Finding Peace in The Waste Land

T.S. Eliot’s 1922 poem The Waste Land has a reputation for being notoriously inaccessible. That reputation is not without merit, as the poem features more than a half-dozen different languages, references dozens of works of classical literature of diverse origins, and abruptly jumps between narrators in a stream-of-consciousness style. However, despite seeming impenetrable upon a first reading, the poem is not without meaning. A closer study reveals a poem which is rich in complex themes and motifs, although a definitive interpretation remains unattainable.

Some academics have pointed to the poem’s near pompous intellectualism as a means of “reader selection” by Eliot. Eliot, they say, did not want the masses to read his work, but instead wanted it kept to the narrow academic circles in which he roamed. Personally, I do not think that is true. While I certainly would not argue that Eliot was trying to write a bestseller, I think that the esoteric nature of the poem is merely a reflection of Eliot’s own life. While Eliot was always coy about the influence of his personal life on his poetry, the parallels were often hard to miss.

In the case of The Waste Land, the poem’s structure closely mirrors his life up to that point. As a young boy, Eliot suffered from numerous physical ailments which kept him indoors for long stretches of time. Reading became a solace for him, and soon turned into an obsession. During his adolescence, he attended the prep school Smith Academy, where he studied Latin, Greek, French, and German. He then went on to receive a bachelor’s and a master’s degree from Harvard, both in literature. After that, he studied philosophy at the University of Paris, before returning to Harvard again to study Indian philosophy and Sanskrit. By the time the war broke out in 1914, Eliot was a student at Oxford. Soon after, he moved to London and taught English at Birkbeck, University of London. It was around this time he met his first wife, Vivienne, and became friends with the poet Ezra Pound. After bouncing around positions for a few years, he left academia and joined the private sector.

By 1922, when he published The Waste Land, T.S. Eliot worked as a banker at Lloyd’s in downtown London, and commuted daily from his home in the suburbs. The city at that time, like much of Europe, was still cloaked by the inescapable shadow of The Great War. His marriage was remarkably unhappy, as Vivienne’s ill health meant that she spent much of her time under medical care away from home and, allegedly, developed an addiction to pain medications as a result, while Eliot, for his part, was said to be prone to heavy drinking and perpetual sullenness.

Against the backdrop of his life up to that point, it should hardly come as a surprise that he would produce a poem with the character of The Waste Land. Communicating through references to Petronius, Baudelaire, Buddhist scripture, and others allowed Eliot to distill into his poetry complex ideas and emotions spanning an entire literary canon. As Eliot himself put it, poets must be difficult in order “to force, to dislocate if necessary, language into his meaning.” The Waste Land serves as a prime example of this principle.

But just what meaning is the poem trying to convey in this dislocation of language? I will here present my own interpretation, aided by Eliot’s own footnotes on the poem, and by the interpretations of critics, scholars, and readers in the century since its publication.

The Waste Land is an elegy for the lost hope of a civilization, with a fleeting attempt to ask the question of how their former glory and optimism can be restored. It juxtaposes the Western traditions from antiquity through to the desolation of the post First World War landscape, with the decimated kingdom of the Fisher King from Arthurian legend. As in the myth of the Fisher King, Percival need only inquire as to why the kingdom is in ruins in order for its full restoration to be granted, so too does this poem attempt inquire on the state of Europe at the time, and London in particular.

The poem opens with an epigraph in Latin and Ancient Greek, and an inscription to Ezra pound, written in English and Italian. The epigraph contains a quote from Petronious’ Satyricon, which is translated as follows:

With my own eyes I saw the Sibyl at Cumae hanging in a bottle and, when the attendants asked her what she wanted, she replied, “I want to die.”

The Sibyl at Cumae was the priestess who delivered prophecies of the oracle there located. The story goes that the sibyl had been granted the wish of eternal life, but she did not ask for eternal youth, and as a result her body continually withered over the years and she was suspended in a jar. Eventually, she wished nothing more but to die.

One can easily draw parallels to the story of the sibyl and of the general feeling of people of London in the years following the Great War. The wishes of the people had been granted—the War was won, the British Empire reached the pinnacle of its territorial extent, and those still in London had obviously survived the conflict. And yet, like the sibyl, many had lost their will to live. PTSD from the war, then called shell-shock, was rampant; the economy of Britain was in tatters, suffering from high unemployment, stagnant growth, and deflation; grief for the roughly one million Britons that had been lost, was still raw.

With this epigraph, the tone is set for what is to come with the rest of the poem. Which leads us into the first of the poems five sections.

I. The Burial of the Dead

The poem begins with one of the most famous lines in twentieth century English literature: “April is the cruellest month.” This line is an homage to the opening of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, but with a far more bleak outlook. Whereas the Tales paints a picture of April showers bringing the world into bloom and beauty, The Waste Land begrudges the coming of spring and the rebirth it brings to the land. The land in this poem is dead, and ought to stay that way.

The optimism and growth which spring brings is unwelcome in the eponymous waste land. Spring “mix[es] [m]emory and desire,” after winter had covered the land in “forgetful snow.” In the waste land, the promise of growth and renewal only brings back memories of pain for what has been lost. In a world where the images of the ruins of the former front lines of the War would have been fresh in people’s minds, this sentiment would have been wholly understandable.

Following this opening about spring, the voice of the poem abruptly shifts into a conversation featuring an Austrian noblewoman named Marie, telling of how she spent her summers as a child. While its difficult to discern from the text itself, it is known from Eliot’s own account that the woman in question is Countess Marie Larisch, and that the content is taken mainly from actual conversations between himself and the countess. Marie Larisch is perhaps best known to history through her association with the Mayerling incident. It is possible to draw a line between the Mayerling incident and its effect upon the Habsburg dynasty, and the assassination of the crown prince Franz Ferdinand, which ultimately precipitated the outbreak of the Great War¹. This is also the first appearance of Vienna in the poem, which is one of several once-great cities mentioned by name in the poem.

The narrator then shifts again to what appears to be a conversation between a god-like figure and a man. The figure tells the man “you know only / A heap of broken images.” This heap of broken images could be said to refer to the poem itself and its fragmentary nature, featuring broken images of literature and culture, or of the state of Western civilization at the time, with its once thriving cities and culture in ruins. The setting for the conversation is a barren, dry, and rocky landscape, which appears to be the same setting as the final section of the poem, What the Thunder Said, depicting Emmaus, the biblical site of Christ’s resurrection.

After this, there is a conversation featuring a “hyacinth girl,” which is likely Eliot’s wife. What we can glean from this is not clear, but we do know from himself that his troubled marriage put him into the state of mind to write this poem.

The next stanza introduces each of the characters around which most of the rest of the poem will revolve. They are introduced the form of tarot cards by a fortune teller named Madame Sosostris. Much has been made of the use of tarot cards here, but from Eliot’s notes, it appears this was largely just intended to be a mysterious way to introduce the characters. The cards are also a reference Jessie Weston’s book From Ritual to Romance, from which much of the poems symbolism is taken—vegetation and agricultural rituals, the Arthurian legend and the Fisher King, and, also, tarot cards.

There are 5 characters introduced. The drowned Phoenician sailor, who features most prominently in the section Death by Water, as Phlebas. Belladonna, the lady of the rocks, who is featured having a frantic conversation in the second section, A Game of Chess. The man with three staves, which refers to the Fisher King of Arthurian legend. The one-eyed merchant, who is a merchant of currants from Smyrna named Mr. Eugenides. And finally the hanged man, who is the hooded figure that appears in Emmaus in the poem’s final section. As will be evident later in the poem, many of these characters blur together into one another, making it difficult to clearly discern each persona.

The Burial of the Dead finally closes with a scene on the Thames, crossing London Bridge on a weekday morning. The city is depicted as dreary and under a brown fog, as workers shuffle into their offices, presumably including Eliot on his way to Lloyd’s Bank. An allusion to the broken spirit of the city is made in the remark that “I had not thought death had undone so many.” On the bridge, the narrator encounters a man called Stetson, and inquires about the corpse he had planted in his yard. The corpse has failed to grow. The land has become a waste land, full of the corpses of fallen men, but unable to grow and experience the rebirth necessary to move on to a new generation. The concept of a dry and dead land, broken into fragments of its former self, and in desperate need of rebirth and resurrection, is the central theme of the poem. It serves as an allegory for the state of Europe at the time, whose long and rich Western culture has been shattered into fragments, and the land has been left in ruins and in need of healing and growth following the Great War.

II. A Game of Chess

This section of the poem consists of three distinct parts. First, a description of a woman seated in a throne-like chair and surrounded by opulent jewelry and decor. Second, a panicked and one-sided conversation between what seems to be a woman and her husband. And third, a conversation between a group of women in a pub.

The first part appears to have been a reference to Eliot’s own wife. The woman is surrounded by luxury, but yet is unable to enjoy it at all. This could be alluding to Eliot’s own feelings that he was unable to make his wife happy, no matter what he provided for her.

In the second part of the section, a woman is in discussion with her husband and seems to be distressed over the state of their lives. She opens by telling him “My nerves are bad tonight. Yes, bad.” However, the comfort and reassurance she looks for in this conversation is stifled by the man’s seeming inability to communicate, as the man does not respond to her. In her frustration, she inquires “‘Do / ‘You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember / ‘Nothing?’” The only response from her husband, which appears to be an unspoken thought, is “I remember / Those are pearls that were his eyes.” This appears to be a reference to the drowned Phoenician mentioned in the tarot cards, and featured in Death by Water. I think it is likely that this conversation is representative of a man suffering from shell-shock, and the frustration of her wife in dealing with his PTSD at a time when mental illnesses were a stigma. The man in this conversation is distant and detached, and her words only serve to remind of the death that he bore witness to. Such are the lives of those trapped in the waste land.

That brings us to the final portion of this section, which is the conversation amongst a group of women at a pub. It is closing time at the pub, as evidenced by the repeated interjections of “HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME.” The discussion mostly features one woman telling another, named Lil, that she needs to fix her appearance, before her husband returns home from his military duty. In particular, she mentions that she needs to fix her teeth and try to look younger. The woman mentions that she hasn’t felt like herself since the chemical abortion she had, after having five children already. The women then leave to left the pub close up.

The pub conversation is known to have been inspired by the conversations Eliot and his wife used to overhear at the pub themselves, as both took joy in eavesdropping. The content is likely meant to further indicate the cultural decay of Europe. Discussing the need for a woman to improve her appearance to keep her man, as well as openly discussing abortion, would likely have been viewed quite crass and improper to Eliot. Even today, the conversation remains a bit uncomfortable to read due to its invasiveness.

III. The Fire Sermon

The first thing to note about this section is the title. The “Fire Sermon” is translated name of a discourse given by the Buddha. In the discourse, the Buddha preached to monks about the liberation from suffering through the disenchantment of the mind from the senses. Thus, a hint is given that this section will likely examine the need for a liberation from suffering for those stuck in the waste land.

The section opens on the banks of the river Thames. The surrounding land is described as desolate and devoid of life. On the banks of the Thames sits a character that is likely Fisher King. As in Arthurian legend, the injured Fisher King sits alone while fishing, as the kingdom around him is laid waste.

There is then a couple of brief interludes featuring a Mrs. Porter washing the feet of her children, and then the aforementioned merchant of currants from Smyrna, Mr. Eugenides, who is in London and headed to a luncheon. The significance of these two events is not clear to me. However, this section does serve to link together many of the characters of the poem, so the sweeping nature of its narrator changes add to this effect.

Next, the poem shifts to a scene of an affair, as witnessed through the eyes of the blind prophet Tieresias. The figure of Tieresias, as has been noted by Eliot himself, is the most important personage in the poem, as all the other characters are linked together through the prophet. Tieresias is an aged and hermaphroditic figure, with wrinkled female breasts. This pretty clearly ties back to the Cumaean Sibyl from the epigraph, and also signifies that both the male and female characters of the poem are represented through Tieresias. As Eliot states, the men in the poem all blend into a single figure, just as the women blend together into one, and both are linked together through Tieresias. It has also been speculated by some that the figure of Madame Sosostris from the first section of the poem may also be an incarnation of Tieresias, as she herself has vision into the lives of all of said characters.

The witnessed affair itself is rather deliberately unromantic. It is night and a woman is alone in her home preparing a meal of tinned food and awaiting a guest. He arrives, and after their meal they make their way upstairs. Afterward, the woman is alone in her bedroom, happy that it is done and over with. This is yet another instance of the hollowness of life in the waste land.

The music playing from the woman’s gramophone then streams out the window and down the street along the Thames river. We drift with the music into a pub near the shore of the river, where a sea shanty is sung. The lyrics of the shanty were plucked from Eliot’s memory of some song he’d heard years before.

The poem then turns to the song of the three Thames-daughters, which are a play on the Rhinemaidens of Wagner’s opera. Just as the Wagnerian nymphs bemoan the loss of beauty on the Rhine, the Thames-daughters mourn the loss of innocence, represented here through the loss of virginity, each in their own decidedly unromantic way. As with all couples in the waste land, communication and affection is a struggle.

IV. Death by Water

This section of the poem is immediately noteworthy for being significantly shorter than the other four. In Eliot’s original manuscript, this section included a long description of a shipwreck, but it was pared down extensively on the advice of Ezra Pound. However, Pound insisted to Eliot that the section should still remain.

The section includes just a brief description of the shipwreck and drowning of Phlebus the Phoenician. Given the reference to the “ships at Mylae” in the first section of the poem, it is likely at the Battle of Mylae in the First Punic War that Phlebus drowned. His bones remain in a whirlpool at the bottom of the sea.

The death by drowning is significant because it contrasts with the desiccation of the land of the waste land. Water has the power to both give life, and to take it away. This forms a juxtaposition between the modern, dry land of Europe and the former glory of Western antiquity. However, even this former glory is not what it seems, as evidenced by the drowning. The bones of Phlebus remain at the bottom of the sea untouched, and without rebirth and growth in its place.

The linkage between the present and antiquity could be interpreted to extend beyond just the loss of the Western spirit, but also as a reinterpretation of much of the grandeur of classical antiquity. The connection between the First Punic War and First World War is made in the final line of the section: “Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.” One can wonder if in the aftermath of the celebrated battles of classical antiquity, like the Punic Wars, or the Greco-Persian Wars, the survivors were left in the same state of despair as those in Europe following the Great War.

V. What the Thunder Said

The poem draws to a close on a contemplative and uncertain note in What the Thunder Said. The motif of rebirth and healing is at the forefront of this section of the poem, as the possibility of restoring life and hope to the waste land is examined.

The scene is set in a rocky and dry desert, with the approach of a thunderstorm bringing rain with it. With it, the rain brings the promise of restoration of the dry, dead land.

We follow two characters through the desert on solemn journey. With them walks a shadowy third figure, the hooded man that represents the hanged man introduced in the poem’s opening section. This journey is meant to be an allusion to the appearance of the resurrected Jesus before two of the disciples on the road at Emmaus. There is then a reference to the decline of the major cities of Europe: “Falling towers / Jerusalem Athens /Alexandria / Vienna London / Unreal.” In this way, a hint is given that religion could provide a remedy for many of the troubles of Europe at this time. Eliot himself seems to have been inclined to this view, as his devotion to Christian faith was burgeoning at this point in his life, and continued to grow until he was rather devout in his later years.

In the middle of the desert is an abandoned chapel in the dark. This is in reference to the Chapel Perilous in Arthurian legend. The Chapel Perilous is a mysterious chapel located in the middle of the forest, encountered by those seeking the Grail. It serves as a test of the knights will and morals, with the chapel’s enchantress, Hellawes, providing them with tests ranging from seduction to fights with phantom knights. This suggests that to escape from the waste land, the characters must overcome their own moral and spiritual test of will.

The thunder then approaches the chapel, bringing with it the rain that is so desperately needed. It speaks a single syllable, DA, which is interpreted as three words, all from Sanskrit: datta, dayadhvam, damyata. These words translate to “give, sympathize, control,” and corresponds to the interpretation of the syllable by gods, demons, and humans, respectively. Eliot draws this thunder speech, and its interpretations, from a fable on the meaning of thunder from the Hindu text Brihadaranyaka—Upanishad.

Each interpretation of the word the thunder spoke is followed with a hint of a solution to escape the waste land. Datta suggests that the occupants of the waste land have given in too much too much to temptation and no amount of prudence can reverse the course. Dayadhvam is followed by the proposition that the key to escape the prison of the waste land lies in the revival of a broken Coriolanus, perhaps suggesting that, like Coriolanus sieging his home city of Rome, modern Europeans must make reckoning with their own institutions. Finally damyata draws back upon the sailor motif, implying that a righting of the ship is needed.

We now arrive at the closing stanza of the poem. The Fisher king sits upon the bank of the river Thames and asks the question “Shall I at least set my lands in order?” Evidently, the solution to heal the waste land has not yet been achieved. Perhaps, like with Percival, those trapped in the waste land, possibly including the reader, need first to further inquire on the problem in order to fix it. Another powerful line in the closing stanza is “These fragments I have shored against my ruins.” The fragments in question could refer to the poem itself and its fragmentary nature, with the ultimate purpose for the poem lying in its attempt to help reckon with the world as it stands.

The Waste Land draws to a close with another reference to Hindu texts written in Sanskrit “Shantih shantih shantih.” As Eliot notes, “shantih” is a formal closing to an Upanishad, and translates roughly to “The Peace which passeth understanding.” In this way we are left with a forward-looking impression that inner peace is still within reach for the souls stranded in the waste land.

1. The link between Marie Larisch, the Mayerling incident, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and the outbreak of World War I is tenuous, but it fits into the broader “hand of god” narrative in relation to the seemingly inescapable fate of the July Crisis. The link here is as follows: in the 1880s, Austrian Crown Prince Rudolf had an affair with baroness Mary Vetsera; the affair involved letters which were relayed by Marie Larisch; Rudolf and Mary agreed to a murder-suicide pact, and were found dead in 1889; this led to destabilization of the Habsburg monarchy, and Franz Ferdinand’s assumption of the title of Crown Prince. The fact that it was specifically Franz Ferdinand that was assassinated in 1915 was significant, as he was known for being the most moderate of the Habsburg family in his relations with Serbia. The fact that he was assassinated by a Serbian nationalist despite that led to greater outcry in Vienna, and provided a stronger argument for the pro-war faction. ↩︎