Name-Pandya Riva mRoll no-23

Paper-9Topic-Myths in The Waste Land

M.K Bhavnagar UniversityDepartment of English

Thomas Stearns Eliot was a British essayist , publisher, playwright, literary and social critic and one of the 20th century’s major poet.

He born on 26 September 1888 and died on 4 January 1965.

The Waste Land is one of his long and famous poem of modernism. He shows his discomfort for modern life by contrasting it with medieval traits.

T . S Eliot

Myth is a traditional story especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining a natural or social phenomenon and typically involving supernatural begins or events.

Myth is a story that may or may not be true.The word myth comes from the Greek word

Mythos it means story or legend.

What is myth:

The Waste Land is a poem full of myths, illusion and imagery .

This is Eliot’s most famous poem of modernismIt is also full of real juxtapositions between past and

present. Or he shows the difference between the divinely religious medieval life which modern life lacks and fall in spiritual matters in modern life.

Eliot who believes that nothing can be done without any prior matter or substance , has written “The waste Land" with the help of many mythical and literary references .

He is a critic poet and he also use Hindu, Biblical and Christian myths in this poem.

Myths in "The Waste Land"

Myths

The fishe

rking

Holy Grail

The myth of vegetation is particularly based on the cycle of season.

The poem begins with,

“April is the cruelest month, breeding.”

Winter-Death

April-Re-birth

Rain- Life

This recurrent pattern has been taken over in the Christian myth in birth , fructification and resurrection of Christ .

Vegetation

Re-birth

Death

Life

Sibyl Sibyl is the most famous of the

sibyls the prophetic old women of Greek mythology but she never dies ,looks at the future and proclaims that she only wants to die.

She typifies the time woven soul’s desire to escape from the wheel of things like Nirvana , Moksha and Salvation.

The sibyl’s predicament mirror what Eliot see as his own , he lives in a culture that has decayed and withered but will not expire and be is forced to live with reminders of its former glory.

Holy GrailThe Holy Grail was legend is a

medieval legend associated with the adventure of king author and his knights of the round table.

The Grail was the dish, cup or vessel which caught the blood of Christ when he was pierced by a spear while hanging on the cross.

Grail was connected with the fertility myth as it witnessed by its sexual symbol but later on it suffered a sea- change through its association with Christ.

Tiresias Tiresias is a figure from Greek

mythology who is both male and female features and is blind but can see into the future.

Tiresias is represented as a bisexual in The wasteland. As he was blind but he has the gift of prophecy and immortality.

Tiresias serves as a unifying figure in The waste land linking the ancient and modern worlds or rebuilding a myth of unity in the modern world. His life is related with the past and present.

In this poem Tireseas reactivates his ancient role that of prophet.

He played a prominent part in Theban legends delivering prophecies to Oedipus the king of Thebes.

Fisher king The medieval waste land of the

fisher king a myth which is closely related with the Grail legend .The soldiers of king fisher ravished the nuns of the chapels . Perilous said to contain the Holy Grail and because of that king became impotent and his land suffered from famine.

The impotent of the fisher king was reflected in the land of which he was the ruler .It had become dry and barren the haunt and home of want and famine. One day the king of the pure soul came and solve riddle.

Eliot credits much of the structure of the waste land to Weston’s book. The waste land created by the fisher king’s wound serves as the central image of the poem.

Phlebas Phlebas is a sailor who

dies by drowning. Phlebas is an example of a

lack of spirituality, self ego, and what becomes of those who waste themselves.

His death represents spiritual death

His seemingly small role in death represents a greater picture of bringing life back to the wasteland.

Thus, Eliot uses these myths in his poem The waste land to comment on the modern world or to describe modern cultural emptiness within the context of ancient myths of a heroic quest that gives meaning to life.

Conclusion:

Thank you