The waste land most influential poem of the 20th century and T.S Elliot the most influential poet of the 20th century.

Now we are well and truly into modernism. We started the course with Paradise lost - pl introduces us to some of the turmoil and excitement of the renaissance. It's a very different world, the 17th century, compared to Dante's. We see in paradise lost the fall of man imaginatively depicted in a way that connects it to the new age - the discoveries of science, the turmoil in Christendom, the reformation (Milton takes sides as a puritan he depicts Catholics as occupying a place of hell) The quest for knowledge at that time, with its excitement and its dangers, is a theme picked up again in other works such as Frankenstein, Hard Times and Crime and Punishment. The romantics are of course heavily influenced by Milton's revolutionary spirit - the romantics also react against the excessors of enlightenment rationalism - they extol the value of imagination and emotion. These ideas are also present in Frankenstein, Hard Times (dichotomy between reason and imagination are extended to breaking point - seen as antithetical almost) We've also looked at Poetry by the great 19th century Jesuit, Hopkins. His poetry was not received until the 19th century in the climate of literary modernism. T.S Elliot we than see brings together these threads.

The Wasteland, as the title suggests that in the early 20th century that Western Civilisation has finally and definitively broken up - the form of the poem reflects this as does the style - the themes and the images. 'I have shawed up my fragments against my ruin' these are the cultural fragments of western civilisation and Xstianity (no longer the dominant discourse giving shape to the west it was thrown off by successive generations) the stylistic innovation of the wasteland makes it a revolutionary poem, and yet, as has been argued since its publication since the 1920's, the wasteland has been argued as a very concervative poem as it tries to conserve the fragments so that they may be taken up and reformed into a good society once again.

Elliot was born in 1888, born American, grew up in the Midwest. Studied in the states. Settled in England. His first marriage to vivian haywood (turned into a film, tom and viv) ended in 1933. Vivian ended up being placed in an Asylum. Elliot was received into the Anglican Church in 27. Elliot as long with Joyce, Yates, Virginia Wolfe and others belong to what is known as the first generation as modernists. Joyce and Elliot are the two most significant - respectively giving to us Ulysses.

Elliots poems are littered with cigarette stubs, lipstick, hair curlers, broken windows and record players. These sort of details had never really appeared in poetry before.

Elliot as a modernist both reflects and grapples with the challenges of modernity. In particular, the loss of belief. The Wasteland is a poem of a doubting man in a doubting civilisation. This stands in stark contrast to Elliot's later conversation to Christianity.

Classisist in literate, royalist in politics, Anglo-Catholic in religion.

Elliot transformed literary criticism. Revived John Dunn. He bequeathed to us technical terms such as 'dissociation of sensiblity'

Modernism came towards the end of the first world war - a time of near despair of the calamity that had just befallen Western Europe - generations wiped out - Europe is at loggerheads. Wars became total wars for the first time - whole countries going to war - whole countries littered with bodies. As such, it was deemed that the rural values of the countries were irrelevant. The reality is, for the modernist, most people don't live in the country side - in a pastoral world - most people live in the din of cities.

We see in the modernist works the individual and individualism - for the modernist the individual is now almost existing in a world of solipsism. Self-contained, cut off from community and family. The older certainties have passed away - personality itself seems broken down. In the wasteland it's not clear who is speaking to us, we pick up different voices and they don't cohere into one personality. It's kind of schizophrenic.

The wasteland deals with defeating chaos and re-establishing order. The chaos comes from the void of religion - the collapse of religion. The poem is haunted by a disturbing and dangerous sexuality - it's full of fear, of sexuality. The poem represents in stark detail the tension between desire (which can become dangerous) and the need for emotional restraint. We get this strange joining together of an emotional reserve and distance coupled with an intimacy, which is a representation of modern sexuality - suddenly the subject of the poem becomes casual sexual liasons - human beings become broken down into separate body parts - (Fisher king myth) - sexuality becomes something sterile. The poem is full of images on fertility and on the other hand sterility - they stand together, in tension.

How are we too interpret this strange poem? How are we to approach it?

Elliot pointed to various works which he believed would help the discerning reader understand Wasteland. Suddenly we need to go to extra textual sources as interpretive keys for the poem (Typically modernist). [point 4]

Tyresius - oedipus rex (and the odyssey) is the blind seer and he brings the truth to oedipus that oedipus does not want to hear. Tyresius is the suffering servant who embodies the truth that others don't want to hear - because the truth implicates them with the calamities of their people.

It's debatable whether the poem offers any redemption. It's confusing, and it's meant to be confusing.

Holy grail, fisher king, tyresius (all important images in the poem).

There's a sort of strangeness in the sexual union that is usually cold, dissapointing and distressing. The human being in the poem is represented mechanically.

The epigraph tells us that this poem will be one of visionary experience.

First line - April, making deliberate allusion to the 'swich licour' the canterbury tales. Elliot's poem is contrasting modern fragmented civilisation with the older medieval Christocentric well formed society.

Compare this too Hopkin's spring.

Lilac = purple, colour of lent, nuancing the title 'the burial of the dead'.

'Unreal city' verse is very mechanical.

'A game of chess' Man talking to his imaginary woman, he's locked inside his own room, his own head. He's afraid to go outside.

'HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME' is an incessant reminder of something coming to an end.

The fire sermon - demytholigised landscape, disenchanted.

Soda was a remedial for veneral disease.

There is always a yearning for connection in the poem - but the connections always expound upon and increase the loneliness.