The idea of a river sweating is peculiar. Sweating is the release of a liquid from the body (from the body’s sweat glands). It is a crucial bodily function for regulating temperature, and the cooling effect occurs when sweat evaporates from the skin, absorbing excess heat from the body to do so. If a river releases liquid—oil and tar—isn’t it just to mix with the rest of the water again? Actually—some light oils can evaporate in large bodies of water, if the water is warm and the surface area is large. But it is clearly heavy oils that are meant (like crude oil or motor oil), particularly with tar following. The river sweating here and human sweating remain the same in the most basic sense: both are a function to aid the source, a kind of homeostatic regulation. Contrastingly, the river sweating functions to rid of waste—explicitly material, but probably extending to moral, spiritual, emotional. Unfortunately, this effort is doomed from the start—in a horribly looping, muddled way in that it goes round and round with the oil and tar being supposedly somewhat separated from the rest of the water, or perhaps consolidated, just to mix in again. This process was doomed from the start, but the river wasn’t, with the arrival of the oil and tar. Their presence is obtrusively unnatural. This must be remembered as the following phrases wash over with their sense of predetermination/overarching control: “The barges drift / With the turning tide…sails…swing…The barges wash / Drifting logs…”

What jumped out to me as mirroring this futile process of mixing was the lines “Weialala leia / Wallala leialala”—repeated twice, with the third iteration being just “la la.” In looking back at some past annotations, I noted that Jeannie ’25 made a comment on how “Weialala leia” can be read as a wail. In fact, when attempting to read it out loud, it sounded as though I was reciting a string of jumbled duplications of the word “wail,” and as one, it definitely sounded as a wail. This word is what the letters form, mixed around—but as more and more is added distortion grows, not clarity. In Götterdämmerung, this wailing call is for Siegfried, to return the ring, and thus the Rhine-gold. While initially appearing successful as Siegried enters right after the first call, subsequent ones fall upon deaf ears—along with the rest of the words of the Rhine Daughters. It is almost as though between when the words leave their mouths and when they reach the ears of Siegried—or the reader—there is a warping. The Rhine Daughters’ final “La! la!” feels a dwindling final attempt with recognition of the futility—the “w” is gone—or perhaps marks an even greater warping. Eliot exaggerates this further, with his third repetition being just “la la.” All of this seems to me to very much connect to female voice in the poem—particularly the line “And still she cried, and still the world pursues, / ‘Jug Jug’ to dirty ears” in “A Game of Chess.”

I found this line interesting as it adds to the discourse on female voice, and it connects to the curious section of dialogue in “A Game of Chess.”

In the woman’s encounter with the “young man carbuncular,” she is given no agency—or, rather, no action at all on her part is marked. Not a single action verb follows the pronoun “she.” “Is” is not an action verb (it is a linking verb), and it is used to describe her state as “bored and tired”—thus a mere projection by Tiresias (a man). In fact, lack of action is what is marked. The man’s “caresses” are “unreproved,” his “exploring hands” encounter “no defense,” and his “vanity…makes a welcome of indifference.” The woman’s entire functioning appears to be gone. The connection to John Donne’s Elegy XIX. To His Mistress Going to Bed furthers this.

The one thing left is her voice—not outer (clearly) but inner. But this is operating on the lowest level. It is a singular (“one”), “half-formed” thought that comes. What is interesting is that this is all “her brain allows”—she is stopping herself, or rather a part of her or something inside of her is, as evidently there are two sides. But these two sides—her brain and from wherever thoughts issue (also the brain?)—are natural, integral parts of the self. What is going on here?

But there is definitely a control running through the encounter—and perhaps extending beyond?—as if the whole thing had been laid out. The woman, afterwards, “smoothes her hair with automatic hand” and “puts a record on the gramophone”—set to go round and round and round. The reference to The Vicar of Wakefield appears to add to this, and so does the odd use of the colon, somehow urging an inevitability. I think it has all been laid out—with Tiresias, who can see the future, looming over the scene.

In terms of connection to the dialogue in “A Game of Chess,” there seems to be some sort of comment on women’s agency and what is asked of them: “‘Speak to me. Why do you never speak. Speak. / ‘What are you thinking of? What thinking? What? / ‘I never know what you are thinking. Think.’” I would like to explore this further.

This line immediately stood out to me as adding to the conversation on voice. I wonder if in general the Thames has been referred to with a female identity or with a male identity (I am finding conflicting things online). I am leaning towards a female identity—not only would this follow the pattern thus far of silencing female voices/stories/identities, it also seems to make sense to me in the way that London was founded on the Thames and here has a kind of mother role (like a part of mother nature, almost). Cities were often started around rivers because a river is navigable, and provides a defensive advantage and fresh water.

The speaker repeats this line three times. If the Thames is thought of as above, the speaker is silencing a primal force of nature, a silencing that far outdoes and at the same time solidifies those prior. It is also to be noted that the silencing taking place here is in direct relation to the rising up/over of the speaker’s voice—there is an apparent trade. The repetition seems to point to some resistance on part of the river. What is also interesting is the part in the third repetition “for I speak not loud.” This is not taken from Prothalamion. So if the speaker were just to speak louder then the river would not need to “run softly”?

Coming out a bit, it doesn’t make much sense to me that the river Thames runs so loudly. Wouldn’t all the noise be coming from the surrounding city, especially by the time Eliot is writing? So perhaps, then, this line functions as a kind of longing call, to a time prior, a happier time, a time when this would really be the case—when/what Spenser is writing about (fleeting even as he describes it). But this is an impossible reality. Perhaps this extends to the reference to Carpenter’s work—a fruitless reaching to his call for the land’s “own people to come and take possession of it,” and perhaps also to his more general detailing of the river/bodies of water as uniting and foundational in that way. This relates to an idea explored a while back with waste lands being communal lands. Or, alternatively, it is possible that, in the case of silencing the river, this role of the river is being erased completely.

This line can be read in two ways (at least). On a first pass—at least this was very much the case for me—it reads with “please” as an adverb, as it is often used in requests or questions. There is a problem then with “its” which is read as “it’s” as in “it is time.” But this error feels fitting—the repetition of the line and its formatting in all caps create a sense of urgency, a rush from which this mistake could ensue. It feels that punctuation has been omitted in a similar fashion.

But “its” could also be read as is, in which case it is a possessive pronoun—“time” belongs to “it.” “Please” is then an imperative verb. I am leaning towards this reading, as it feels slightly hidden (quite Eliot-like), and plays into the question of agency I have been exploring in a number of my annotations.

So what is the “it”? I think “it” refers to some greater force, power, or overarching structure, and here it feels clear that this is the game of chess—which is often played with time constraints.

Chess appears to be ruling this section of the poem, especially the parts pertaining to women. I find chess very interesting in that, in looking at its set-up, it is suggested that the queen, as the most powerful piece (being able to move as she does), should be the most secure. Yet the rules define winning as capturing the king. The queen’s role is one of sacrifice, to protect the king, and in doing so almost always meets her demise. The women referenced in “A Game of Chess” follow this arc. They hold the immense power of “love,” but somehow this is, in each case, twisted to serve men and then lead to their death. It seems that Lil will meet a similar end, with the last line on page 59 being a reference to (some of) Ophelia’s last words (where she is speaking about herself?). The ties to Middleton’s A Game at Chess and its sexual interpretations of the game link these two ideas more firmly.

In Pound’s The Game of Chess there is a pattern of lines on the page that repeats four times. It is a sequence of one line and then the line below it being indented (a couple times?). The space, notably, forms a clear “angle” and an uppercase “l” if rotated 180°. This pattern/spacing, even exaggerated a bit, is replicated twice with lines 117-120 in “A Game of Chess.” This stands out against the formatting up to this point. Now the section is physically fitting into “the game.”

Eliot made the title “A Game of Chess”—not “The Game of Chess” (Pound) or “A Game at Chess” (Middleton). “A Game of Chess” feels more open and less defining than “The Game of Chess.” There is some room. But “A Game at Chess” feels more action-oriented. As always with Eliot, I feel there is back-and-forth.

What is clear across this selection of readings, and their integration into the opening of “A Game of Chess” is the power of woman, or rather the power of “love” (a horribly ambiguous term as it is employed in the readings), which emanates from woman. Enobarbus and Mecaenas fear Cleopatra, in her relationship with Antony. Right after Enorbarbus says, “I saw her once Hop forty paces through the public street; And having lost her breath, she spoke, and panted, That she did make defect perfection, And, breathless, power breathe forth” Mecaenas replies, “Now Antony must leave her utterly.” It is this “now” that marks the fear; it is directly following the detailing of Cleopatra’s everlasting, impossible perfection and power (explicit here) that it is decided Antony cannot be with her. “...secret splendor and fatal beauty That nature had bestowed on her” describes only the corpse of the woman in A Martyred Woman (mysteriously radiant, dangerously enchanting, almost like a force of nature—this connection could either be a testament to female power, or a putting of it onto something else/an attempt to remove it from the source). Philomela is said to immediately ignite “the flame of love” that “takes” Tereus, “as if one had set afire ripe grain, dry leaves, or a haystack.”

And it is as though in utter fear of this power, of this hold of women over men, issuing so strongly before a woman even really does anything, that their voices are taken away. Philomela’s tongue is cut off, and then she is falsely proclaimed dead (an ultimate silencing). Octavius knows what his plan is with Cleopatra—what she says will not make a difference. Dido is twisted into suicide (a self-silencing). The entirety of A Martyred Woman is a man speaking on the image of a dead woman—his thoughts, his views, his opinions.

Eliot adds to this. “Marie” follows “he said” (doubly so, actually, with Eliot writing the poem). Madame Sosostris is a reference to Chrome Yellow’s Madame Sesostris—a man impersonating a woman. And is the spelling change a further mocking? Sybil’s voice is hidden in the epigraph under male layers: Trimalchio, and his friends from childhood, Eliot (macro). When Eliot says, “yet there the nightingale Filled all the desert with inviolable voice And still she cried, and still the world pursues ‘Jug Jug’ to dirty ears” it appears that the voice, the story, of Philomela persists in the song of the nightingale—despite the violence inflicted upon her (rape by King Tereus and the mutilation of her tongue)—but in nature (there might be more here, too, with another nature!), the female nightingale is mute; only the male of the species sings. If anything is being sung, then, it is Tereus’ voice, Tereus’ story. Or what is being “sung” by Philomela as a nightingale comes out as nothing (“‘Jug Jug’”)—can a desert be filled? It would no longer be a desert. Then, mockingly, “the world pursues…”

This scene is that of a modern Inferno. The masses of Londoners commuting across the bridge mirror Dante’s vision of “so long a file of people” (the souls in the vestibule of Hell chasing the banner). With the almost verbatim “I had not thought death had undone so many,” the connection is clear—even if it takes a couple readings to realize. Dante’s journey through hell is, most basically, an allegory for the soul’s recognition of sin and the consequences of immoral actions. And in Canto III, Virgil says of the souls in the vestibule that they “lived without disgrace yet without praise” and “held themselves apart”—subject-driven action verbs. This defining piece of literature so directly referenced and intentionally placed has human responsibility and with that agency (as it pertains to consequence) at its core. This is what Eliot foregrounds.

Tarot, and as used here, is for fortune-telling, a laying out of fate. As we see with the description of Madame Sosostris in the poem and in Huxley’s Chrome Yellow (Sesostris), the fortune is presented definitively, following the manner of the tarot reader (witch? sorceress? clairvoyante?)—in a way that subtly and cleverly conceals, in part through a kind of fear, the open analysis involved, the different “readings” of varying images, words, colors. So actually the fortune is a flexible fate—and perhaps bent, perhaps twisted. But is it made self-fulfilling?

The comical line “Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante, Had a bad cold, nevertheless…” seems to play on this. “Clairvoyant” breaks down into “clair,” meaning clear, and “voyant,” meaning seeing: to see—not strictly defined to sight but including other senses, I would say—clearly. Yet it is a cold that muffles the senses, so they are dull, blurry, confused.

Loy too seems to play with these ideas in At the Door of the House. The repeated phrase “at the door of the house” presses first a sense of imminence—and with that the definite quality. However, a doorway is also a threshold—a point of change, and a point of choice: to cross, or not to cross. Here again there is that flexibility, and pushing towards an agent flexibility. But Loy does establish a stagnancy in finality with “...Looking for the little love-tale that never came true At the door of the house.” This calls back to the definitive (self-fulfilling?) side.

Could the same be demonstrated with the spelling of “Sosostris” in Eliot’s poem—because in Chrome Yellow it is “Sesostris.” This might be seen as going too far, but Eliot does not change spelling in his earlier reference to “Marie.” What also seems to fit here is that Madame Sesostris in Chrome Yellow is impersonating a woman.

This line calls back to the Book of Ezekiel, in two places in Ezek.6. God comes upon Ezekiel, ordering to “prophesy against” the people of Israel, but his words turn from warning with room for correction (Ezek.3) to a fierce threat of immediate destruction: “Behold, I, even I, will bring a sword upon you, and I will destroy your high places. And your altars shall be desolate, and your images shall be broken…and your images may be cut down, and your works abolished.”

This destruction/waste that is to come/comes is not directly at the hands of sin and iniquity; it is at the hands of God, punishing sin and iniquity. This raises again a question of agency. Why aren’t the people of Israel allowed a chance at redemption anymore? What about those born into this way of sin and iniquity?

When Eliot writes, “Son of man, You cannot say, or guess, for you know only A heap of broken images,” it is strongly suggested that whoever Eliot is addressing—“son of man” feels encompassing—is separate from the settling of the waste condition, for it is all they know. God refers to Ezekiel as “son of man,” and it also feels inherently removed with the “son of”—removed from God, but removed from something else, too.

This calls the title back into question, where in my first annotation I explored how there is/could be agency and movement and hope. But perhaps the set-up with “The Waste Land” where “waste” is a noun/subject and “land” a verb is that this landing is a pre-established condition. What hope then?

The alternate title “He Do the Police in Different Voices” has ties to the established title, but in all it presents a different set-up to the poem—how to read it, what it’s doing, what it’s about.

The line being a direct quote from Charles Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend referring to Sloppy, there settles immediately but much less assertively similar images to those “waste land” conjures—given the background of Sloppy’s name, his situation, and his description, collectively pulling together “dung,” “slime,” and “ungainly.” But what is said of Sloppy in the line “he do the Police in different voices,” as well as what immediately precedes it—“Sloppy is a beautiful reader”—is a surprising contrast, and in fact much more telling—in speaking of ability, particularly the mind, in speaking of the inside. So, as with “The Waste Land” (see my previous annotation for more), in this title there is optimistic movement from the initial. It is sort of a potential again, but really it is stronger—an exposure, a correction.

Read on its own, “he do the Police in different voices” suggests social commentary and critique, and taken with that explored above, later exposure. This positions the author as outside looking in, or looking down, removed, rather than as part of what is to follow—which we do not fully get with “The Waste Land” either, but definitely more so, particularly with the connotation of “waste land” as the past communal lands. The epigraph that follows the alternate title is a complete detailing of one by another, an outside analysis and commentary on a universal experience.

But the alternate title and beginning are somehow more accepting. “Different voices” explicitly opens different views, perspectives, people, ideas to be brought in and explored. As noted in our last class, “waste land” pulls at this as well, tentatively offering the poem as a new/metaphorical waste land, in its bring together of all its sources. But this is sort of eclipsed by the words’ initial darkness and weight. The epigraph following in latin and greek versus English builds this contrast.

Only three words, the title The Waste Land, is heavily and darkly assertive and defining but also hopefully open. In its multiple readings, the role of agency is brought into question.

When first read, I think our heads subtly reconfigure it to be “The Wasteland”; and immediately, as William notes, “a desolate place, a barren landscape devoid of life” is conjured. But “waste” and “land” are separated, so either “waste” functions as an adjective describing the noun “land,” or “land” is a verb and “waste” is its subject. So we cannot and should not jump to “wasteland”; transparently and deliberately, if yet also elusively, there is a space.

In having this space, gradually a flexibility opens up—room to move and breathe and change. This is already somewhat underlying in the word “waste” itself, however it functions; “waste” has an inherent sense of loss, of a comparative (close to opposing) state that was but is no longer—at least for the time being. And so in “waste” there is change, and though as of now this change has been to a depressing state, there is potential for change again—with a gentle calling back to the previous, happier condition.

If “waste” functions as an adjective, the feeling above is only amplified, as it is the nature of an adjective to be taken in and out, or swapped, or exchanged. At the same time, however, an adjective, especially if standing alone, is intentional and determining. If “waste” is a noun (and “land” a verb), the above is also amplified; if the “waste” “land,” they arrived, they settled, from elsewhere—we are given this nebulous ‘before’ and then left to ask: Then what?

The word “the” can appear defining but I think it is less so than “a,” which in its indefiniteness is much more all-reaching. “The” is simply pointed.

So in either case, with “waste” as an adjective or a noun, we are presented with a quiet, optimistic potential for more change—and following this, especially if “waste” is a noun/subject, there is agency.

In From Ritual to Romance, Jessie Weston offers an idea present in some versions of the Grail Quest that “the misfortunes of the land are not antecedent to, but dependent upon, the hero’s abortive visit…the failure of the predestined hero to ask concerning the office of the Grail is alone responsible for the illness of the King and the misfortunes of the country.” Eliot does not play to this hollow, performative agency into (and thus not out of, either) the state in which we are situated to begin. The agency he presents is real, and appears to follow a set-up such as is detailed in the Gawain (Bleheris) version presented by Weston—“...so that the folk be once more joyful and the land repeopled which by ye and this sword are wasted and made void”—or that which is in Le Morte D’Arthur with King Labor and King Hurlame who both die with the use of the sword.

We begin with a corrupting, evil agent (human) force, and it will be a struggle to rectify.