Waste Land Essay: Journey Through The Waste Land -- T.S. Eliot Waste L

T. S. Eliot drafted The Waste Land during a trip to Lausanne, Switzerland to consult a psychologist for what he described as mild case of nerves. He sent the manuscript to Ezra Pound for editing assistance. Between them the draft was extensively edited and print in 1922. As a modernist poet, Eliot struggled to remove the voice of the author from his work but the work is still a chiding of the authors interpretation. He paints the picture as he sees it for the readers to view and interpret from their own perspective. The Waste Land could be viewed as a chronicle Eliots difficult and not quite successful journey to confront his own unconscious or spiritual reality. Viewed psychologically, Eliots juxtaposition of scenes of sterility, fecundity, and sacrifice represents the speakers conscious knowingness of a sterile society, and his abortive attempt to experience the unconscious (Jones 22). Eliots depiction of a spiritually empty and lost society is a reflection of his inner search f or a life-defining spiritual faith. Eliots message is that modern man leads a very hollow and disconnected existence because he has accustomed his spiritual values in pursuit of material wealth. Eliot begins The Waste Land by bemoaning the fact that spring exudes false hope through its evidence of immature growth and destroys the numbness and warmth acquired during winters hibernation from life or feeling. The return of feeling brings renewed acknowledgment of the emptiness and barrenness of modern life. What Eliot wants to high spot is the pain of coming back to life (Torrens 24). He expresses the cause of the pain in the description of the stony and barren landscape in which there is no shelter and nothing can grow. Mans spirit can... ...aracter of his poetry after his conversion. Bottum however would argue that although he possibly found a in the flesh(predicate) faith he was never quite able to present that faith in his later works. What we encounter in his late poetry, how ever, is a profound cloudiness of faith with a brilliant and learned mans rational understanding that he needs to have faith (Bottum 23). Works Cited Bottum, J. What T. S. Eliot Almost Believed. counterbalance Things. April 1996. 21-6 Eliot, T. S. The Waste Land. The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces. 6th Ed. Vol 2. Ed. Maynard Mack. New York Norton, 1992. 1751-64. Jones, Joyce Meeks. Jungian Psychology in Literary Analysis A Demonstration Using T. S. Eliots Poetry. Washington D.C. University Press, 1979. Torrens, throng S. T. S. Eliot 75 Years of The Waste Land. America. 25 Oct 1997. 24-7.