "ti" means falsehood while the other two represent truth, then it would be logical to surmise that Eliot believes a third entity can become truthful if surrounded by truth. I don't necessarily believe that Eliot thinks falsehood can become true, but maybe that falsehood can become normalized and authentic to an individual. For example, if we build on my past annotation where I argued that there are three entities - God, an individual, and a third entity which tempts or distracts the individual from a clear path to Heaven or spirituality. In this case, the true entities that "count" (by the words of "the Thunder" earlier in this section) in life are God and the individual. Thus, that third entity which cannot be defined as it would be different for each entity is the falsehood because it should not be the core of living. Once we understand that, we can apply Sophie's theory and conclude that Eliot believes that although a distraction will never truly live up to the importance of an individual or the deity which they follow, enough prioritization of a sin will make it a habit and a necessity. In this way, that third entity of sin and temptation can become an authentic aspect of someone's life, because they have placed a falsehood on such a pedestal that it has become (to them) as truthful as God.

In this section, there is no water, indicating a drought of spirituality in modern society. This makes sense, consider that “What the Thunder Said” likely refers to the words of God (or gods?) lamenting what the world he created has become. Although many might refer to “the third who walks always beside you” as Jesus or the Devil, I interpreted it as whatever temptation or distraction pulls people away from “holy” values. If we read the entire section as words said by “the Thunder” or God, then it would be logical to assume that this stanza portrays God questioning society on their downfall. This deity believes that all that counts/matters is “you and I together,” but even when looking at people who claim to be religious and on a path to heaven (the white road), they still live with other sins that they are not willing to give up. Hesse/Dostoevsky wrestles the possibility, or lack thereof, of evil in a world with God, and the guilt one feels (or does not feel) after being an accomplice or partaker in sin. This is increasingly apparent with the rise of overconsumption and personal liberty in the 20th century, so it is no surprise that Eliot, in his analysis of modern society’s problems, views the material and relational temptations (described many times throughout the poem) as barriers to true spirituality.

Response to Marisin McLain (and Sophie Perkel)

Last year, scholar Sophie Perkel noted how the ambiguous “he”, who plagues this poem makes its final appearance in this line, “He who was living is now dead.” There is a finality of death, different from the amorphous cycle of life and rebirth that has plagued the poem thus far, as this “he” dies not only because Eliot wrote it so, but because “he” never appears again; the pronoun dies from the remaining stanzas. This finality is also emphasized by the following line, which follows a similar grammatical pattern, but differs in number of the subject (singular versus plural) and form of the final word (dead vs. dying). The two lines follow this grammatical structure: First person singular/plural - imperfect verb in relative clause - present verb - adjective/present participle. The imperfect verb is the most recent form of past tense, indicating a freshness to the living, and the present provides vividness for the current state of death. But death and dying have far more contrast: death is an adjective, used to directly describe and define “he”. There is no verby-ness in its form, instead more analogous to the noun death. Conversely, “we” are “dying”, a present participle, a verbal adjective meaning continuous action. In this moment of time we are still going through the process of dying, it is not yet complete. With this continuous form the first person pronoun continues to appear in alive use throughout the remainder. “We” might be dying, but we are not yet dead.

I found it very interesting how Sophie and Marisin noted that “He who was living is now dead” is the final appearance of the pronoun “He” in the poem. Now that “He” is dead, the pronoun’s presence has also died, or ceased to exist, in the poem. This makes the later points in the poem feel more personal, now that Eliot has removed the ambiguous “he.” I would like to build off of Marisin’s point that “we” are still going through the process of dying, but it is not yet complete so the pronoun “we” is not eliminated. Technically, one might argue that, from birth, we are always dying, since each moment of aging is a step towards death. This makes me wonder, is “he” always dead or just for the remainder of this poem? What is Eliot’s perspective on the cycle of life – is there rebirth like I originally thought from his frequency imagery or water, or is there one finite life like the previous Buddha source argued? Eliot’s small but intentional grammatical choices give insight into his wider arguments, one’s that cannot be missed.

Response to Anthony Hu's Annotation from 2024

"...Both sexes have been unanimously subjected to the similar degenerative consequences of contemporary industrialization and mechanization of love. Here, however, I want to highlight a disparity between the presentation of the two sexes. Why does Eliot include here the hidden affair between Queen Elizabeth I and Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester? ... Recall that a consistent motif throughout the poem is the identification of characters with the Fisher King, who, due to a physical impotence, leads to sterility throughout his country’s land. Queen Elizabeth, however, serves as a complete antithesis in “The Fire Sermon.” Publicly known as the “Virgin Queen,” her physical chastity is often celebrated along with the glamor of the country during her rule. In fact, we can easily identify causal relationships between the two – for instance, it is precisely to ensure Britain’s political stability that members of the nobility propagated rumors that prevented a marriage between the queen and the earl. Unlike for the Fisher King, whose sexual potency is restored through the renewal of the land, it seems like female virility is negatively related to the prosperity (and therefore metaphorical fertility) of the land. ...Despite all of that, perhaps there is no disparity after all. If we interpret the queen’s virginity not as a sterile state, but the potential for future fertility, she perfectly demonstrates the pattern embodied in the Fisher King. In a historical context, this interpretation indeed holds some truth – for other European powers at the time, Elizabeth’s chastity meant she was constantly available for a future arrangement of political marriage; as such, the stability and prosperity of the nation was maintained. To reach a final answer on this matter of gender portrayal, a comparison of patterns throughout the poem will be ideal.

Anthony brought up a comparison which I did not consider between Queen Elizabeth I (or the Virgin Queen) and the Fisher King (the Maimed King). He recalls how the Fisher King’s sterilization due to injury causes his country to suffer in success and land fertility. Queen Elizabeth’s virginity is celebrated as having brought more success to England. She was revered for being “married to her country” – a selfless leader who prioritized the good of the nation over the possibility of building a family. Although Eliot chastises both men and women for the modern lack of sexual restraint, there is clearly still a difference in how the separate genders are portrayed. The Fisher King is called “the Maimed King,” so that his title and identity becomes fused with his infertile state. Queen Elizabeth is titled “the Virgin Queen,” almost equating her to the Virgin Mary, who is celebrated for having a child without sacrificing her “purity.” Maybe the point of contrast here is gender, that men should be allowed sexual freedom while women should not. The authority of male leaders is often measured by their virility. We see this with Queen Elizabeth’s father, Henry VIII, who may not have been praised for his many wives, but he was still obeyed and seen as a powerful leader. Female leaders, on the other hand, are expected to devote their entire lives to their career. Often, when a woman is pregnant with a child, the public is given an explicit reminder of her sex, and with that a level of subconscious bias that she is no longer physically or emotionally fit for this role. Since men were seen as the preferential leaders and men cannot carry children, a woman who does not carry a child is seen as closer to the ideal leader than one that does, explaining the praise of a virgin queen. Contrastingly, the difference between the two royals may be based on their ability and choice. The Fisher King is forced to be infertile against his will while Queen Elizabeth chooses to be celibate. Although this may be a large reason for the discrepancy, we cannot remove gender from the equation. One might say that infertility is not a choice while virginity is, and though that is true for the most part, Eliot references sexual assault throughout the poem as an unfortunate exception that rule. An infertile man could still succeed, albeit with challenges, because his value is not tied to a spouse, but a woman who has experienced sexual assault was labeled as “ruined,” despite having no choice in the matter. Finally, power and societal standing cannot be ignored. A single woman living in poverty would not be famed for her virginity to the level that Queen Elizabeth was. Similarly, an infertile man not in power would not be publicly shamed for his infertility if he stood his ground in other areas of life. So, there are both drawbacks and benefits to power which the Fisher King and Queen Elizabeth experience. In conclusion, while we can theorize Eliot’s stance on sexuality based on textual references, it is clear that power, gender, and consent have an unmistakable influence on the relationship between a person’s reputation and their romantic endeavors.

The word “violet” appears four times in the Waste Land. The first and second are “At the violet hour,” the third is “in the violet air,” and the fourth is “in the violet light.” In this instance, we focus on “at the violet hour” being repeated twice within one stanza of “The Fire Sermon.” The violet hour describes sunset, that moment when the sky changes colors before it becomes completely dark. Although it can be easily surmised that “the violet hour” is sunset, that is not a particularly common term for it, which is why it is significant that Eliot used the phrase twice. The color violet, or purple, is a mixture between the colors red and blue. Red is often associated with fire, while blue is associated with water. Red, or pink, has been traditionally assigned to women, while blue has been associated with men. Finally, red is associated with Hell, while blue is associated with the blue skies of Heaven. These associations with the colors red and blue are relevant, because Eliot mixes them each with their supposed opposites at some point within the poem. So, the violet hour seems to represent the meshing of contradictory forces, which is a major theme in the Waste Land. Furthermore, the poem refers to the nightingale’s call, seen as the song of exploited women whose voices are only heard at night. So, if men are heard during the day and women at night, the “violet hour” is the only time in which both voices can be heard and appreciated. This is unique because, by the analysis of Eliot and the Roman Gods, only Tiresias can understand both sexes. So, it's no coincidence that Tiresias’ introduction to the text is at the violet hour. Tiresias, who spent seven years of his life mystically transformed into a woman, is blind with the ability to see the future. Lempriere writes that Tiresias drew his foresight “sometimes from the flight or the language of birds… and sometimes he drew the manes from the infernal regions.” The wisest character of the poem is one who has experienced both genders, is blind but has visions, and draws his knowledge from the sky and from hell. As a character so wise and explicit that he is afforded the power of temporary narrator, Tiresias’s importance to the essence of the poem is apparent. Even the structure of the poem agrees, with the first line of the Fire Sermon including “The river’s tent is broken” and the last line only being “burning.” Impressively, the line right in the middle of The Fire Sermon, perfectly in between the first and last lines describing opposites fire and water, is “And I Tiresias have foresuffered all” (243). The Waste Land may be a poem of oxymorons and contradictions from the withering spring to the warm winter, but, at the violet hour, Tiresias is the bridge that fuses them all together.

Although Eliot, Carpenter, and Spenser all depict the River Thames as a significant reflection of society, they diverge in their characterization of the river and its role in modern sexuality. Carpenter, an early proponent of sexual and relational freedom, describes the Thames as a fluid beauty balancing nature and humanity.Eliot warns against sexual freedom, contradicting Carpenter and inverting Spenser. The line “Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song” comes directly from the refrain in Spenser’s “Prothalamion.” Spenser describes the River Thames as a beautiful sight, and an even more beautiful sight being the two swans of Jove and Leda. He describes the swans as so “purely white,” that even the water was impure to them, so much so that the river didn’t wet their feathers to spare them from self-pollution. Here, he paints an idealized image of a society that shines “as heaven’s light,” following religious values.

“So purely white they were, That even the gentle stream, the which them bare, Seemed foul to them, and bade his billows spare To wet their silken feathers, lest they might Soil their fair plumes with water not so fair, And mar their beauties bright, That shone as heaven's light, Against their bridal day, which was not long”

Eliot, on the other hand, paints the Thames as extremely polluted, indicating that while he borrowed the line from Spenser, he views the more popular version of “Prothalamion” as a better reflection of society. In the more known version, Jove disguises as a swan to sexually assault Leda. In this case, the swans are not actors of love, but of sexual violence. Water, often a symbol of holiness and purity, is physically polluted by industrialization and overconsumption, but is also a reflection of how society has lost its holiness with the rise of sexual assault and sexual fluidity. Going deeper into Eliot’s religious allusions, Jesus washes his disciple’s feet as an act of mutual humility.Here, the “unholy” people of the Waste Land’s River Thames wash their own feet in “soda water,” indicating that the water has been polluted by modernity (soda being a “mutated,” modern form of water and the relational modernity rising in the 20th century) and even humility has been lost.

Between his textual narrative of Lil and his reference to Ophelia, Eliot examines the contrast and connection between love, virginity, purity, and exploitation. Here, the speakers discuss how Lil is not taking care of her appearance and will not be appealing to her husband, then one says “What you get married for if you don’t want children?” This implies that the sole reasons for marriage are sexuality and having children, while the concept of love is not mentioned. The final line of “The Game of Chess” is “Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, / good night,” which is a reference to Ophelia’s farewell in Hamlet prior to her suicide. By ending the passage with Ophelia’s words of distress, it is implied that Ophelia’s situation is very significant to Eliot’s message. Ophelia says, in the excerpt from Hamlet, that “To-morrow is Saint Valentine's day, All in the morning betime, And I a maid at your window, To be your Valentine. Then up he rose, and donn'd his clothes, And dupp'd the chamber-door; Let in the maid, that out a maid Never departed more.” She mentions arriving at Hamlet’s window as a virgin (a maid – older description for a young unmarried virgin), looking to be his Valentine, or to find love. Ophelia leaves this meeting no longer a maid, or a virgin. Afterwards, Ophelia adds, “Before you tumbled me, You promised me to wed. So would I ha' done, by yonder sun, An thou hadst not come to my bed.” Hamlet promised to marry her, which she was ready for, but instead just slept with her and then shunned her. Ophelia seems to feel used and exploited for her body. Lil, having already lived a life of five children, chooses to resist the need to appease her husband with superficial changes to her appearance. It is almost as if Lil lived Ophelia’s life, but continued living with a different mindset, though she is still subject to the same expectations and judgement. The difference between the two women is that Lil experiences this while married, and Ophelia is a young unmarried woman. Considering the time period of the piece, having lost her virginity to a man who decides not to marry her after all, Ophelia is left “ruined” and “dishonored” in society and in future romantic relationships. Essentially, by taking her virginity without marrying her, Hamlet has sentenced Ophelia to a life without the authentic love she originally desired. Left without clear choices and grieving the loss of her father, Ophelia becomes mentally unstable and feels that she has no other option than suicide by drowning. This is significant, because water is most often viewed as spiritually pure, especially as the medium for baptism. At the start of one’s life, they are baptized, and at the end of Ophelia’s life, she drowns. So, at line 170, when the women in the bar say “goonight” to each other, they are just going home for the night. In the final line, however, when the farewells shift to Ophelia’s voice, she is saying goodbye to the “Game of Chess” – the “game” of a woman experiencing sexual exploitation and a loss of pure connection – and transitioning the reader to the next section where water (the River Thames) becomes polluted and “impure,” as well.

Eliot’s “The Game of Chess" and its referenced sources characterize women (or the queen piece) as the real pawns of society, exploited by men (the king piece) despite their power. Eliot begins the section with “The Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne, / Glowed on the marble…” In older versions of chess, specifically the marble-like Lewis chessmen, the queen piece sits on an elaborate throne, cradling her head in her hand with a tired expression. So, Eliot's description aligns closely with the chess piece of the Queen. At the same time, this description is a direct reference to Antony and Cleopatra: “The Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne, Glowed on the marble.” So, The Game of Chess begins with Cleopatra, the queen of Egypt and one of the most well known women of immense power labeled a seductress. In fact, the six assigned sources all display women used as scapegoats, always described but never given a chance to never given a chance to stand up for themselves. They are used as pawns in literature, society, and history. Further, these women are almost all associated deeply with snakes, or a symbol for the devil in many works. The foundation of this comparison is shown in Paradise Lost, as Eve is tempted by a serpent, or the devil, and then is blamed alongside the serpent for eternity. Notably, Cleopatra kills herself with an asp, or a serpent, to escape a future of humiliation at the expense of being forever silenced. In Ovid, Philomela’s tongue is cut out because the king dislikes her words, and severed tongue is compared to a snake. By taking away her tongue, or her voice, the king seems to believe he has stunted her ability to tempt and manipulate. In Baudelaire, he writes “The haunches slightly sharp, and the waist sinuous / As a snake poised to strike, / That she's still quite young!” Even as the woman is described in an undone state, she is still viewed as “a snake poised to strike.” Tying these references back to the text, Eliot argues through his characterization of “ the nightingale Filled all the desert with inviolable voice And still she cried, and still the world pursues,” that these women are labeled snakes, always poised to strike and poison others with their cunning manipulation, while they are truly nightingales, only afforded a grieving voice in the night. The thread is clear of women being exploited by men then blamed by those same men and the rest of society without a chance to share their voice.

Like Nerval’s fragmented account of his dreams, the Waste Land is a sort of dreamscape with a patchwork of seemingly random images, which all share a similar intention and background. “Unreal City” begins line 60 of The Waste Land, and Eliot leaves a footnote in French, nearly translating to “SWARMING city, city full of dreams, Where in a full day the spectre walks and speaks.” That quote in the footnote is from Baudelaire’s “The Seven Old Men,” which explores the shifting definition of beauty in nature, especially while Paris is rapidly industrializing. The city of Paris is labeled “Unreal City,” as a place built up by dreams and romanticized images, while industrialization begins to degrade the city.

The experience of reading the poem is similar to slipping in and out of consciousness, as literary, cultural, and historical references wash over the reader. So, “dreams” serve here as those of sleeping and those of hopes for the future. The concept of dreams as a whole is repeated throughout "The Burial of the Dead,” so ending the section with a direct connection to De Nerval’s account of dreams is symbolic for the poem’s overall structure. So, if we theorize that, here, this constant flow of people crossing the bridge are on a similar hell-like journey as the people who are neither here nor there in Dante (the uncommitted, unclassified , outcasts, etc.) The inscription in Dante on the gates of Hell translates to “"Abandon all hope, ye who enter here,” suggesting that this characterization of The Waste Land is one of abandoned hopes and dreams, leaving people to wade through the dreamscape (or nightmare) that is a fragmented modern society.

This is not our first encounter with “Death by Water.” “The Burial of the Dead” begins with “April is the cruelest month, breeding / Lilacs out of the dead land.” Spring’s rain breeds life out of decayed crops, but also out of the struggles of winter and war. Both in the poem and in the greater scope of culture, water is seen as necessary for spiritual renewal and cleansing, physical sustenance, and the regrowth of nature. The Tempest is mentioned throughout the poem and even its title reveals Eliot’s narrative journey. A tempest is a violent storm or an intense turmoil, its root “tempus” meaning time or season. The idea of a tempest itself is a violent and unforgiving turbulence which eventually ends in peace, but not without ravaging disaster. In a tempest, the water known for renewal, rebirth, and the essence of life is a force of violence. In the play, The Tempest, Ariel consoles another character about the believed loss of his father to drowning, saying, “Full fathom five thy father lies;/Of his bones are coral made;/Those are pearls that were his eyes:/Nothing of him that doth fade/But doth suffer a sea-change/Into something rich and strange.” By emphasizing that the father will remain he has just changed to become one with the sea, Shakespeare frames death by water as a spiritual shift instead of an end. Then, back to Eliot, Madame Sosostris twists this line from The Tempest when she reads the card titled “the drowned Phoenician Sailor,” says “Fear death by water,” and reminds the narrator of the line “Those are pearls that were his eyes.” Here, she does not see death as a spiritual transformation, but a loss of humanity which should be feared, emphasizing the pearl eyes as a sign that the sailor’s soul has been lost. Madame Sosotris, as sourced from Huxley, lives under several disguises, though, as a man pretending to be a woman and a poser pretending to be a prophet. Thus, Eliot frames Madame Sosostris as a false representation of the cycle of life, so that he can correct her skewed perception which is widely held by society. Here, death returns to the title but it has changed from “Burial of the Dead” to "Death by Water.” In the first section of the poem, “the dead” were given their own identity, but by this section it has become “death,” a word less connected to the people and more to their state. In the Corinthians, we see the more traditional image of water as spirituality. However, all the other referenced sources show water as death, less as a continuation of the natural cycle and more as a violent and inevitable force. <br /> In these sources, there is a recurring theme of ships being struck head on right before reaching their destination. In The Life and Death of Jason, the characters are spared and turn back, but they do not reach their destination. For Ulysses, he survives his journey and returns home safely to his family, after losing his shipmates to the sea and other challenges. In Dante, right as the characters can see land ahead, a “whirlwind struck the ship head on” and “the sea closed over us.” Eliot’s shift from water as a symbol of rebirth/life to a symbol of death is a continuation of the off-beat nature of the poem, and the awareness versus the denial of one’s fate.

The Waste Land is a comedy. With foundations built by Shakespeare and a surplus of references intended to make readers go down rabbit holes that not even Eliot understands, the melodramatic title is only a mask poking fun at drawn-out analyses of a decaying world. The story of Tristan und Isolde is strikingly similar to that of Romeo and Juliet (though Tristan und Isolde came first, Shakespeare seems to have been influenced by it) and the line “Those are pearls that were his eyes” comes from a moment in Shakespeare's Tempest. Shakespeare was known for writing comedies disguised as tragedies, or sprinkling comedic aspects into a largely tragic narrative. So while Eliot may not have intended to write a wholeheartedly comedic piece, there is no doubt that his work is at least a tragicomedy. Eliot references hyacinths and the festival of Hyacinthia, where the first and last days are reserved for grieving Hyacinthus while the middle days are enjoyable festivities. This is a reflection of the structure of the Waste Land, beginning and ending with depressing images while the middle is a synthesis of playful images. Eliot does not use references sparingly. He includes Huxley, Loy, German quotes within lines 31-59 that come directly from Tristan und Isolde. However, when we reach the references to tarot, Eliot leaves us a footnote where he admits to a lack of understanding on tarot cards. Just as one might try to grasp at straws and find any plausible connections between the tarot cards they read and their own life, Eliot wants readers to deep dive into literary works. He hopes that they will overanalyze his references like Madame Sosotris does so for her cards, weaving each image through each other. The Waste Land is a tragicomedy, an analysis of our problematic world from a playful angle, toying with language, structure, and even the reader themself.

Last night’s sources contained a variety of references to light and darkness, cold and warm, and night and day. The connections between seasons, environments, and emotion are clear, but the meaning behind those connections is debatable. In “The Waste Land,” Eliot asserts that “April is the cruelest month” and “Winter kept us warm,” but the other sources seem to disagree. Chaucer and Eliot directly conflict in their first lines, as Chaucer writes “When April with its sweet-smelling showers,” immediately characterizing April as sweet, positive, and comforting, as if the rainy weather is optimistic instead of gloomy. In Rupert Brooke’s “Letters from America” an April morning is described as idyllic, used to reminisce about a beautiful past memory. Both Brooke and Chaucer have wildly different characterizations of April in comparison to Eliot, whose distaste for the month is powerful enough to be used as the work’s first introduction. Tackling Eliot's line that “Winter kept us warm, covering Earth in forgetful snow,” Eliot seems to liken the winter snow to a blanket which comforts the world, allowing people to forget their deepest struggles and grievances. Larisch, on the other hand, disagrees, saying that “There is no time so conducive to depression as the hours before dawn, but in summer one's worries fly before the advent of the bright new day, whereas in winter-time they are not so easily banished.” Larisch views depression as most prevalent in the darkness, before dawn, which is why she views summer as the more comforting season when worries fade away, while the prolonged darkness of winter makes it difficult to vanquish sadness.<br /> The many contrasts between Eliot’s characterizations of seasons with those of other authors seems to boil down to differences in emotions and the presence or absence of light and darkness. Ecclesiastes and Ezekiel do both frame light and darkness as positivity and negativity, respectively, but they both assert that light and darkness occult the same space, as if one cannot exist without the other. In Ecclesiastes, it reads “While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain,” referring to a happy time when no sources of light are darkened and after rain, there is light instead of the continued darkness of clouds. By adding the moon and stars to the list of light sources, along with the sun and light, the author asserts that there is always light in places associated with darkness (ex: the night sky still has the moon and stars). Additionally, the author believes that light comes after struggle. In Ezekiel, (“As the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness round about. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD.”) the author relates a rainbow in a cloud to the brightness of the appearance of God. This symbol of clouds returns in Rupert Brooke “Letters from America,” as Brooke writes that “A cloud over the sun woke him to consciousness of his own thoughts.” Usually light is used to wake people up, but here it is the absence of light (or the darkness) which does so. In the sunlight one can continue daydreaming about an idyllic world, but in the darkness that is no longer possible. The passing cloud posed by Brooke reminds him of the approaching cloud of war that will dim the light of his current life. All the sources seem to have such different characterizations of seasons, weather, and light v.s. darkness. However, when we tie them all back to Eliot we are reminded of his theme of an off-beat world. Just as we connected his work to the syncopation of jazz music, where the rhythm is intentionally off-beat to emphasize unusual aspects of the music, Eliot intentionally shifts these fundamental themes of every literary work, framing them unexpectedly to emphasize the misaligned state of the world.

The change from "He do the Police in Different Voices" to "The Waste Land" is an interesting choice. The original version of the beginning of the poem has a more clear feel of the satire, with a title from Sloppy's actions in Our Mutual Friend, and a playful tone and passage of events. In the Waste Land, it is clear that Eliot is playing with the readers and societal expectations to a certain extent, but the start of his poem and the title of wasteland don't give off the same satire emotions. The first version of the poem combines m any different voices, not just from the reference to Sloppy, but also from the references to so many different works and the tone as a whole. I think that Eliot's choice to revise the poem was smart, as it has a more mysterious and alluring essence now, leading readers to really be able to dive into the varying messages of the poem

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the word “wasteland” as a “barren or uncultivated land,” “an ugly often devastated or barely inhabitable place or area,” or “something (such as a way of life) that is spiritually and emotionally arid and unsatisfying.” However, the title of “The Waste Land” splits the word into two, leaving “waste” and “land.” How does this change the meaning?

As explored through “Le Morte D’Arthur” and “The Golden Bough,” “The Waste Land” explores several angles of how sterility and fertility affect both the inherent system of nature and of human culture. First, with the modern world approaching and a shift from farming culture to industry, there is a lack of production and fertility in crops which is perceived to misalign humanity, leading to sacrificial and sexual rituals described in “The Golden Bough,” anything to fix the “natural” flow of reality. Second, there is a literal decline in fertility, as World War I imposed a form of forced sterility on the population. Men went to war, resources to raise a family became scarce, and the birth rate dipped significantly. Third, there is a mental and creative sterility of sorts, where monotony sets in and people follow society, cultures begin to blend with globalization, and originality becomes less common.

All of these cases of sterility – sterile land, sterile people, sterile mindsets – contribute to the world becoming a waste land, barren and desolate of production. Interestingly, many of these new waste lands, created by this overwhelming rise in sterility, came to be in an attempt to be less limited. Urbanization and industrialization occurred as innovators strived to create efficiency with groundbreaking ideas, men went to war to improve their idea of the world, societies blended as they learned from each other that one is not confined to their own beliefs. The world prior to industrialization was uncultivated due to a lack of innovation, in the perspective of these inventors and explorers. However, the world after industrialization is barren and desolate due to a loss of the natural resources, in the opinion of those who reminisce about a simpler time.

Eliot balances the harsh impact of global sterility with the understanding that everything can be perceived to be a waste land. He intertwines religion, nature, sexuality, and the controversy of innovation, almost making fun of the way that the scale can fluctuate if seen from another perspective.

“The Waste Land” as a title separates “waste” and “land,” no longer one narrative where the capitalized “Waste” overpowers the “land.” Instead, both “Waste” and “Land” are given equal importance in the title, because they are equally integral aspects of society. Informed by so many different aspects, the title and the work suggest that the world always has and always will be some version of a wasteland, no matter the changes that occur.