ENG140Y1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: The Waste Land, Dancehall, Apocolocyntosis
Document Summary
By 1918, the countryside of europe which had been a source of inspiration for artists for millennials had become a literal wasteland . Eliot tries to answer: after such knowledge, what forgiveness? . Contains fragments: overheard dialogue, borrowed from other authors. A montage, bits and pieces of culture broken by war and reassembled. The stained glass windows at hart house each tell one single story from the war; eliot"s poem is like smashing those windows and putting the pieces together in a collage. Unlike prufrock , there are many voices in the poem. Eliot liked to write in pieces, not in one sitting. Art reflects life: the world was in ruins, so people"s response to it was a reflection of that disorder. We can only say that it appears likely that poets in our civilization, as it exists at present, must be difficult.
