Alliteration In The Waste Land

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From reading Section V What the Thunder Said of T.S. Eliot’s riveting poem The Waste Land it is clear that it a complex yet the detail and material of the section adds to the mystery and depth of poem as a whole. Based on the form of the poem Eliot has chosen his techniques wisely, the use of alliteration and onomatopoeia give emphasise the feelings in useful manner. The structure seems to be quite consistent and although some of the stanzas and lines may vary in length, over all there does appear to be a constant flow in rhythm and flow. This poem contains very powerful imagery; the subject of religion is very prominent throughout the text, especially in Section V. The first part of the section immediately incorporates religion …show more content…

It is considerably longer than the section prior to it, Section IV which only has three stanzas and is quite brief. Although there is some variation, most of the stanzas are roughly the same length and the section is organised particularly well. Compared to Section III, The Fire Sermon, it is more structured. Repetition is quite strong in this section, words such as rock, water and mountains are emphasised over and over again. The words are also close together in some cases which further stresses the repetition. ‘If there were water and no rock if there were rock and also water and water a spring a pool among the rock if there were the sound of water only’ (Eliot). The repetition of the words also brings rhythm to the text, and although there is not a strict rhyming scheme the poem does tend to flow gently in some places rather than others. ‘If there were water we should stop and drink Amongst the rock one cannot stop and think’ (Eliot). Other languages such as French play a small part there are a few times when Eliot changes from English to another language to get his point across. This is not a new concept, this has been seen before and Kenner backs this up saying ‘‘Fragments quoted from several languages with no one present to whose mind they can occur’ (Kenner, 131) Eliot plays with musical techniques, quoting a well known nursery rhyme but only one line of it, where words

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