The design of The waste land / Burton Blistein.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Blistein, Burton.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Eliot, T. S. (Thomas Stearns), 1888-1965. Waste land.

Eliot, T. S.

Physical Description:

xli, 405 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Lanham : University Press of America, [2008]

Summary:

The Design of "The Waste Land" offers a detailed, comprehensive explanation of T.S. Eliot's enigmatic poem. It relates The Waste Land to earlier and later poems by Eliot, demonstrating that the major poems describe a continuous spiritual odyssey or quest undertaken by the same individual, initiated by the moment of ecstasy in the Hyacinth garden.

Blistein's analysis of Eliot's sources reveals that the protagonist's glimpse of "the heart of light" is equivalent to drinking from the Grail, or communing with God. The incarnate deity momentarily transforms the Hyacinth garden into the likeness of the Edenic paradise. With the inevitable passing of the moment of communion, the protagonist in effect is expelled from the paradisiacal garden as mankind was from Eden. By contrast, the familiar world appears to him a wasteland. The protagonist seeks to drink again from the divine Source and return again to the garden as it was when transfigured by the divine presence. His is a quest for grail and homeland.

Contents:

Abbreviations of texts frequently cited ix

Chapter 2 "The Burial of the Dead" 19

I "This is the land. We have our inheritance." 19

II "The heart of light" 34

Chapter 3 Excursus 1: Dans le Restaurant; Gerontion; Burbank; A Cooking Egg 51

Chapter 4 "And after this our exile" 89

I "Madame Sosostris" 98

Chapter 5 Excursus 2: Marina; La Figlia che Piange; Sweeney Erect 109

Chapter 6 "Birth, and copulation, and death." 131

I "Unreal City" 134

II Excursus 3: "Grishkin is nice" 147

Chapter 7 "A Game of Chess" 157

I The Siren 157

II "The hot water at ten" 165

III "Rats' alley" 173

IV "A woman runs a terrible risk" 174

V Check Mate 178

VI "They'll remarry ..." 180

VII "Memory and desire" 188

VIII "Waiting for a knock upon the door." 192

IX "Hurry Up Please Its Time" 196

X "He Do the Police in Different Voices" 202

Chapter 8 "The Fire Sermon" 207

I Polyphemus 207

II "But at my back" 215

III "Bones cast in a little low dry garret" 225

Chapter 9 Excursus 4: "a cannibal isle" 229

Chapter 10 "The bloody flesh our only food" 239

I "London, your people is bound upon a wheel!" 241

II Tiresias 246

III "The yellow fog" 251

IV Heart of darkness 256

Chapter 11 "Death by Water" 285

Chapter 12 "What the Thunder Said" 299

I "The Son of Man is crucified always" 299

II "The Hanged Man" 309

III "The desert in the garden the garden in the desert" 323

IV "Give, sympathize, control" 334

V "In my beginning is my end" 356

VI "In my end is my beginning" 363.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 375-380) and index.

ISBN:

0761841385

9780761841388

OCLC:

243545933