ENG140Y1 Lecture Notes - Fisher King
Document Summary
Published in 1921/22, difficult time in england (economically, politically) Employment collapse after war, 5 million people unemployed, coalition (?) government. 10 million dead and much of western europe in ruins following great war. Much of countryside that poets/writers/musicians wrote about literally a wasteland. Wasteland, attempt to answer question from old man in poem two years earlier. Montage/collage of western literature, fragments from culture, broken up by war and reassembled in a frame, much like hart house stained glass window. Eliot wrote down ideas in journal as it came to him, fragmented poems. If we perceive world as order/assessable/meaningful, respond to art that is the same. If world in ruins, or perceived to be, respond to art in same way. Wasteland is product of its time, in form and message, reflected its time. World is a mess wrote a poem that is a mess. Eliot is a fan of pop culture, but not of democracy in politics or art.
