The Waste Land

ISBN 10 : 0791093611 ISBN 13 : 9780791093610

Editeur : Chelsea House Publishers, 2007

Synopsis

Perhaps the most written-about long poem of the 20th century, TS Eliot's The Waste Land is a cornerstone of the modernist movement and deals with what was then viewed as the decline of civilization. This title offers students a resource meant to deepen their appreciation of this work by investigating its innovative use of language and imagery.

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur

The first section of The Waste Land takes its title from a line in the Anglican burial service. It is made up of four vignettes, each seemingly from the perspective of a different speaker. The first is an autobiographical snippet from the childhood of an aristocratic woman, in which she recalls sledding and claims that she is German, not Russian (this would be important if the woman is meant to be a member of the recently defeated Austrian imperial family). The woman mixes a meditation on the seasons with remarks on the barren state of her current existence (“I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter”). The second section is a prophetic, apocalyptic invitation to journey into a desert waste, where the speaker will show the reader “something different from either / Your shadow at morning striding behind you / Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you; / [He] will show you fear in a handful of dust” (Evelyn Waugh took the title for one of his best-known novels from these lines).

Biographie de l'auteur

When T. S. Eliot died, wrote Robert Giroux, "the world became a lesser place." Certainly the most imposing poet of his time, Eliot was revered by Igor Stravinsky "not only as a great sorcerer of words but as the very key keeper of the language." For Alfred Kazin he was "themana known as 'T. S. Eliot,' the model poet of our time, the most cited poet and incarnation of literary correctness in the English-speaking world." Northrop Frye simply states: "A thorough knowledge of Eliot is compulsory for anyone interested in contemporary literature. Whether he is liked or disliked is of no importance, but he must be read." In 1945 Eliot wrote: "A poet must take as his material his own language as it is actually spoken around him." Correlatively, the duty of the poet, as Eliot emphasized in a 1943 lecture, "is only indirectly to the people: his direct duty is to his language, first to preserve, and second to extend and improve." (TPF)

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Chelsea House Publishers
• Date d'édition: 2007
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0791093611
• ISBN 13: 9780791093610
• Reliure: Belle reliure
• Nombre de pages: 117
• Éditeur: Bloom Harold
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible