Timelessness of ‘The Waste Land’

Prepared by: Lajja BhattRoll no: 16 Enrolment No: PG13101003Sem IIIDepartment Of EnglishMaharaja Krishnakumarsihji University, Bhavnagar

‘The Waste Land’

• There are different lenses with which we can understand, elaborate and analyze the poem Waste Land.

• The Poem contains best collage work of words.• It Can be relevant in every time. The time

boundless makes the poem classic.• Themes , Myths, images of life, references from

different cultural rituals, Vedas and biblical references increase the density of the poem.

Theme• Themes are interwoven in the poems in

such a way that it gives beautiful and complex

design of the texture of the words.

• Themes are: Life in Death & Death in Life

Sexual perversion

Spiritual Draught

Life of Working People & vacuum

• Themes can be read independently as well as connectively.

Myths• Myths are stands for allegorical feature of the poem.• Myths are the stories from different culture, gives the

poem worldly connection.• Myths like: Sibyl’s Wish Tiresias Grail & Spear Philomela Tristan and Isolde Fisher King Phlebus- The Sailor Myth of vegetation

Images• There are also images, gives kaleidoscopic effect to the poem. • Collectively it gives a huge collage of the poet’s visualization

of the World.• Those images are: Image of Autumn, Image of Sodsotris & Cards, Image of a Lady’s dressing Room, image of The Bar Image of River Bank• These images are linked by the chief character of the poem

i.e. Tiresias

Universal Human Laws• Myths and rituals used in the poem are legitimized in it. • “the rituals (sexual sins) are illegitimated in epic

which is heavily drawn as modern day myth – the myth of decay, desolation and degeneration of human values, civilizations and cultures”

• Nostalgia, culture of living dead, past & future clash with present, eternity& fera of handful of the dust etc.

• These are universal truths with which poem is dealing, are successful to give universality to the poem.

Cinclusion• In the End of the poem, Da Data, Dvam, are the prayer of the Eliot for the worldly peace.• The five parts, myths themes of the poem are

interwoven as a nice piece of nucleus.• The narrator is the thread who brings together

the poem.• Thus the poem is overcome the boundaries of

the time place and culture.