Modernism In The Waste Land

Modernism , broadly , comprises the creations and the actions of those who realized that the conventional forms as art , literature , architecture , sciences , religious faith became old-fashioned in the modern industrialized world . Baldick stated that Modernist literature is characterized chiefly by a rejection of 19th-century traditions and of their consensus between author and reader ( 159 ) . This literary movement had its root in the late 19th-century and early 20th-century . T.S, Eliot , one of the modernist poets , had a great impact on English culture in the 20th-century . He wrote “ the waste land “ , one of the most famous and remarkable poems in the 20th-century . In fact , It is the longest , most brilliant , most complicated

The modernists headed for breaking the traditional format of writing and create a new one . Consequently , T.S. Eliot in his poem “ The waste land “ didn’t follow a particular form ; In the poem ‘ five sections , There were no constant length , meter or rhyme scheme . So , In the first section of the poem , There were four characters speaking not only one ; each one of them hold a fragmented image , and the language was fragmented as well ( the poem included languages other than English ) Which highlights the global nature at that time . Moreover , the first part of the second section was neither rhymed nor equal in length and meter , and the second part did not follow a systematic structure but a sequence of phrases linked by ‘ she said ‘ and ‘ I said ‘ . Furthermore , in the poem ‘ third section , there was a shift from the modern urban environment of ‘ unreal city ‘ to the ancient blind prophet ‘ Tiresias ‘ , thereafter to the contemporary urban environment of London . On the contrary , The fourth section of the poem was the most rhymed and organized section . Finally , in the fifth section , Eliot get away from exemplary poetic styles to try structures usually connected to philosophy and religion . Thus , Throughout the poem , fragmentation played two roles : a Theme and a technique

In “ The waste land “ , Eliot referred to The Bible , myths and works of old literature . “ With its fragmentary images and obscure allusions, the poem is typical of Modernism in requiring the reader to take an active role in interpreting the text “ ( Kuiper , Para 1 ) . The title of the poem is a reference to a myth called “ The fisher king “ which recounts a story about a king who get injured causing his kingdom to become waste ( barren ) . Throughout the text , Eliot referred to the works of Shakespeare , The Tempest ( Line 48 , 191 , 257 ) , Antony and Cleopatra ( line 77 ) , Hamlet ( line 172 ) and Coriolanus ( Line 417 ) . Furthermore , in “ The Burial of the Dead “ ( First section of the poem ) , Eliot referred to Richard Wagner ‘ Tristan und Isolade ( 19th-century composer ) ( Line 31-34, 42 ) , and in “ The fire sermon “ ( third section ) , Eliot referred to a song from his GÖTTERDÄMMERURG opera ( Line 266-291) . Moreover , Eliot referred to the works of Dante Alighieri ( Italian poet ) , Inferno ( line 62 – 65 ) , Purgatorio ( Line 293 – 295 , 412 – 415 ) in order to present the modern life as a place like hell . In addition , In “ the fire sermon “ ( Third section ) , Eliot referred to Tiresias ( a character from Ovid “ a Roman poet whose famous for his group of myths “ ) , But Eliot transformed The character into bisexual persona who see into the gloomy lives of present-day Londoners .