We can see the coexisting themes of incompletion and unity in the repetition of this last stanza, which is an extremely dense reflection of the entire poem. It begins with the Fisher King’s illness as evidenced by the “arid plain;” then, we are taken back to the beginning of TWL when the London Bridge falls down, perhaps foreshadowing “a heap of broken images” (line 22). “Falling down” is repeated three times, echoing the recurring theme of the trio that we find throughout TWL. The “swallow” referencing Philomela is only repeated twice, hinting at incompleteness. The line referencing the Spanish Tragedy inserts the theme of revenge, also a loose end. Yet the stanza ends with “Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata,” a saying that unifies the paradoxical natures of gods, men, and devils, and finally “Shantih,” inner peace that transcends human understanding.

I think that this incompleteness (such that we see in the story of Philomela) was intentionally left unresolved in contrast with the unity and inner peace that concludes the poem. In a very broad context, I think Eliot means to convey that humans can find this sense of completeness in spite of, and perhaps even because of, the loose ends that characterize human life.

Tiresias embodies this concept of Brahman with his gift of foresight, his ability to see the “ultimate reality in the universe.” At the same time, he also embodies the second definition, “the unity underlying the diversity of all that exists in the universe,” by taking an active role in what he sees. The Upanishad insinuates that thunder fathered 3 sons, the personifications of gods, men, and devils. The underlying nexus between these 3 distinct personalities, especially gods and devils, is literally the thunder, which is perhaps why each amalgamation of physicality and spiritually (which we saw in the previous night’s homework) is heralded by a storm. It is also interesting to note that the thunder preaches the 3 principles DA DA DA to all 3 of his sons. Individually, they possess distinct and paradoxical qualities; yet when united they form a cohesive trio, a “complete” number. This amalgamation is personified in Tiresias.

Devil or God?

Created though amalgamation? "You are more than the sum of your (physical) parts."

Eliot inserts an ironic interplay between spirituality and physicality that is marked by the arrival of a storm. The invisible “third who walks always before you” is a facsimile of the Grail romances. Percival takes refuge from a storm in a Chapel, where he fights the Hand and the Head before encountering the Devil “in his full form” which suggests that the Hand and the Head were part of the Devil’s physical body. The Hand and the Head are meant to represent the Devil’s physicality; once Percival defeats both, he encounters the “invisible third,” the spiritual form of the Devil. Similarly, in Marudanayagam’s retelling of an Indian legend, three humans seeking refuge from a storm make space for themselves in a house -- their physicality is brought to the fore through their bartering of space in the small house: “Where one can lie two may sit,” “Where two can sit three may stand,” etc. Then, once the house seems filled, a fourth presence becomes known to them independent of their senses (as the house is dark) and also independent of space (as the house seems to be filled). It appears as though human physicality, though regarded as repulsive (the Visuddhi-Magga), is at the same time a necessary precursor of spirituality. In each of these cases, the collision of the physical and spiritual (three human bodies and the spiritual body of Vishnuu in the same house, the Hand and the Head appearing separately from the Devil yet also being a part of the Devil) is marked or perhaps instigated by the arrival of thunder.

So far, Eliot has shown us death in the ground (Burial of the Dead) and death by water (the drowned sailor). Yet when the rock and water are united, fertilization and rebirth occurs. This is further marked by the appearance of the hermit-thrush, as Annie mentions, heralding a completed cycle.

Additionally, Nature is personified as to be able to speak in this section, "What the Thunder Said," which emphasizes the "reverberation" of the shouting, crying, thunder of spring, cicadas, dry grass singing, etc. These sounds further emphasize the lack of water, or rather, the lack of the sound of water over a rock. Sound, and the lack of it, is worth tracking here.

Eliot's original draft included the story of the drowned sailor when he was still alive, at the moment of his death. In the final version, he cut all of it except the last section portraying the dead sailor in third-person. The original version included the sailor's past, present, and future, as evidenced by his visions of the three "women... with white hair," or the Three Fates. By cutting the parts where the sailor was alive, Eliot drastically alters the tone of this section to be more finite and impersonal, emphasizing the state of death, rather than the brief flash of vitality at the point of death. It highlights themes of decay, loss, and the aftermath, as the sailor is "a fortnight dead" and the sea "picked his bones."

In TWL the clerk is, in some manner, “blinded” by his passions -- in this sense, he is Tiresias’s inverse identity because the blind Tiresias, who is quite literally detached from his senses, is able to see the “true” events that will occur in the future. At the same time, Tiresias wished to die, furthering my argument in my previous annotation that the Buddha's "liberation from suffering" is death.

In the Bible, fire is associated with Hell, the place where sinful souls are punished. The “Fire Sermon Discourse” (the Buddha’s advice toward achieving “liberation from suffering” by distancing oneself from the senses) preaches fire as something that clouds the senses, distorting human perceptions of reality. In a real world context, fire burns hot and bright, but ultimately burns itself away; fire is temporary.

Eliot unites these three disparate definitions of fire as a punishment, a distortion of reality, and a self-destructive force. The word “burning” ends “The Fire Sermon” and begins “Death by Water,” the next section. I think the Buddha’s definition of “liberation from suffering” (detaching oneself from the burning senses) means death; to truly escape suffering, one must die, because life is sustained by our physicality (our senses). Therefore, reality according to the Buddha is unobtainable as long as one is alive. I think Eliot portrays fire as a symbol for self-destructive and blinding passion; however, in contrast with the Buddha, he associates the action of “burning” with the action of living. Broadly speaking, life is defined by physicality, self-destruction, and ignorance -- and by sin. I think Eliot acknowledges this in his poem.

This consequently leads into the next section, death by water.

"the better craftsman" referring to Pound, which was apparently also a line in Dante's Inferno.

Tiresias "foresuffered" everything that will happen. He is placed in an interestingly active role, even though he is a prophet who is supposed to bear witness to the suffering (as Rahul mentioned). Tiresias is "throbbing between two lives" (line 218) as he foresees a scene that resembles rape. I think the "two lives" that he is torn between are those of the man and the woman in the story -- the woman, who is cast as the "victim," and the man, portrayed as the "rapist." This is supported by the constant changes in perspective from third-person to first-person, as though Tiresias is fluctuating between himself and whom he is seeing. One example of this is "I too awaited the expected guest" (line 230) when it appears as though he is simultaneously the woman, who passively waits for the man, and Tiresias watching the scene unfold.

Middleton's A Game at Chess is a play featuring people not as players (controllers of their own pieces), but as the pieces playing themselves across the board. Thus, in Eliot this line "we shall play a game of chess" marks the beginning of a deceptive ploy in which the narrator gaslights a woman to have an abortion. The poem differs from Middleton's play because the "Virginal White Queen's pawn" ends up escaping her seductor, whereas the woman in this poem submits to the abortion (the way I interpreted it), as this section ends with "Goodnight, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night." In Hamlet, this is Ophelia's last line before she commits suicide, which would correspond to the wife's submission and, as discussed in our previous class, the silencing of her own voice which may have objected to having the abortion.

A common theme linking all of the women we discussed was death, also called "the final silence" by Gish. This manifests in different forms -- the Sybil, for example, is doomed to wither away until she is nothing but a voice, which means she can't die. The narrator in A Martyred Woman (Baudelaire) mockingly addresses the woman's corpse, even though she is permanently silenced: "Reply, impudent cadaver!" "Tell me, ghastly head..." etc. Philomela escapes death when she becomes a nightingale, piping her song forevermore (at least according to Eliot. I still think it's strange that he chose a female nightingale when females supposedly don't sing -- only the males.)

There is a sense that corporeal vitality and voice cannot coexist. Meaning that Philomela, when she was young and beautiful (corporeally fresh and vigorous) was physically unable to counter Tereus's rape and the mutilation that silenced her. The Sybil will only exist as a voice with no corporeal form. Even in Baudelaire, the dead woman's corpse is depicted as "poured out like a river... red, living blood" which counters her dead state. She is silenced, but body is still testament to the vitality and beauty that continues to move within her.

I did some additional research on Ovid, and it is worth pointing out that Philomel turns into a nightingale after obtaining her revenge on her rapist and captor, King Tereus. Incidentally, female nightingale (in real life) does NOT sing, which is an interesting contradiction in Eliot, where the female nightingale has a "inviolable voice." Unlike in Baudelaire, Aeneid, and Cleopatra, Philomel does not die.

Dante, Baudelaire, and Eliot touch upon the imagery of faceless crowds who suffer because true death eludes them. The line "I had not thought death had undone so many" is directly quoted from Dante's *Inferno" when Dante crosses the Acheron on Charon's boat.

The tortured souls in Inferno "have no hope of death;" therefore, they can be thought of as incomplete or "undone." While the previous lines in Eliot's poem deal with nature, this transition to the urban scenery and faceless crowds seems very abrupt -- it seems as though the theme of "incompletion" manifests in the text itself. I believe that Eliot, Dante, and Baudelaire approaches this perpetual state of being alive as a cycle of pain and suffering that can only be broken by true death; thus, the symbol of the phoenix is "disgusting" according to Baudelaire and the souls who failed to die in Dante and Eliot are "undone."

Eliot's parallel to Dante seems to infer that urbanization, the divergence of man from the natural life cycle, is a Hell that humankind created for itself.

Water, as the giver of life, is used by Eliot as a symbol of revival, as referenced in April's spring rains in the opening lines and the dryness of death. Therefore, this passage "death by water" is yet another representation of the inverted cycle that I'd discussed in my previous annotation.

In the Death of Arthur, Lancelot was supposedly prohibited from accessing the Holy Grail because of his adultery, which produced a son, Galahad. Ultimately Galahad was the one pure enough to drink; however, it struck me that as a direct product of adultery (a mortal sin), Galahad of all people was judged to be the most pure and innocent soul deserving of the Holy Grail. As I see it, both Eliot and DoA incorporate some sense of rebirth/resurrection, and more importantly the necessity of death for salvation to even exist -- for Eliot it is the warm, safe winter; in the Death of Arthur, it is Lancelot's moral "death" that enabled his son to take the Grail. This connects to the "death by water" that I highlighted in Eliot.

I reread the first 30 lines in light of Dr. Blevins' highlighted passage: "The seed from which this volume sprang was a short article suggesting that... graves originated in some remote period when graves were not receptacles for the dead, but refuges for the living."

Eliot indeed portrays winter as this "refuge for the living," "covering Earth in forgetful snow" (line 5). On the other hand, the second stanza emphasizes total lack of life. The "roots and branches" do not grow from the ground; the tree gives no shelter; the cricket no relief; the dry, dead stone characterized by a total lack of water (life). It made me think of Basevi's reference to a seed "from which this volume sprang." I think this entire volume is meant to paint growth, rebirth, and reproduction in a new and negative light. Eliot prefers winter, when all of life is underground, as evidenced in language scattered throughout the opening lines ("forgetful snow", "come in under the shadow").

In a general context, I think we should consider Eliot's proclivity to graves and the underground in light of WWI and its deaths (with their unmarked graves). I think this is a lament on not only the aftermath of WWI, but also the "awakening" or "rebirth" of the world to a new, harsh reality.

Osiris, the most revered Egyptian deity, is simultaneously the god of fertility, death, and the afterlife. Out of the three names mentioned in The Golden Bough, I would argue that Osiris is the only being out of the three who represents a "full" cycle of death, revival, and reproduction (ending in death, repeating the cycle).

Adonis is a product of incest, an inversion. I would even say that Attis, who also went through the process of death and revival, is merely a twisted version of this cycle only because he supposedly castrated himself, eliminating the reproductive aspect.

The "vegetation ceremonies" in The Golden Bough refer to mankind's attempts to "revive" the Earth by bringing the gods back to life, marking the transition between seasons. Mankind has long associated the coming of spring, the revival of the gods, with not just an increase in vegetation but also the union of the sexes to produce offspring, and a transition from infertility and death to life.

From this, it can be inferred that reproduction only exists when placed in the context of the death, the "wasteland," that came before it. In other words, reproduction (revival) cannot exist without the preceding death. I would argue that despite the bleak title of Eliot's poem, The Waste Land actually indicates a new beginning rather than an end.