Pessimism In The Waste Land

“The Waste Land” by T.S Eliot is considered, by many, to be the single most influential poetic work of the 20th century (“T. S. Eliot”). Eliot writes the poem at a pivotal time: World War I had just ended in 1918 and there was a movement towards post-theological thinking, otherwise known as the shift away from teleological idea: everything in the world has an intrinsic purpose. This post-theological cosmo finds itself at the center of this literary masterpiece, to which it invokes a profound sense of purposelessness and pessimism. When analyzing I. The Burial of the Dead, in specific, Eliot portrays his present day in a dreadful light, and instead reminisces about the past to cope with his fearsome uncertainty of the future.
Before the beginning

He begins the poem with an antithesis of Geoffrey Chaucer's prologue in The Canterbury Tale — this functions as a pointed and calculated allusion that casts a preferential light on past literary pieces. The first four verses of “The Waste Land” state, “April is the cruelest month, breeding / Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing / Memory and desire, stirring / Dull roots with spring rain” (Ferguson, et al. 1344 ll. 1-4). On the hand, Chaucer states, “Whan that aprill with his shoures soote / The droghte of march hath perced to the roote, And bathed every veyne in swich licour / Of which vertu engendred is the flour; (Benson ll. 1-4). Eliot uses enjambment to emphasize the dreariness of Spring, a traditionally optimistic season, but instead he provokes a reading that feels like a long drawn out list. This sense of dreariness also highlights the epitaph’s portrayal of present day life as a gruelling and seemingly never-ending prison. Also, the language and tone between both pieces varies, as Chaucer uses airy and playful phrases (“droghte of march hath perced to the roote” and “bathed every veyne in swich licour”) meanwhile Eliot’s choice of vocabulary transmits intense negative connotations (“cruelest”, “dull”, and “dead”). By playing off of Chaucer’s work, Eliot criticizes the post World War I society, by juxtaposes his dismal image of Spring with the fruitful image that Chaucer develops. In specific, Eliot portrays Europe as a dry wasteland where “the dead tree gives no shelter … / And the dry stone no sound of water” (Ferguson, et al. 1344 ll. 22-23). Furthermore, Eliot illustrates a visceral image of lilacs growing out of a dead land, which portrays the barrenness and infertility of this wasteland. To cope with the dreadful reality of the present world, Eliot finds solace in the past, and most