A Critical Study of T.S Eliot’s – “The Waste Land“

Abstract

Eliot’s Career is more easily charted for though he has had more influence than Yeats and his work both as poet and critic marks much more distinctly a major shift in poetic taste and poetic practice, he has not Yeats range and diversity”. (David Daiches). He was influenced by Dante, Jules Laforgue and French symbolism. Eliot left America in 1914 and after a short stay in Germany, he settled in London the following years. He was assistant editor of ‘The Egoist’ and ‘The Criterion’ later he became the director of Faber and Faber. He was encouraged by Ezra Pond and his first publication was ‘The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock’ in 1915. The title is ironic for the middle aged. Prufrock, the speaker of the poem, shows himself timid. He remains trapped in a state of was hopelessness as social habit and consideration of his futility, overwhelm hi. His next work was ‘The Waste land’ published in 1922 dedicated to Ezra Pound.The poem is considered to be the centre of modernism. Eliot described himself as ‘classical in literature, royalist in politics and Anglo Saxon in religion.” “The waster land” was followed by poems 1909-25 which includes “The Hollow men”. The poems 1909-35 include “The Journey of the Magi” (1927). “Ash Wednesday” (1930) and his four quartets.