Ts Eliots Key to The Wasteland Essay Example for Free

Ts Eliots Key to The Wasteland Essay There is no question that fragmentation is an important motif throughout The Wasteland. The entire poem is an odorous potpourri of dialogue, images, scholarly ideas, foreign words, formal styles, and tones. The reader’s journey through this proverbial wasteland is a trying one, to say the least. Unless one is endowed with a depthless wealth of literary knowledge, Eliot’s cornucopia of allusions and overzealous use of juxtaposition may leave them in a state of utter confusion. Luckily, there is hope for the wearied reader. At the close of his poem, Eliot presents his readers with a small offering: â€Å"These fragments I have shored against my ruins†. This line, presented in the midst of seemingly nonsensical fragments, serves as a clue to Eliot’s intentions. Indeed, it is my belief that this line is the ultimate declaration of Eliot’s poetic project. Before I begin treating the aforementioned words as the magical key to unlocking The Wasteland, I believe it important to understand what they actually mean. What is speaker really saying in this infamous passage? There are two important dimensions to the line, one slightly more obvious than the other. Firstly, the speaker has something to proffer—fragments. So then, why are fragments—these illusive, nonsensical pieces of nothingness— something worthy of being shored? Secondly, the speaker is implying that, even in the face of madness or ruin, it is still possible to create art. Despite ruin, the speaker has a gift for the reader—fragments. So then, this leaves the reader with a burning question—why on earth are fragments something to be gifted? How can a fragment be seen as something of value, and what message was Eliot trying to convey to the reader through his use of these fragments? Firstly, Eliot used fragmentation in his poetry to demonstrate the chaotic, ruinous state of modern existence and to juxtapose a myriad of literary texts against one another. In Eliot’s view, the collective psyche of humanity had been completely shattered by the devastations of World War I and the decay of the British Empire. By collaging bits and pieces of dialogue together within one sprawling poetic work, Eliot was able to paint a vivid picture of the brokenness of humanity and the modern world. By barraging us with an onslaught of sensory perceptions, Eliot throws the reader into a state of confusion. Indeed, the first stanza of The Wasteland illustrates the point quite nicely: April is the cruellest month, breeding. Within the first seven lines of the poem, the reader is presented with a traditional, conventional poem that adheres to a set rhyme and meter. However, this feeling of normalcy doesn’t last long. Suddenly and without warning, the foreign, German words â€Å"Starnbergersee† and â€Å"Hofgarten† appear, robbing the reader of a sense of familiarity. Then, Eliot throws everything completely off-course in line twelve with the German phrase â€Å"Bin gar keine Russin, stamm aus Litauen, echt deutsch. † However, just as quickly as the poem dissolves into complete foreignness, it lurches back into the realm of convention. The above lines revert to a previous pattern with the use of â€Å"And I †, â€Å"And down †, â€Å"And when. † This return to convention seemingly restores a sense of order. There is a definite ebb and flow in The Wasteland—Eliot juxtaposes conventional poetic form with unconventional poetic form Likewise, he uses utilizes both the German and the English language. After the first few stanzas of the poem, readers are bound to feel jolted and somewhat overwhelmed by Eliot’s avant-garde poetic approach. Indeed, while reading The Wasteland, I myself am oftentimes overcome with the burning desire to scream heavenwards, â€Å"What on earth is going on here? † When I’m not grappling with incomprehensible German words, my mind is being twisted with oxymoronic, juxtaposed imagery. Fertility is tangling with death, tulips spring from dead earth, and winter is presented as a source of warmth—none of these images make any sense at all! To further the confusion, there seems to be a considerable lack of clarity throughout these opening lines. Despite my careful analysis, I am unable to draw a clear conclusion as to who is speaking and how many speakers are present! Not even twenty lines into the poem, and my psyche feels considerably damaged. However, I believe this—this damaged, broken feeling— is exactly what Eliot intended his readers to feel. Eliot takes his readers on a journey through the decay of the twentieth century. However, he doesn’t just tell them about it—he recreates the sensation within their minds. The meaning of the poem is not found in the words themselves—the meaning is found in the lack of apparent meaning. One of the aims of this poem is to make the reader feel confusion, feel conflict, and feel brokenness and cynicism. Instead of focusing on what the fragmentation means, it is beneficial to simply focus on the idea of fragmentation itself. The fragments and the chaos are a demonstration of brokenness. Another application of fragmentation in The Wasteland is to teach readers the importance of literary history. Eliot held a great respect and reverence for myth and the Western literary canon. Indeed, his work is packed to the brim with quotations and scholarly exegeses. Nearly every single line in The Wasteland echoes another academic work that is considered a canonical literary text. To illustrate just how dense The Wasteland can be, let us examine lines ninety-eight and ninety-nine from â€Å"A Game of Chess†: As though a window gave upon the sylvan scene 98 The change of Philomel, by the barbarous king 99 Just within these two lines, Eliot has referenced two important literary works. The words â€Å"sylvan scene† refer to Milton’s Paradise Lost, while the following line references Metamorphoses by Ovid. As you can see, you cannot throw a stone within The Wasteland without hitting an allusion. Even though Eliot makes his poem almost impossible to digest, he does throw his readers a bone by providing them with long, explanatory footnotes. These footnotes were written as an attempt to explain his references and to encourage readers to educate themselves by delving deeper into his sources. Because these echoes and references are presented to the reader as fragments, the text is almost completely inaccessible upon first read. Eliot very craftily provides readers with parts, rather than whole texts from the canon, forcing them to become active participants in the poem. If one is to truly understand what Eliot is saying, they must look to the canon! Another interesting technique employed by Eliot is his use of juxtaposition. Eliot takes fragments of literary and mythic traditions and mashes them up with scenes and sounds from modern life. As an example, let us examine the closing lines of the poem: London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down 426 Poi sascose nel foco che gli affina 427. Eliot goes from referencing a popular children’s song in line 426—â€Å"London Bridge Is Falling Down†Ã¢â‚¬â€to directly quoting The Divine Comedy in line 427. Line 428 mashes words from the ancient poem Pervigilium Veneris with the lines from nineteenth century Tennyson! So then, what is the point of this juxtaposition? It is my belief that Eliot was attempting to integrate the canon into contemporary poetry. He very careful inserted the most essential bits of the past into his modernist poem in an attempt at enlightening readers. The end result is a poetic collage thatserves as both a reinterpretation of canonical texts and a historical context for his examination of society and humanity. William Carlos Williams referred to The Wasteland as â€Å"the great catastrophe†. While I find it grim and depressing, I do not believe that it is entirely devoid of hope. In fact, I read the line â€Å"These fragments I have shored against my ruins† as a consolation of sorts.

Practical Cognition :: essays research papers

Practical Cognition Theories of Knowledge (Karl Marx) In his early years of writing, Karl Marx's ideas were similar to American Pragmatism, especially his ideas about epistemology. He defines truth in a pragmatic fashion and explains cognition in terms of practical needs of the human being. While some of his ideas were not followed to their logical conclusion, nor made sense, the fundamentals of his epistemology contain valuable ideas which can be viewed as furthering pragmatism as a respectable philosophy. His theory of cognition states that cognition is a biological function of the human which is used as a tool for his survival. Marx defines truth in a pragmatic way. The truth value of a judgement is due to the usefulness of accepting or rejecting the judgement. A statement is true if accepting it makes a positive difference or has a helpful influence and it is false if accepting it causes difficulty or dissatisfaction. The meaning of a statement is the practical result of accepting the statement. In general, then, the truth or falsity of a statement is relative, not only to the individual accepting or rejecting the statement, but also to the circumstances in which that person finds himself. Truth is relative, but Marx is not an extreme relativist (no one to be taken seriously is) because there is a constraint to how relative the truth can be; Humans are making the truth judgements, and humans have a common element, viz . their needs, which do not vary greatly between people. Humans are in contact with nature at a fundamental level. The human understanding of nature is a consequence of the fact that nature confronts humans when they try to fulfill their needs. This is the case with any organism, and each species reacts according to the tools of that species. One of the human tools is the intellect, and it works through the cognition of the perception of elements of nature. Cognition occurs as the organizing of sensory data into categories. Without the ability to make generalizations, man would not be able to think. Moreover, the human capacity to think is exactly the same as making abstractions about experience. There is nothing more to descriptions of the world than those abstractions. Details about the world are described only in terms of generalizations, for if there were a word for a specific detail unique to only one event, then that word would be nothing but a name -an abbreviation for the term, the specific detail x , unique to only this one event, y . The assimilation of the external world, which is at first

Great Fire of London

The Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept through the central parts of the English city of London, from Sunday, 2 September to Wednesday, 5 September 1666. [1] The fire gutted the medieval City of London inside the old Roman City Wall. It threatened, but did not reach, the aristocratic district of Westminster, Charles II's Palace of Whitehall, and most of the suburban slums. [2] It consumed 13,200 houses, 87 parish churches, St. Paul's Cathedral, and most of the buildings of the City authorities. It is estimated that it destroyed the homes of 70,000 of the City's 80,000 inhabitants. 3] The death toll from the fire is unknown and is traditionally thought to have been small, as only six verified deaths were recorded. This reasoning has recently been challenged on the grounds that the deaths of poor and middle-class people were not recorded anywhere, and that the heat of the fire may have cremated many victims, leaving no recognisable remains. The Great Fire started at the bakery of Thomas Farriner (or Farynor) on Pudding Lane, shortly after midnight on Sunday, 2 September, and it spread rapidly west across the City of London.The use of the major firefighting technique of the time, the creation of firebreaks by means of demolition, was critically delayed due to the indecisiveness of the Lord Mayor of London, Sir Thomas Bloodworth. By the time large-scale demolitions were ordered on Sunday night, the wind had already fanned the bakery fire into a firestorm which defeated such measures. The fire pushed north on Monday into the heart of the City. Order in the streets broke down as rumours arose of suspicious foreigners setting fires.The fears of the homeless focused on the French and Dutch, England's enemies in the ongoing Second Anglo-Dutch War; these substantial immigrant groups became victims of lynchings and street violence. On Tuesday, the fire spread over most of the City, destroying St. Paul's Cathedral and leaping the River Fleet to threat en Charles II's court at Whitehall, while coordinated firefighting efforts were simultaneously mobilising. The battle to quench the fire is considered to have been won by two factors: the strong east winds died down, and the Tower of London garrison used gunpowder to create effective firebreaks to halt further spread eastward.

The United States is a Nation of Immigrants Essays

Today the United States of America is regarded as a global economic leader. The standard of living in the U.S. is higher than that of most other nations. Our nation is considered an economic super-power. Economic needs have often caused Americans to seek immigrants as workers, and economic opportunities have attracted foreigners. The United States is a nation of immigrants. Our nation has been shaped by successive waves of immigrants who have played major roles in our changing economy. The overwhelming majority of immigrants who enter the United States come in search of jobs and a chance at a better life for themselves and their families. Economic immigrants come primarily from Europe, Asia and, most recently, Latin America. Many†¦show more content†¦Many of these immigrants settled in English colonies and our economy continued to boom. In the late 1700s, the American Revolution was fought in order to establish political and economic freedom from England. The spirit and determination of the American people once again paved the way for growth and posterity. Our young nation began to take its first steps toward establishing itself as a world power. In 1787, the Constitutional Convention was held. Among the topics discussed by our forefathers, sectional economic interests held a forefront in the discussions between the northern and southern states. The southern states, which were not as populous as the northern states, feared that giving congress the power to regulate trade might adversely affect their economy, based mainly on the export of tobacco, rice, and on indigo and slave trading. They demanded that legislation affecting commerce be enacted only by two-thirds majority votes, but they consented to eliminate this requirement when the northern states agreed to constitutional clauses prohibiting the federal go vernment from levying export taxes and from interfering with the slave trade before 1808. 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