Eliot uses several myths in the poem by gaining inspiration from James Joyce’s Ulysses. Eliot makes use of myths from fertility cultsinterpreted by Jessie Weton, Sir James Frazer and others,Christian mythology and Greek mythology.He weaves the theme of both physical and spiritual barreness,decay,death,re-birth in the myths and in the modern world.His purpose is to link the predicament of man in the past and the present. According to A.G. George, The waste Land contains “A series of emotions and impressions of the poet which are expressed through the objective correlative of the mythical waste lands, a series of emotions and also impressions which originate in the Poet’s mind as he surveys human life in the present as well as in the past.” The …show more content…
He connects this myth with the legend of Holy Grail in Jessie L. Weston’s work From Ritual to Romance. It tells how a questing knight, Parsifal restores the fertility in the Kingdom which was barren due to the impotence of the ruler of the Kingdom known as the Fisher King. Eliot associates the myth of the Fisher King with the modern world where there is spiritual sterility or lack of faith in God that caused loss of values, frustration, hopelessness, chaos, aimless existence, domination of lust over love and so on which are also the outcomes of the First World War and the development in Science and technology. Eliot suggests that like Parsifal who searched for the Holy Grail and made the Kingdom of the Fisher King fertile, if modern man or woman search for spirituality, he or she will undergo a re-birth and find ultimate solutions to his or her problems. Eliot also draws a parallel between the legend of Holy Grail and the myth of Bhagirath who.....................Thus Eliot links the legend of Holy Grail. myth of Bhagirath and the modern world which is through the theme of …show more content…
Eugenides which is against the order of nature. Eliot fuses the Christian mythology, fertility myths and the myth of the Fisher King to depict the spiritual barrenness and the possibility of spiritual re-birth of modern man. Jesus Christ has died to wash away the sins of man. The image of fertility gods to enhance fertility of the land .Hanged god of Frazer.The barren land can be compared to the heart of modern man which is full of lust, selfishness, and immorality and so on. This sinfulness of man leads to suffering and spiritual death of man. Buddhism -suffering. In the poem the yearning of the inhabitants of the wasteland for water can be compared to the yearning of modern man for water of spirituality. Water symbolizes life, fertility and purification. By providing drowning images in the poem Eliot suggests that death by water is the death of sins in modern man if he seek the God which will pave the way for
For example, he describes its gloominess as a “fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat,” which demonstrates a dismal feel in an ironic fashion through the contrasting imagery associated with growth and freshness. This tone is further expressed by the “ashes grow[ing] like wheat into ridges… and grotesque gardens,” which adds to the dreariness of
Death is the ultimate unknown, will it bring sorrow or a feeling of fulfillment? This quandary of humanity is explored thoroughly in the poem “An Echo Sonnet” by Robert Plack. It details a speaker conflicted about his interest to continue living, since both options present a mystery in what they will bring to him. This internal dilemma is constructed through multiple literary devices that function to connect emotions of despair to the poem’s focus.. Specifically, the poem’s _________, ________, ________, and __________ work to express the aimlessness of the speaker by emphasizing the emotions the speaker has when he decides whether or not life will ever bring him happiness.
Eliot are distinctly dissimilar, the messages expressed through these two excerpts are the same. Lines 203-212 in act V scene i. of Hamlet and Lines 66-75 in section I of The Wasteland both reflect the idea of the speakers that our actions in life are futile. This universal theme that is expressed in both works tells us that we are all connected through
This line in the poem, is showing us how nature gives us insight into the meaning of life. In this case, the spring season demonstrates to us the mysteries behind the energy and beauty of youth, and how the blossoming of human life begins. This perceived interpretation is completely backed up by the overarching theme of life and death in this poem (Bryant). This theme being brought about by the overwhelming use of the romanticists tool, metaphor and association (Tóth). Life is not the only mystery, according to the poem, that is being unearthed by nature.
Thanatopsis by William Cullen Bryant is a Fireside poem about death. The central message throughout this poem is that death is an inevitable part of life that we should not fear, but embrace. The use of personification throughout the poem helps develop the central idea. Personification is the giving of human-like qualities to a non-human subject. In lines 1-3 Bryant uses personification “To him who in the love of Nature holds/Communion with her visible forms, she speaks/
In T.S. Eliot’s work “The LoveSong of J. Alfred Prufrock”, he uses diction to give an underlying meaning and tone to his poem in order to express the downfall of a man. The author uses his diction to give this poem Its tone as if he regrets what he did in life. He also shows great tone changes in this work, giving this poem a dramatic, almost tragic outlook. Many of his word choices also give his work an underlying meaning and adds to his theme and messages. A large part of his poem is also using metaphors to add to this underlying meaning and give more force to this tone he is trying to create.
The poet compared the graves like a shipwreck that is the death will take the human go down and drowning to the underground like the dead bodies in the graves. The last line “as though we lived falling out of the skin into the soul.” is like the rotting of the dead bodies. The second stanza there is one Simile in this
The characteristics of modernity are: pessimism, frustration, isolation, total sense of loss; modern writers had no sense of purpose, the anxiety of uncertainty, meaninglessness, no values and miscommunication. The Hollow Men (1925) is a poem written by T.S. Eliot. Its themes are, like many of Eliot’s poems, absurdity, fragmentation and overlapping, but it is crucial to connect this poem most with the World War 1 which caused the dark view since wars cause destruction and frustration. Moreover, the difficulty of hope and being optimistic. This poem is divided into five parts and consists of 98 lines.