T.S Eliot Poetry: “The Waste Land” and “Ash Wednesday”

 

Introduction:

T.S Eliot work “The Waste Land” explores the need for humans to correct its morality and goodness after traumatic events that people have faced during the time. The epic poem contains different components that each tell a story to the audience and the author uses this method of writing to convey his message which he also does in one of his other works “Ash Wednesday”. These two pieces share similar intention of the author however they are written distinctively.  T.S Eliot’s has been very influential on the modern movement in literature during the 19th century.

“The Waste Land” is seen as a modernist poem that stood out years later after being published. This poem is the author’s most popular work, its popularity was gained from the deep meaning of the poem. This poem was written by T.S Eliot to bring awareness for humanity to experience “Rebirth”. This strong message resonated with many people because of the destruction that surrounded them. In contrast, T.S Eliot’s second published poem, “Ash Wednesday”, was less popular in the literally world unlike “The Waste Land”. These two poems

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however share similar themes and ideas of human morality and the need for society to turn to Christianity for a better world.

The authors personal conservative beliefs can be shown in his poetry . He uses religion as a way for humans to escape into a better world. T.S Eliot was in school while World War II was happening which could have affected his perception of the world around him. The war also greatly influenced many people as well and their view of a damaged society around them.

Analysis of “The Waste Land”:

The author uses fragments to illustrate his ideas in the poem “The Waste . He also includes images and allusions within his story telling. This mixture of formatting makes it difficult to understand but within close analysis, it can be understood. The poem stands alone as the author reflecting on society in a philosophical process. T.S Eliot created this poem with the intention. This poem is a parallel of the modern world

In the peer reviewed article “Clustering Voices in The Waste Land”, the authors write “One of the poem’s most distinctive voices is that of the woman who speaks at the end of its second section…Here, we instead assume an initial segmentation and then try to create clusters corresponding to segments of the The Waste Land which are spoken by the same voice.” This is referring to lines 158-159 of the poem. T.S Eliot seems to have used different voices while not giving them a clear transition from one dialogue to another. This is one of the ways that the author of the poem writes in a style of fragments.

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T.S Eliot attempts to convey a message about people living where time does not seem to go fast enough. He includes a woman character that talks endlessly without it being stopped gives the reader the feeling of time going astray. This feeling is something that most people feel when they are going through a difficult situation in their life, which is what T.S Eliot wanted to relate to in his writing. The sense of time not progressing in bad times.

This poem contains imagery of lack of clean water, the setting is a deserted land. This usage of symbolism and imagery is the authors way of stating that there is not a possible way for the waste land to thrive and grow, but rather its a "is no water but only rock / Rock and no water

and the sandy road" (331-332)”. T.S Eliot also references William Shakespeare’s work “The Tempest”, he does so by line 25 of the poem where it refers to a sailor dying from water. This could also be interpreted as the toxic water that is still in the river after a drought is society’s flaws and how the deserted land is slowly diminishing because of it. Contamination and pollution within the city is a common adjective within this poem used to describe the setting. This is symbolic to the destroyed world that the the author feels that he is around

This poem also explores other imagery such as the usage of fire. This can be seen when the author is referencing Dante’s work.  This happens in lines 308-311, the narrator goes through the experience of burning while screaming. This gives imagery of the hellfire, which later is described as “refining” in line 429. This word means to remove of impurities. This is tied in T.S Eliot’s christian beliefs of religion making life better, even in the after life.  The symbol is sessional to the author’s internal belief of the world needing rebirth. T.S Eliot references Dante’s

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work in different ways, one of them being when he describes the character’s in The Waste Land go through their daily routine of sameness. The mood in this section is gloomy and dead. Another reference to this is when the character Madame Sosostris makes a statement in line 56 about seeing people in circles which is the circles of hell in Dante’s work.

T.S Eliot uses references from great works such as Dante’s Hell and the English play by William Shakespeare “The Tempest” to use in his poem. These works can be seen as classics that the author wanted to include to make his work more influential. The author also uses imagery by using elements of the earth, water and fire to show how the world is in need of Rebirth to thrive and change. The author ends the poem with a hopeful conclusion. The last section of the poem “What the Thunder Said” shifts through different senes which uses music and references Upanishad and suggesting that there is possibility of peace within this world.

Analysis of “Ash Wednesday”

This title references the christian tradition that focuses on human morality. This relates to many of the themes of the author’s work.  This poem was written after the author’s conversion to religion. The poem goes through six sections where the author explores new hope after finding his new religion. This poem is written by using different techniques which include T.S Eliot writing lines without finishing them. He also uses various techniques such as repetition in the first stanza where he restates “Because I do no hope…” the first three lines. This creates a sense of hopelessness which is also repeated in the second stanza. In the third stanza he states “Because I know that time is always time”, the author uses this theme of time to reference the

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inability for change and that things will stay as they are. The fourth stanza later takes on a different direction in which the speaker is asking for mercy from God.

In the scholarly article, “T.S Eliot ‘Ash Wednesday’” By Peter Wilson , it is stated that “‘Ash-Wednesday’ presents diagrammatically Mr. Eliot’s perspec­tive in The Idea of a Christian Society: man’s need of spirit­ual guidance in the struggle for salvation and ultimate peace.” This poem primarily focuses on the authors change of religion and how it reflected on finding his own peace in the world after converting, which he uses to introduce people to a better world because it is a personal experience for him.

Comparison of the two poems:

“The Waste Land” and “Ash Wednesday” by T.S Eliot share common themes and ideas. These two poems are written with the same central idea of Rebirth and human morality. These two poems share similar writing techniques that the author uses. A way that T.S Eliot writes is by writing fragments of sentences and repetition. This can be found in both of his writing pieces. He also uses the sense of time not moving in both of his works to emphasis his ideas of time not progressing in dreadful events. Both poems go through at least five sections which is the way that the author organizes his ideas in writing.  Both of these works also reference Dante’s work, which greatly influenced the way the author thinks of the afterlife.

In “Early Poetic Influences and Criticism, and Poems Written in Early Youth”, the author states “Eliot once wrote the best way of increasing one’s understanding of Dante, after reading

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the poems themselves, is to read the authors he admired…Eliot himself put a high valuation on his criticism, by criticizing those works”. T.S Eliot admired Dante’s classical epic comedy and ties it into his own writing by understanding it more and criticizing it in his own way. T.S Eliot also does this with the references he wrote in his works.

The most common theme between these two poems is the theme of humanity turning away from God. This is the central idea that T.S Eliot is attempting to bring awareness to in his poems. The author feels that the world around him is overflowing with bad outcomes from human actions. The author feels that humans need to turn to God in order to be rebirth, many of his metaphorical phrases and references is his way of attempting to convince people that the way to get out of this cycle is to turn to religion because he found hope in it. While “Ash Wednesday” has more religious undertones even with title, “The Waste Land” still contains themes of religion that bring awareness to the destruction around people. “Ash Wednesday” is a more personal poem to the author while “The Waste Land” is targeted more to the audience in the times of war.

“The Waste Land” as a Metaphor to The War:

This poem was not only inspired by T.S Eliot’s faith but the war that he was around which shaped his perception. Society was changed after the change of war, this affected many people in the 19th century. This new change caused confusion of morality which lead to the actions of society be questioned. This poem is a metaphor to the state that Europe was in at the time. In the poem, imagery is used to show the mood of the city. The author uses imagery of a war torn city when describing London in “The Burial of The Dead” with corpses. The trauma

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that many people faced during this time was shocking and caused a sense of guilt. This sense of guilt created a need for a savior-like figure which is God. T.S Eliot uses God’s forgiveness as a way to escape this. The audience related to this because of the common feelings that everyone felt at the time.

Conclusion:

These two poems share similar themes of religion and faith in the Christian God. The perspective that these poems are written in is the author essentially looking down on humanity after finding his new faith. He sees the world as consequences of humanity’s actions and it is a punishment for it. “The Waste Land”gained popularity because there was a connection between the audience and the events that led up the publishing of the poem. T.S Eliot used different writing techniques that are considered “modernists” which also helped the poem gain more popularity.

“Ash Wednesday” on the other hand was more of a personal poem that the author wrote. This poem was focused more on the faith of the author. However, the main ideas in both of these poems are relatively similar in which the main idea is the need for rebirth to a better outcome.

 

 

 

Work Cited

 

Brooke, Julian. “Clustering Voices in The Waste Land.” Aclweb, 14 June 2003, www.aclweb.org/anthology/W13-1406.pdf.

Scone-field , Martin. T.S Eliot: The Poems . Cambridge University , 1988.

Wilson, Peter Anthony, "T. S. Eliot's 'Ash-Wednesday'." (1963). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 6338.