The Waste Land, and Other PoemsWhile recovering from a mental collapse in a Swiss sanitarium in 1921, T. S. Eliot finished what became the definitive poem of the modern condition, one that still casts a large and ominous shadow over twentieth-century poetry. Built upon the imagery of the Grail legend, the Fisher King, and ancient fertility cults, "The Waste Land" is both a poetic diagnosis of an ailing civilization and a desperate quest for spiritual renewal. Through pastiche and collage Eliot unfolds a nightmarish landscape of sexual disorder and spiritual desolation, inhabited by the voice (literary, historical, mythic, contemporary) of an unconscious that is at turns deeply personal and culturally collective. This edition includes "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," "Portrait of a Lady," "Gerontion," and more. |
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arms beat birth blue bones Book bright bring broken brown build Church City coloured CRITICISM darkness dead death door drop dying Edition empty eyes face fall feet flow forget garden gives glad Golden hair hands head heard heart hope to turn hour HURRY journey jug jug King knowledge known Lady light lines live London look Lord lost meaning meet mountains moved night once poem pray rain Ritual to Romance river rock sang season seen Selected shores silence singing sister sleep smell song sound speak speech spring stair street Sweet T. S. Eliot Talking thank Thee things thought thunder Tiresias trees turn violet voices wait walk Waste Land whispers wind window wings winter woman women word worth