Honestly, Eliot would probably go red in the face if you dared ask him "Why should I care?" The whole reason he wrote this poem is because modern people just don't care about anything worthwhile, like great art or spirituality. What is The Waste Land About and Why Should I Care?
But no matter how weird things get, make no mistake: this is a very, very serious poem about a very serious subject: the decline of western culture and the beauty that this culture once possessed, back in the good ol' days of classic times. At one moment, you're a woman reminiscing about riding on a sled when you were young at another, you're staring at a dead sailor who's decaying at the bottom of the ocean. So basically, his message to readers was: "Hey, if you don't understand what I'm talking about in this poem, go to a library!" And now that we live in the age of Google, we really don't have any excuse for not understanding his references.Īpart from its obscure allusions, "The Waste Land" can be difficult to read because it constantly shifts between different speakers and scenes, often without warning. Which raises the question, why oh why would Eliot want his poem to be so hard to read? Well, like many writers of his time (so-called modernists), he felt that Western culture was headed to hell in a handbasket, and that people were getting dumber and dumber (it's a good thing he didn't live to see the days of Conveyor Belt of Love). The poem constantly shifts between different speakers without warning, and it's chock full of references to classic literature from cultures all over the world, many of which are more than a little obscure. Yep, there's no getting around it: "The Waste Land" can be one tough cookie to read. Maybe what Eliot should have been concerned about was penning a poem that's considered incomprehensible by many first-time readers the world over. wrote the poem to end all poems in 1922, he still had some confidence issues. Eliot pretty much used every one of these suggestions, and even dedicated the poem to Pound, calling him " il miglior fabbro" in the inscription, which is Italian for "the better craftsman." So yeah, even though T.S. handed the thing over to his buddy, Ezra Pound, who slashed a ton of material and made extensive editing suggestions. In its original draft, the poem was almost twice as long as the published version. Eliot's "The Waste Land" has been called "one of the most important poems of the 20th Century" and it might actually be one of the most important poems ever. Want more deets? We've also got a complete Online Course about The Waste Land, with three weeks worth of readings and activities to make sure you know your stuff. Eliot's The Waste Land: Poem Study Guide Introduction
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