The Waste Land
The Waste Land
BY T. S. ELIOT
‘Nam Sibyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis meis vidi in ampulla pendere, et cum illi pueri dicerent: Σίβυλλα τί θέλεις; respondebat illa: άποθανεîν θέλω.’
For Ezra Pound
il miglior fabbro.
I. The Burial of the Dead
April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at the archduke’s,
My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.
What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
Frisch weht der Wind
Der Heimat zu
Mein Irisch Kind,
Wo weilest du?
‘You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
‘They called me the hyacinth girl.’
—Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.
Oed’ und leer das Meer.
Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,
Had a bad cold, nevertheless
Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,
With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,
Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,
(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)
Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,
The lady of situations.
Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,
And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,
Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,
Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find
The Hanged Man. Fear death by water.
I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.
Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone,
Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:
One must be so careful these days.
Unreal City,
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.
Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,
To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours
With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.
There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying: 'Stetson!
‘You who were with me in the ships at Mylae!
‘That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
‘Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?
‘Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?
‘Oh keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend to men,
‘Or with his nails he’ll dig it up again!
‘You! hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable,—mon frère!”
II. A Game of Chess
The Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne,
Glowed on the marble, where the glass
Held up by standards wrought with fruited vines
From which a golden Cupidon peeped out
(Another hid his eyes behind his wing)
Doubled the flames of sevenbranched candelabra
Reflecting light upon the table as
The glitter of her jewels rose to meet it,
From satin cases poured in rich profusion;
In vials of ivory and coloured glass
Unstoppered, lurked her strange synthetic perfumes,
Unguent, powdered, or liquid—troubled, confused
And drowned the sense in odours; stirred by the air
That freshened from the window, these ascended
In fattening the prolonged candle-flames,
Flung their smoke into the laquearia,
Stirring the pattern on the coffered ceiling.
Huge sea-wood fed with copper
Burned green and orange, framed by the coloured stone,
In which sad light a carvéd dolphin swam.
Above the antique mantel was displayed
As though a window gave upon the sylvan scene
The change of Philomel, by the barbarous king
So rudely forced; 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.
And other withered stumps of time
Were told upon the walls; staring forms
Leaned out, leaning, hushing the room enclosed.
Footsteps shuffled on the stair.
Under the firelight, under the brush, her hair
Spread out in fiery points
Glowed into words, then would be savagely still.
‘My nerves are bad tonight. Yes, bad. Stay with me.
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 think we are in rats’ alley
Where the dead men lost their bones.
‘What is that noise?’
The wind under the door.
‘What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?’
Nothing again nothing.
‘Do
‘You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember
‘Nothing?’
I remember
Those are pearls that were his eyes.
‘Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?’
But
O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag—
It’s so elegant
So intelligent
‘What shall I do now? What shall I do?’
‘I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street
‘With my hair down, so. What shall we do tomorrow?
‘What shall we ever do?’
The hot water at ten.
And if it rains, a closed car at four.
And we shall play a game of chess,
Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door.
When Lil’s husband got demobbed, I said—
I didn’t mince my words, I said to her myself,
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
Now Albert’s coming back, make yourself a bit smart.
He’ll want to know what you done with that money he gave you
To get yourself some teeth. He did, I was there.
You have them all out, Lil, and get a nice set,
He said, I swear, I can’t bear to look at you.
And no more can’t I, I said, and think of poor Albert,
He’s been in the army four years, he wants a good time,
And if you don’t give it him, there’s others will, I said.
Oh is there, she said. Something o’ that, I said.
Then I’ll know who to thank, she said, and give me a straight look.
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
If you don’t like it you can get on with it, I said.
Others can pick and choose if you can’t.
But if Albert makes off, it won’t be for lack of telling.
You ought to be ashamed, I said, to look so antique.
(And her only thirty-one.)
I can’t help it, she said, pulling a long face,
It’s them pills I took, to bring it off, she said.
(She’s had five already, and nearly died of young George.)
The chemist said it would be all right, but I’ve never been the same.
You are a proper fool, I said.
Well, if Albert won’t leave you alone, there it is, I said,
What you get married for if you don’t want children?
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
Well, that Sunday Albert was home, they had a hot gammon,
And they asked me in to dinner, to get the beauty of it hot—
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
Goonight Bill. Goonight Lou. Goonight May. Goonight.
Ta ta. Goonight. Goonight.
Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night.
III. The Fire Sermon
The river’s tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf
Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind
Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed.
Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song.
The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers,
Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends
Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed.
And their friends, the loitering heirs of City directors;
Departed, have left no addresses.
By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept . . .
Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song,
Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long.
But at my back in a cold blast I hear
The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear.
A rat crept softly through the vegetation
Dragging its slimy belly on the bank
While I was fishing in the dull canal
On a winter evening round behind the gashouse
Musing upon the king my brother’s wreck
And on the king my father’s death before him.
White bodies naked on the low damp ground
And bones cast in a little low dry garret,
Rattled by the rat’s foot only, year to year.
But at my back from time to time I hear
The sound of horns and motors, which shall bring
Sweeney to Mrs. Porter in the spring.
O the moon shone bright on Mrs. Porter
And on her daughter
They wash their feet in soda water
Et O ces voix d’enfants, chantant dans la coupole!
Twit twit twit
Jug jug jug jug jug jug
So rudely forc’d.
Tereu
Unreal City
Under the brown fog of a winter noon
Mr. Eugenides, the Smyrna merchant
Unshaven, with a pocket full of currants
C.i.f. London: documents at sight,
Asked me in demotic French
To luncheon at the Cannon Street Hotel
Followed by a weekend at the Metropole.
At the violet hour, when the eyes and back
Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits
Like a taxi throbbing waiting,
I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives,
Old man with wrinkled female breasts, can see
At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives
Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea,
The typist home at teatime, clears her breakfast, lights
Her stove, and lays out food in tins.
Out of the window perilously spread
Her drying combinations touched by the sun’s last rays,
On the divan are piled (at night her bed)
Stockings, slippers, camisoles, and stays.
I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs
Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest—
I too awaited the expected guest.
He, the young man carbuncular, arrives,
A small house agent’s clerk, with one bold stare,
One of the low on whom assurance sits
As a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire.
The time is now propitious, as he guesses,
The meal is ended, she is bored and tired,
Endeavours to engage her in caresses
Which still are unreproved, if undesired.
Flushed and decided, he assaults at once;
Exploring hands encounter no defence;
His vanity requires no response,
And makes a welcome of indifference.
(And I Tiresias have foresuffered all
Enacted on this same divan or bed;
I who have sat by Thebes below the wall
And walked among the lowest of the dead.)
Bestows one final patronising kiss,
And gropes his way, finding the stairs unlit . . .
She turns and looks a moment in the glass,
Hardly aware of her departed lover;
Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass:
'Well now that’s done: and I’m glad it’s over.’
When lovely woman stoops to folly and
Paces about her room again, alone,
She smooths her hair with automatic hand,
And puts a record on the gramophone.
‘This music crept by me upon the waters’
And along the Strand, up Queen Victoria Street.
O City city, I can sometimes hear
Beside a public bar in Lower Thames Street,
The pleasant whining of a mandoline
And a clatter and a chatter from within
Where fishmen lounge at noon: where the walls
Of Magnus Martyr hold
Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold.
The river sweats
Oil and tar
The barges drift
With the turning tide
Red sails
Wide
To leeward, swing on the heavy spar.
The barges wash
Drifting logs
Down Greenwich reach
Past the Isle of Dogs.
Weialala leia
Wallala leialala
Elizabeth and Leicester
Beating oars
The stern was formed
A gilded shell
Red and gold
The brisk swell
Rippled both shores
Southwest wind
Carried down stream
The peal of bells
White towers
Weialala leia
Wallala leialala
‘Trams and dusty trees.
Highbury bore me. Richmond and Kew
Undid me. By Richmond I raised my knees
Supine on the floor of a narrow canoe.’
‘My feet are at Moorgate, and my heart
Under my feet. After the event
He wept. He promised a ‘new start.’
I made no comment. What should I resent?’
‘On Margate Sands.
I can connect
Nothing with nothing.
The broken fingernails of dirty hands.
My people humble people who expect
Nothing.’
la la
To Carthage then I came
Burning burning burning burning
O Lord Thou pluckest me out
O Lord Thou pluckest
burning
IV. Death by Water
Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell
And the profit and loss.
A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool.
Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.
V. What the Thunder Said
After the torchlight red on sweaty faces
After the frosty silence in the gardens
After the agony in stony places
The shouting and the crying
Prison and palace and reverberation
Of thunder of spring over distant mountains
He who was living is now dead
We who were living are now dying
With a little patience
Here is no water but only rock
Rock and no water and the sandy road
The road winding above among the mountains
Which are mountains of rock without water
If there were water we should stop and drink
Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think
Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand
If there were only water amongst the rock
Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit
Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit
There is not even silence in the mountains
But dry sterile thunder without rain
There is not even solitude in the mountains
But red sullen faces sneer and snarl
From doors of mudcracked houses
If there were water
And no rock
If there were rock
And also water
And water
A spring
A pool among the rock
If there were the sound of water only
Not the cicada
And dry grass singing
But sound of water over a rock
Where the hermit-thrush sings in the pine trees
Drip drop drip drop drop drop drop
But there is no water
Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman
—But who is that on the other side of you?
What is that sound high in the air
Murmur of maternal lamentation
Who are those hooded hordes swarming
Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth
Ringed by the flat horizon only
What is the city over the mountains
Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air
Falling towers
Jerusalem Athens Alexandria
Vienna London
Unreal
A woman drew her long black hair out tight
And fiddled whisper music on those strings
And bats with baby faces in the violet light
Whistled, and beat their wings
And crawled head downward down a blackened wall
And upside down in air were towers
Tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours
And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells.
In this decayed hole among the mountains
In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing
Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel
There is the empty chapel, only the wind’s home.
It has no windows, and the door swings,
Dry bones can harm no one.
Only a cock stood on the rooftree
Co co rico co co rico
In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust
Bringing rain
Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves
Waited for rain, while the black clouds
Gathered far distant, over Himavant.
The jungle crouched, humped in silence.
Then spoke the thunder
DA
Datta: what have we given?
My friend, blood shaking my heart
The awful daring of a moment’s surrender
Which an age of prudence can never retract
By this, and this only, we have existed
Which is not to be found in our obituaries
Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider
Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor
In our empty rooms
DA
Dayadhvam: I have heard the key
Turn in the door once and turn once only
We think of the key, each in his prison
Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison
Only at nightfall, aethereal rumours
Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus
DA
Damyata: The boat responded
Gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar
The sea was calm, your heart would have responded
Gaily, when invited, beating obedient
To controlling hands
I sat upon the shore
Fishing, with the arid plain behind me
Shall I at least set my lands in order?
London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down
Poi s’ascose nel foco che gli affina
Quando fiam uti chelidon—O swallow swallow
Le Prince d’Aquitaine à la tour abolie
These fragments I have shored against my ruins
Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo’s mad againe.
Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.
Shantih shantih shantih
“The Waste Land” Themes
The Brokenness and Isolation of Modern Life
“The Waste Land” can be thought of as a poem about the alienation and brokenness of modern life. Written shortly after World War I, the poem reflects the generational trauma caused by the war, both on the battlefield and the home front. The “waste land” the poem portrays represents modern society itself, which Eliot depicts as shallow and isolating, lacking both the spiritual guidance and the cultural abundance of the past.
Though the people of “The Waste Land” are simply going about their ordinary lives, their inability to connect or communicate is indicative of the broken society in which they all live. In the poem’s first section, for instance, a crowd of people stream across London Bridge like zombies, suggesting the alienating and deadening effects of the modern world. When the speaker sees a fellow former soldier in the crowd ("Stetson") and calls out to him, the man's reply (if there is one) goes unmentioned. The speaker and Stetson both represent the disillusioned survivors of World War I, and are unable to communicate except in reference to their shared, traumatic past.
Likewise, in this disconnected modern world, intimacy and love have been reduced to mere physicality. In the poem's third section, "The Fire Sermon," a typist tidies her apartment before the arrival of her lover, but their sex scene is anything but romantic. It stops short of rape, but the woman clearly dislikes the man; once he leaves, she is glad he is gone. This scene again illustrates the poem’s broader point that modern life alienates people from one another.
This is further emphasized by the stanza that follows, in which Eliot substitutes his own words in the place of lyrics from a well-known opera, a juxtaposition that feels empty and shallow. Modern life, the poem suggests, lacks culture and class, and this descent into vulgarity is part of what drives people apart.
Importantly, the inability to communicate or connect is true at all levels of society. In Section II, a wealthy anxious woman pleads with the speaker to talk to her, but the speaker does not reply. Instead, he thinks unhappily to himself about their mundane everyday routine, which does not bring him comfort. This suggests that the surface-level niceties of modern life—the daily routine of “hot water at ten / and if it rains, a closed car at four”—offer no real relief from its underlying despair and sense of isolation.
Likewise, two working-class women chatting in a pub at the end of Section II are also dealing with despair and isolation. A woman named Lil’s husband is back from the war, and the other woman lectures Lil about fixing her teeth in order to appeal to him. Lil, however, needed the money for an abortion. Here, the poem captures two different kinds of modern brokenness. The direct discussion of abortion suggests that social norms have lost spiritual grounding, but the poem also depicts Lil’s friend, the speaker, as terribly unkind, again implying that a broken society prevents genuine human connection.
In the poem’s final section, however, Eliot pivots away from scenes of everyday life. Instead, he uses imagery and metaphor to portray the modern world as a literal waste land: a rocky barren place without water or sustenance, where even connecting with God is a struggle. This, the poem suggests, is the ultimate alienation from which all modern people suffer, and the source of modern life’s brokenness.
Death and Rebirth
Death is everywhere in the “The Waste Land,” both literally and metaphorically. Corpses litter the poem, while endings of all sorts represent death of a different kind throughout. Even the people of the poem resemble the walking dead, living lonely, unhappy lives. Nevertheless, though the majority of “The Waste Land” is preoccupied with death—something it presents as inevitable and inescapable—the poem is not entirely without hope. Indeed, the poem ultimately suggests that death, however devastating, is a necessary stage on the way to rebirth and renewal. Only from the wreckage of a waste land is a new beginning made possible.
One could fill many pages chronicling and making sense of all the things that die or come to an end in this poem. To name just a few: a woman Marie mourns the end of her childhood, the fortune-teller Madame Sosostris issues warnings about death by water, a corpse “planted last year in your garden / has … begun to sprout,” marriages and romances fail, women discuss abortion, girls lose their virginity, nymphs have “departed” from the Thames, landscapes are ravaged by drought, a pub reaches closing time, and a sailor literally drowns. Even the poem’s allusions are primarily associated with death, such as the repeated references to Dante’s Divine Comedy (which involves a journey through Hell).
Altogether, this barrage of endings in the poem suggests that the experience of death is universal (especially because the poem suggests that death need not be understood literally; the end of a romance, for example, feels like death).
The universality of this experience is made most explicit in Section IV, the poem’s shortest section, titled "Death by Water." Its brevity draws attention to the poem’s central message: that the fate of Phlebas, the drowned sailor “who was once handsome and tall as you” awaits everyone. This is certainly true in the literal sense, since all people die, but is also true metaphorically, because life is full of endings, as seen throughout the poem.
However, the poem also suggests that each of these deaths and endings is a necessary pit-stop on the road to rebirth. This idea is first hinted at through multiple allusions to the Greek myth of the rape of Philomela. After being brutalized by a king, who cuts out her tongue, Philomela nevertheless keeps singing, because she transforms into a nightingale. This transformation out of desperate circumstances into new life indicates that rebirth is possible, but only after experiencing a brutal end of some kind.
Fittingly, the poem itself undergoes a journey similar to Philomela’s. Though the first four sections are consumed by death and endings, the final section looks toward rebirth. It opens in an agonizing, apocalyptic landscape, before “a damp gust” brings rain and the speaker’s tone shifts. The speaker proceeds to talk about Eastern spiritual philosophies and describes the “arid plain”—infertile land standing in for death—as “behind” him. Now, he can “set [his] lands in order,” a kind of renewal or restoration. This closing section, complex and rich with allusions, ultimately affirms the possibility of rebirth—but only, the poem suggests, after surrendering to the inevitability of death in all forms.
Religion, Spirituality, and Nihilism
“The Waste Land” is a poem so rich with allusions to other works and ideas that Eliot himself included footnotes to help his readers understand them all. In particular, allusions to religion and spirituality play a vital role in the poem, as do depictions of nihilism (which, simply put, is the rejection of religious or moral principles, or the belief that life is meaningless). Throughout the poem, Eliot draws on both Western and Eastern religious traditions, particularly Christianity, Buddhism, and Hinduism. Ultimately, the poem suggests that a spiritual crisis is in part responsible for people’s isolation and despair in modern society. Thus, resolving that spiritual crisis—finding faith—could help restore modern civilization.
The poem's presents modern society as of a world without the spiritual guidance that the speaker thinks is essential for a moral life. Life without faith, the poem suggests, is a life of meaningless drudgery—with nothing but "The hot water at ten / And if it rains, a closed car at four." This spiritual crisis is what has led to the modern waste land, to a “burial of the dead” (as the first section is titled) among people who are in fact still living.
The speaker himself is part of this wretched population. This remains the trend throughout the poem, even as the speaker’s identity shifts and changes. Whether seeking advice from a fortune-teller, despairing over modern life, witnessing lust and vulgarity, or drowning at sea, the speaker remains distant from spiritual touchstones—from places like a chapel, a Hindu mantra, fertile soil, the nymphs of the Thames, a burial service—that might offer some relief.
Adding to this sense of distance and disconnect are Eliot’s constant allusions to religious and spiritual writings and ideas. Paradoxically, the poem uses these allusions in order to paint its picture of a deeply nihilistic world—a world without meaning. The juxtaposition of speakers who know enough to reference faith traditions, but not how to practice them and improve their lives, helps to hammer home the impact of the absence of faith on modern life.
Though the poem spares no detail in its depiction of nihilism, it also presents the possibility of redemption. To do so, Eliot alludes heavily to Buddhist and Hindu traditions, especially those that emphasize self-control, sacrifice, and compassion for others. The poem links these philosophies with the possibility of renewal (and rain) amidst the blighted waste land. In particular, the closing section expounds on the mantra “Datta, Dayadhvam, and Damyatta.” Each word is linked with metaphorical glimpses of what finding faith might feel like, from turning a key in the lock of spiritual imprisonment to sailing on a calm sea.
Similarly, the poem returns several times to the allegory of the Fisher King, comparing the journey from nihilism to redemption to the Christian tradition of an impotent Fisher King made powerful again through the Holy Grail—the blood of Christ.
Ultimately, by referring to multiple spiritual traditions throughout the poem, Eliot makes clear that it does not matter which faith a person or society follows. Instead, the poem suggests that any spiritual tradition is better than the nihilism that dominates modern life. Only then can people and society reach “Shantih”—the poem’s final word, which Eliot translated in his own footnote as “the peace which passeth understanding.”
Sex, Lust, and Impotence
Sex in “The Waste Land” is a dirty, sinful affair that serves as a marker for the decay of modern society. The poem presents lust and casual attitudes towards sex as a mark of moral depravity. In modern times, the poem implies, genuine love and connection are almost impossible to find; sex has thus become immoral and impotent—leading to waste, emptiness, and decay. Even the "thunder" that echoes over the wasteland is "sterile," unable to bring the water that would nourish the land and create the environment necessary for new life to grow.
The poem further links sex and lust with the legend of the Fisher King, the final guardian of the Holy Grail (a vessel that contains drops of Christ’s blood). There are many stories of the Fisher King, but all describe a king who lies mortally wounded in his thigh or groin—with the implication being that he can't fulfill his duty to father more children and continue his line, until a knight completes the quest to find the Holy Grail and heals the king. Tellingly, while the king’s body wastes away, so does his land; this is, in fact, where the poem's title "The Waste Land" comes from! Finding the Grail is thus necessary to revive not just the king but also the kingdom.
Importantly, though now linked with Christianity, the legend’s roots are in pagan traditions associated with fertility. In this way, Eliot’s allusions to the Fisher King tie into the poem’s broader ideas about sex, love, and power. The modern world is barren, wasting away just like the Fisher King’s kingdom. The many speakers, including one who literally sits fishing by the polluted Thames river, all experience powerlessness, or impotence, just like the mythical king experienced.
And, the poem argues, one of the metaphorical wounds responsible for this impotence and resulting waste land is the lack of romantic love and meaningful connection. The weight of lost love, failed romance, and unhappy marriage hangs over the poem, evoking the barrenness of the Fisher King’s kingdom. For example, in the second section, especially, allusions to doomed women like Shakespeare’s Ophelia, who drowns herself when she loses Hamlet’s affections, or Cleopatra, who commits suicide after her lover Antony is killed, convey the sheer hopelessness of any attempts at romance.
Thus deprived of love, people have seemingly turned to lust, which the poem portrays as immoral and fruitless. This is particularly clear in Section III, "The Fire Sermon"—ironically named after a speech from the Buddha about the importance of freeing oneself from earthly desires, which is exactly the opposite of what happens in this section of the poem. In particular, the scene between a typist and her lover conveys the poem’s disgust with meaningless sex. It's relayed to readers through the spying eyes of Tiresias, a blind prophet from Greek myth. The many layers of ugliness (including Tiresias’s “wrinkled dugs,” or breasts; the young man “carbuncular” with acne; and the sex itself, which is “undesired” but happens anyway) emphasize the poem’s portrayal of lustful sex as something dirty and repugnant, a clear sign of moral decay.
In keeping with the mythos of the Fisher King and Holy Grail, however, the poem also points towards the possibility of a healed waste land, as symbolized by restored romantic intimacy and fertility. For starters, in Section V, the rain returns—a symbol of fertile land. Also, this section explores a series of images that reflect stages of lust, loneliness, and love, and ultimately end on a heart responding "gaily" to the confines of marriage.
Most tellingly, the poem closes with the speaker “upon the shore / Fishing” and considering “set[ting his] lands in order.” This clear reference to the Fisher King suggests that the impotence that the speaker has felt throughout the poem in the face of the waste land has been cured. As a result, restoration of the waste land is possible.
Memory and the Past
“The Waste Land” is full of historical references. Some of these allude to real and significant historical events or figures, while others are merely personal memories tied to different speakers and characters in the poem. In many ways, the poem is an elegy for the past, mourning the decline of culture and society. But even as it mourns forgotten history, the poem itself helps to keep those memories alive by piling a dizzying number of historical allusions on top of each other. In doing so, the poem ultimately suggests that the present is simply a continuation of that past.
The poem opens with a woman, Marie, reflecting on her childhood nostalgically and with a tinge of sadness. This sets the tone for the poem’s treatment of the past as something both out of reach and impossible to forget. As the poem continues and the speakers begin to shift and change, so too do the references to the past. Eventually, past and present simply blur together. For instance, in line 70, the speaker refers to World War I by calling it “Mylae,” a battle from an ancient Roman war. This blurring speaks to the universality of war across time and place, past and present.
Similar blurring of time occurs again and again throughout the poem. The Renaissance poet, Dante, is alluded to at the modern London Bridge; the implication is that his canonical work on the many circles of hell continue to apply to the zombie-like people of present-day London. In line 197, “The sound of horns and motors” replace a "winged chariot” in an allusive line directly pulled from a seventeenth-century Marvell poem. The words of ancient St. Augustine—“To Carthage then I came”—ring through a modern subway station. And of course the ancient Greek figure of Tiresias appears amidst modern life, peeping in on moral decay.
What to make of these substitutions and allusions? The poem appears to be arguing that the past is never past—that the more things change, the more they stay the same. “The Waste Land” is certainly a response to and indictment of the unprecedented horrors of World War I. However, by consistently riffing on the past in order to talk about the present, the poem also argues that such horror has always been a part of human history.
The poem itself goes a long way toward remedying the very problem it identifies. By drawing on a rich variety of historical and literary references, the poem demands that readers become familiar with the histories that help make the poem make sense, and therefore keep alive the memories that the poem has already begun to mourn, but refuses to forget.