Putting myself in T. S. Eliot’s shoes, The Waste Land seems like a fitting title for his pessimistic view of the modern world. The title comes from the medieval story La Mort d’Arthur, in which the land becomes barren after King Hurlame strikes King Labor, a faithful Christian king. Because King Labor represents Christian authority, the blow violates the religious order holding society together. This directly parallels Eliot’s concern about the rise of atheism: just as Hurlame’s rejection of a Christian king causes the medieval kingdom to become physically barren, Europe’s movement away from Christianity leaves Eliot’s modern world spiritually barren. This connection makes me wonder whether Eliot wished society had remained Christian, or at least believed that Christianity had once provided a shared moral structure that modern society could not replace/ shared purpose.

World War I deepened this crisis, as supposedly Christian nations destroyed one another. Eliot’s waste land is therefore both a ruined Europe and a spiritually empty society. People continue working and forming relationships, but without the shared faith that once gave those actions meaning.

The title also suggests a drought-stricken landscape, almost like Mad Max: Fury Road. :) In From Ritual to Romance, Jessie Weston explains that rain restores the barren land and symbolizes rebirth. Eliot uses the same symbolism more pessimistically. His world desperately needs rain, but renewal would force it to confront what it has become. In Weston, rain promises rebirth; in Eliot, even rebirth feels uncertain and painful.