The Waste Land by T.S Elitot is not an ordinary poem at all. It is very complex to read and quite long to be a poem. So, that is why I’ll do my best to write about my understanding of the poem.
From the very beginning of the poem with the subtitle “the burial of the dead”, I got the impression that it would be a very dark poem. This impression was even assured when I read the first line of the poem which is “APRIL is the cruellest month”. Then, as I kept reading I realized that in the first paragraph there are some contradictory concepts. A clear illustration of so, is snow and sunlight.
Let’ remember that this is a contemporary poem which was first publish in 1992, so it is highly important to take the context into account in order to make a more suitable understanding. World War I had just finished a few years before and this absolutely impacted on the whole society. It is known that eight million people die more or less during the period of time this war lasted. Therefore, men and women became disillusioned or hopeless about their own futures and the nature of humanity.
I think that Eliot tried to evoke and share that feeling of uncertainty. As if life can be vanished all of a sudden. I believe this is a complaining about the kind of lifestyle that 20th century brought. Well, there must be hundred of way of analyzing this poem. What I know for certain is that it needs to be read carefully and with time to think it over.
From the very beginning of the poem with the subtitle “the burial of the dead”, I got the impression that it would be a very dark poem. This impression was even assured when I read the first line of the poem which is “APRIL is the cruellest month”. Then, as I kept reading I realized that in the first paragraph there are some contradictory concepts. A clear illustration of so, is snow and sunlight.
Let’ remember that this is a contemporary poem which was first publish in 1992, so it is highly important to take the context into account in order to make a more suitable understanding. World War I had just finished a few years before and this absolutely impacted on the whole society. It is known that eight million people die more or less during the period of time this war lasted. Therefore, men and women became disillusioned or hopeless about their own futures and the nature of humanity.
I think that Eliot tried to evoke and share that feeling of uncertainty. As if life can be vanished all of a sudden. I believe this is a complaining about the kind of lifestyle that 20th century brought. Well, there must be hundred of way of analyzing this poem. What I know for certain is that it needs to be read carefully and with time to think it over.
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