Eliot’s description of the Thames in “The Fire Sermon” contrasts sharply with the idealized river in Spenser’s Prothalamion. Spenser repeatedly commands “Sweet Thames, run softly,” presenting the river as a beautiful, almost sacred space where flowers, nymphs, and swans celebrate marriage and renewal. Eliot deliberatley echoes this line, but transforms its meaning, “The river’s tent is broken” and “The nymphs are departed.” The repetition of Spenser’s refrain therefore becomes ironic. The harmonious natural world Spenser describes has disappeared. Instead, Eliot’s Thames is associated with pollution and decay, although the passage notalby says the river “bears no empty bottles” or other “testimony of summer nights.” This emptiness suggests not cleanliness, but the absecne of meaningful human connection

As Ira Buch mentioned on September 26th 2024, the first woman in “A Game of Chess” is isolated and desperately searchign for human connection. Her repeated “Speak to me” and “What are you thinking of?” show that she wants to break through the emotional distance between herself and the other person. I would add that Eliot makes this failed communicatoin especially noticeable through the contrast between her many questions and his almost complete silence. Her questions become shorter “What thinking? What?” which makes her speech sound increasingly fragmented and desperate. this fragmentation reflects not only her emotional state but also the breakdown of communication itself, it also fits nicely with the TWL as TWL is a collection of many different pieces and fragments of texts.

Ira Buch also points out that the second woman, Lil, experiences the opposite problem: instead of lacking human connection, she suffers from its destructive pressure. This is especially clear when the speaker tells her, “He’ll want to know what you done with that money he gave you”. Lil’s body is treated as something that must satisfy Albert’s expectations. Her statement, “It’s them pills I took, to bring it off,” reveals that this pressure has already had serious consequences for her. I think Eliot makes this even more disturbung through the contrast between the speaker’s casual tone and the seriousness of what Lil describes. The speaker treats pregnancy, abortion, and Lil’s suffering almost like ordinary gossip.

This connects strongly to Middleton’s “A Game at Chess”. As Ira mentioned, the title suggests that relationships can become a game where people try to control one another. In Middleton, the Virgin White Queen’s Pawn is pressured through ideas of “obedience” and “duty,” while in Eliot, Lil is pressured by her husband’s expectations. In both texts, women become like chess pieces, with other people attemtping to determine their moves.

Pound’s “The Game of Chess” adds another interesting connection. Pound describes pieces “clashing” and “renewing of contest,” suggesting that chess is a continuous struggle. Eliot similarly presents relationships as repetitive and difficult to escape. The repeated “HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME” creates this sense of pressure and inevitability: the characters keep moving through the same patterns without really changing them. Thus, the “game” may be unwinnable from the beginning – the characters can make different moves, but they remain trapped within the same destructive system.

The reference to “the change of Philomel” makes the connection to Ovid much more direct. In Ovid’s story, Philomela suffers violence and is prevented from speaking, but she finds another way to communicate through weaving, after her transformation into a nightingale, her voice survives through song. Eliot calls the nightingale’s voice “inviolable,” meaning that although Philomela has been violated and silenced, her voice ultimately cannot be destroyed. This is important because the woman in Eliot’s room also seems to struggle with communication. At the end of the passage, her hair “glowed into words, then would be savagely still.” The movement from “words” to silence suggests that communication is possible for only a moment before it breaks down again. This connects to the larger problem of The Waste Land: people are surrounded by voices, stories, and art, but they often cannot truly communicate or understand one another.

The phrase “dirty ears” is also important because it changes the meaning of Philomela’s beautiful song. The nightingale “filled all the desert with inviolable voice,” but the world hears only “‘Jug Jug’ to dirty ears.” The problem is therefore not only that people cannot speak; they also cannot properly hear. Philomela has a powerful voice, but the modern world has become too corrupted to receive it. This creates an important contrast with Ovid: in the original myth, Philomela finds a way to communicate despite oppression, while in Eliot’s modern world, meaningful communication exists but is surrounded by people who are unable or unwilling to understand it. This is why the reference to Philomela can be both hopeful and pessimistic: her voice survives, but Eliot questions whether anyone is really listening.

Eliot’s description of the crowd in “The Waste Land” connects both to Baudelaire’s “The Seven Old Men” and to Dante’s Inferno, presenting the modern city as a place of anonymity, repetition, and spiritual death. The image of the “brown fog of a winter dawn” immediately creates a dark and unhealthy atmosphere: the adjective “brown” makes London seem dirty and polluted, while “fog” obscures the city and suggests confusion. Eliot then writes that “a crowd flowed over London Bridge,” using the verb “flowed” to make the people seem less like individual human beings and more like a single, continuous mass. This loss of individuality connects to Baudelaire’s repeated old men: the seven identical figures suggest that poverty and suffering are not isolated but endlessly repeated throughout the modern city. Eliot’s phrase “so many” emphasizes the enormous number of people, showing that all people are the same – sad, depressed, suffering, they are all like images of each other, symbolizing the spiritual emptiness of London. “Death had undone so many” transforms the living crowd into something resembling the dead souls in Dante’s “Inferno”. This kind of contrast with de Nerval’s idea that “everything is alive, everything is in motion, everything corresponds”, where there is hope for the better future, that the humanity can be saved and that it is possible to restore universal harmony, which we don’t see in Eliot’s “the Waste Land” yet, however, towards the end the repeated “shantih” shows that the world can be saved. Right now it is important for Eliot to describe the atmosphere, set the scene, so everything that he writes is quite hopeless and depressing. The verb “undone” is especially important because it suggests that modern urban life has spiritually destroyed or emptied these people even though they are physically alive. Finally, the “dead sound” of the clock at nine reinforces this atmosphere of lifelessness. Don’t really understand why “nine” specifically, but I guess it is just supposed to symbolize the cyclical nature of life Eliot combines Baudelaire’s vision of the alienating modern city with Dante’s image of an anonymous crowd of the dead, suggesting that modern London is a place where people are alive physically but spiritually disconnected and almost indistinguishable from the dead.

It is interesting how Eliot goes from bringing up these happy memories to saying that he “will show you fear in a handful of dust”. He instantly starts talking about Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde, which had a pretty sad ending, where two people who loved each had to die because of betrayal (spiritual emptiness of people and the world they lived in). As Lucas Ruiz mentioned on 21 of September 2025 this “sets a tone of grief and longing for the poem”. Then, another episode follows with the Hyacinths and the hyacinth girl. According to the myth, Hiacinthia was a festival honouring Hiacinthus and Apollo, where people mourned for Hiacinthus’ death on the first and third days and had fun on the second. It is intriguing that people had this amusement in the middle of this festival. It is interesting to see how people were easily able to go from one emotion to another in a span of three days. It is also important to note that they picked odd days for mourning and an even day for amusement, as in many countries it is usually the opposite (e.g. you give an odd number of flowers as a gift, and an even number of flowers you bring to a funeral/memorial etc.-- usually a symbol of death/memory and mourning) This myth also shows that Hyacinthus is young and beautiful, but his life ends suddenly, showing how fragile beauty and youth are under the pressure of time – this also connects back to the story about Sybil (especially considering that she was also involved with Apollo, but unlike Hyacinthus she got a much harsher treatment). However, hyacinths are a symbol of grief and pain, which shows that great affection can cause a lot of suffering. Apollo transformed his loved one into something very beautiful, but something that is a reminder of something bad → just like April (it uncovers all the secrets/memories that were buried under the winter snow). I also really loved Lucas Ruiz’s interpretation of the line “your arms full” of hyacinths, which basically means that the person that’s carrying so many hyacinths is actually holding onto grief, that they cannot let go of bad memories (death/loss). Why is it always Apollo that is involved in these resurrection and youth situations? He is the god of the sun, which might give him the power of life because nothing can live without light. This myth also connects to Huxley’s story very well, where the fortune-teller tells the girl “but you will not remain so [young] for long”. These texts show how beauty is closely connected to the passage of time and death. There is a very fine line between the two.

Eliot says that “winter kept us warm,” “covering the earth in forgetful snow,” showing that people felt at peace during winter. Winter is usually associated with depression and slumber, so people may actually feel at peace when they do not have to see reminders of better days. People probably didn’t have very good memories of winter – there was famine, crucial battles, cold, and suffering – but when spring comes, it instantly uncovers the beauty that the world once had. It makes people remember the good things they experienced in the past, so nostalgia hits. It is much harder to be happy when you have good memories that were taken away than when you had nothing in the first place (like winter). This is how the shift from winter to spring feels for many people, especially when spring is no longer the same as it was before.

Going a little bit ahead, in Ezekiel 37 and Ecclesiastes, we can see how important religion is as a source of spiritual fulfillment. The valley of dry bones in Ezekiel 37 symbolizes the Israelites, who have lost their hope and feel as though they are spiritually and physically dead. This connects to Eliot because he also emphasizes the emptiness of people and their loss of spiritual connection. In Ecclesiastes, religion and God are also emphasized, showing the importance of spiritual fulfillment. Worldly things do not ultimately matter because they are temporary, what matters is spiritual meaning. Eliot also explores the possibility of renewal at the very end with “Shantih,” which means “peace”. If people actually begin to change and act, perhaps spiritual renewal is possible (it is not clear to me yet what exactly Eliot means by this, but it could be something like a higher power or a spiritual truth (like the unattainable holy grail) that people need to find within themselves in order to restore the world and save the Waste Land. In this sense, the Waste Land may not be completely hopeless: there is still the possibility of renewal if people can recover some form of spiritual connection)

Honestly, I liked the first version of the opening more. It was more chaotic, which created a feeling of urgency and a sense of living in the moment. It described what seemed like a normal day, where people were drinking and partying, which shows the emotional emptiness of the characters and suggests that they do not really value genuine connections. Also, the part with Mr. Donovan, the officer who has powerful connections and is able to get them out of trouble, shows how corrupt the world is. Eventually, the narrator gets out of the cab and walks home. He also sees the sunrise, which is very similar to the “Preludes” we read for our first homework. Life, and even each individual day, is cyclical. A new day normally symbolizes a new beginning or something positive, just as spring does, which is especially important because Eliot begins "The Waste Land" with “April is the cruellest month.” However, in both the original opening and the final opening, these two things symbolize something mundane and routine. They do not have a magical or hopeful feeling; if anything, April represents the opposite. The night resets the day, and people simply continue living their normal lives, only to repeat the same cycle again. Then, at night, they possibly become the worst versions of themselves. The epigraph in the original version is also very interesting. I probably liked it even more than the current one. Both epigraphs show a sense of responsibility that the characters show, like Sybil regrets her decision of becoming immortal, and she is held accountable for it, and in Conrad's "Heart of Darkness", Kurtz feels responsible for living this awful life "the horror! the horror", where he was cruel to many people and where they feared him. However, a significant difference between the two epigraphs is that in "Satyricon", it is clear that the Sibyl regrets becoming immortal. She understands the importance of death and the natural cycle of life. In contrast, in Conrad’s "Heart of Darkness", the phrase “The horror! The horror!” could be interpreted as Kurtz being afraid of death, especially because Eliot does not provide any background information about the quotation in the epigraph itself. I guess both these works/epigraphs reflect the main meaning of "The Waste Land": people shouldn't mess with nature, and if they do then it's they take responsibility for destroying the world they live in and ultimately themselves. The problem is humanity's attempt to separate itself from natural and moral cycles that give life meaning.

Each source gives background information and precedent for the next work. For example, the ancient religions in "The Golden Bough" explain that everything in the world is cyclical, and that nature and human life are deeply connected. The examples of gods like Adonis, Attis, and Osiris show that the world depends heavily on the gods. If a god dies, then the world becomes barren, desolate, and infertile. However, when a god dies, it is certain that he will eventually be resurrected, which again shows the cyclical nature of life and hopefulness. In Malory’s "Le Morte d'Arthur", we can see how the well-being of the king affects his kingdom. When King Hurlame kills King Labor, it causes the Waste Land. Similarly, when the Fisher King is wounded, the land reflects his condition. There is a need for a savior -- the Holy Grail and the worthy knight who can use it to help restore the king’s health and ultimately the land. This is similar to the possible meaning of Eliot’s "The Waste Land". The world is a reflection of people’s lives (as a whole, not just a single individual). Their lives are empty and fake, which is why the world is emotionally empty and desolate, like an actual desert -- the Waste Land. So, we go from god to king to people (more realistic). In Eliot's work it is not just one god or one king that makes a difference in the world, but the whole population. Eliot also ends the poem on a hopeful note with “shantih,” which means peace and suggests that there is still hope for humanity. It is not all lost, which is similar to the Holy Grail Quest. The Holy Grail is this mysterious, intangible thing that Galahad is searching for. People do not really know exactly how to heal the king; they only know that they need this mysterious Holy Grail. In "The Waste Land", perhaps Eliot is also trying to show that there is such a thing that could give peace and prosperity to this world, however, it needs to be found, and only those who are worthy may be able to achieve it.