Questions, Resources and General Banter - The Waste Land

[Traveller]

Oops, ok, I left my computer after my last post, so quite a bit of catching up here. In many of your posts you people have already expressed the first part of what I had meant. I will quote these:

Bill wrote: "People were used to conventional narratives and conventional forms. They still are. They're used to conventional story-telling with beginnings middles and ends. No one needs instruction in these forms."

Laurelle wrote:"That's a good point, Bill. Even a child expects a beginning, middle, and end.

Ok, so you actually all agree with me, that the traditional ways of reading, viewing art, or listening to music, that were in place pre-1870, is what "people are used to" and that 'even a child' with no formal education can appreciate the traditional stylistic conventions, which we affectionately call "realism". (Although in the formal history of literature, "realism" in English literature, anyway, only started to take root around the time of George Eliot, who formally attempted to write 'realist' fiction.)

So when I talk about 'realism' it is in the broad sense of 'traditional, pre-modern forms of art', as regards to form and structure, (not content, since early aesthetic objects in the Western cultural heritage often depict mythological content).

Now, to explain why I think that there's a bit of irony in the appreciation of a lot of the modern, modernism and post-modern movements such as surrealism, cubism, fauvism and post-structuralism. Well, perhaps this would be easiest to explain using images regarding the history of art.

But before I get to the irony bit, I'll interweave my ideas about the NC approach with my pre-amble to the ironic aspect of movements that protest against traditional form, structure and style.

So, also for background to my argument re NC, I'll re-iterate a bit of the history of Aesthetics, which I'm sure you're all familiar with already:

The revolution against what we know as "realism" in art, ('realism' being paintings that attempt to depict the forms, shapes and colors of the depicted objects in as realistic a fashion as as possible), formally started in France with Claude Monet when he did a painting in 1872, which he called "Impression: Sunrise" in which Monet attempted to capture his impression of a sunrise through the abstract use of color and blurred outlines.

Other painters like Degas, Renoir, and Cezanne soon followed with works that strive to capture the essence of the subject, rather than its details.
From then on, art was never quite the same again.

Per Wikipedia:" Radicals in their time, early Impressionists violated the rules of academic painting. They began by constructing their pictures from freely brushed colours that took precedence over lines and contours, following the example of painters such as Eugène Delacroix."

By recreating the sensation in the eye that views the subject, rather than delineating the details of the subject, and by creating a welter of techniques and forms, Impressionism became a precursor of various styles of painting, including Neo-Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Fauvism, and Cubism"

So basically, painters were starting to say that they wanted to break free from the strictures of realism and traditional structure, style and form. Painting was in part given this freedom due to the rise of the technology of photography, which freed painters from the 'duty' to create realistic portraits and depictions, since such details could now be captured on film instead.

The whole idea of Fauvism (Matisse) , expressionism (Munch)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The... ), cubism (Picasso, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pic... ), neo-plasticism (Mondrian http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mon... ) and so forth, is therefore that the focus shifts to the painting itself, rather than 'what it is depicting' similar to saying that one should focus on the text, rather than what it is depicting or what was intended by the author.(The latter being a tenet of Formalism in literature).

Now, if you take a child to an art gallery, and you show him this picture: http://download.agefotostock.com/foto... , He's immediately going to 'understand' what it is, isn't he? But if you ask him about the Picasso painting of musicians I linked to above, he's going to struggle a bit more.

I asked two children, aged 7 and 10, who have had some background in musical theory, to tell me what they thought of the Picasso, while hiding the name of the piece.

10 year old: " Hmmmm, weellll, it's got shapes..." ; when prompted more: "It's an office" when prompted more: "A musical office!"

The 7 year old immediately pulled a wry face and proclaimed; "Weird!" When prompted more: " An old man with a beard" and prompted more: "Something to do with music!"

They understood that it was something to do with music, only because they are familiar with the Western way of notating notes, and with the way certain western musical instruments look like - so they already have some prompting regarding the background and context of the painting. I'm pretty sure though, that a child who has never see these musical instruments or way of notating musical notes before, wouldn't have made the "music" connotation. So, IMO, it does help to know some of the context and background regarding many aesthetic objects, unless there is really very little allusion, and it depicts something very direct and basic, such as "a red square". A red square is a red square to everybody and will be, even if the artist was thinking about Moscow when he/she painted a red square.

So, I only to some extent agree with the NC approach, which would say that one has to deal with the aestehtic object as an object alone, and not the intention of the artist; - I agree only to the extent that I agree that the artist's intent, which was "Three musicians" does not invalidate that someone saw "an office" or "an old man with a beard" in the picture, even if what they 'see' does not agree with the artist's intent.

When I showed the children this picture, http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia... , they could vaguely discern something like a violin, but the candlestick was totally lost on them, and so was it on myself, until I read the title, (the artists' intent), and only then did I realize that there's supposed to be a candlestick hiding in there somewhere.

If I showed you this picture: http://cache2.artprintimages.com/p/LR... , but I didn't tell you the name of the work, would you have known that it was a homage to Alfred Gockel?.. so wouldn't you say that the artist's intent, in the case of the 2 paintings linked to above, does to some extent help in your experience of these images?
Sometimes when we get to pure abstract art, the viewing of the painting is in line with what the author (artist) intended, which is purely just an experience of colour, texture, line, shape etc.
...but very often, not knowing the author's intent, takes away much of the value of what an aesthetic object can hold for us, even with 'realistic' depictions. Example: http://www.sai.msu.su/wm/paint/auth/b...
If you didn't know the title of the painting, what you would see, is a naked woman standing in a shell next to water, with people and cherubs attending to her. If you knew the title, but nothing about Greek & Roman mythology, you would be slightly wiser, but the painting would suddenly have a lot more value for you, if you did know who 'Venus' is supposed to be and then were told the title, (the artist's intent, and what influenced him culturally) .

Back to the realistic depiction of musicians I linked to earlier. If you worked with the painting alone, you would see a congregation of cherubic looking individuals in classical looking robes, sitting around with musical instruments, and you would perhaps wonder who they were, and for whom they were going to play their instruments. But if I told you a bit of the background, and the painter's intent, being: "One of a number of realistic paintings of half-length figures painted in Rome for aristocratic patrons. It is an allegory of music. Cupid, who is always in the company of music Vasari, is shown at left with a bunch of grapes, because music was invented to keep spirits happy, as does wine Ripa. ", doesn't that enrich your experience of the painting, and make you look at it again, and see new things in it?

And now for the irony bit: like Bill and Laurelle said, when we are working with an aesthetic object that follows conventional form and structure, ": "People were used to conventional narratives and conventional forms. They still are. They're used to conventional story-telling with beginnings middles and ends. No one needs instruction in these forms."
and; " Even a child expects a beginning, middle, and end.
But when we are dealing with experiments in form, content and structure, like "The Waves" or to a lesser extent: "The Sound of Fury" or James Joyce's "Ullysses" or the works of Picasso, Mondrian and Kandinsky, there are bits in these aesthetic objects that confuse us a bit, because we expect ' a beginning, middle, and end. '

So, a person with very little formal education, let's say a person in grade 6 or 7 who grew up in the heart of Africa and had no formal introduction to Western Modern, Modernist and Postmodern etc. movements, would put a book like "The Waves" down in confusion after a few minutes. You would need to explain to him or her that the work is an experiment in form, and that they need to keep going a bit and will eventually catch on to the idea of how things work in the novel, and that it actually is a novel. (Which they would come to see if they only carried on long enough).

In James Joyce, the lack of delineation between different characters' dialogue is initially confusing, before you get to know who the characters are. (And, in addition, if there was no value in knowing anything about the author and/or the context of a text, there wouldn't be pages and pages and pages of extraneous text dealing with the novel, including pages of discussion right here on GR.)
The Sound of Fury is rather disorienting before you find out that the initial narrator is an intellectually challenged person. People think ee cummings needs to learn about punctuation, before they find out that he purposely shunned punctuation. People need to know that Picasso's work purposely distorts the visual planes of perception, otherwise they make comments like: "This guy doesn't know how to paint. Look how out of proportion his figures are."

So the irony is that all these people belonging to movements that challenge traditional ideas of form and structure, who say that realistically proportionate structure and punctuation and realistic depictions of shape and colour is not necessary for the value of and appreciation of an aesthetic object, receive a cold shoulder from that portion of the viewing/reading public who do not have any prior introduction to the philosophy behind these works, of the fact that they deliberately breach the traditional conventions. In painting, works such as these are supposed to be more immediately accessible to people on a gut-level, on an instinctual and sensory level. And yet, if people are not instructed that this was the intention of the artist, they tend to shun these works because their initial, intuitive expectation is that of a realistic picture, or, as Laurelle put it, ' a beginning, middle, and end. ' .

[Whitney]

Traveller wrote: "works such as these are supposed to be more immediately accessible to people on a gut-level, on an instinctual and sensory level. And yet, if people are not instructed that this was the intention of the artist, they tend to shun these works..."

Thank you, good clarification. Irony understood.

[Bill]

Traveller,

1) I understand there might be irony in that one must "learn" to look at painting just for a gut reaction rather than a representation. Of course, that assumes a simple gut reaction in the absence of a subject is a simple response. I'm not so sure it is, but that's another discussion.

2)I don't think the New Critics -- and I'm not an expert here -- EVER suggested that relevant historical and cultural information couldn't be brought to bear. For example, The Faerie Queen begins "A gentle knight was pricking on the plaine" -- and it's important to know that "pricking" means "riding". At some point, people will have to gloss things like "the Great Depression" or the Rwandan genocide.

And it's useful to know that when Lydia (?) in "Pride and Prejudice" says things are "fun" she is a using a new slang word and her frequent use of it suggests vacuity, like someone in the 1960s saying "Oh Wow" all the time.

I do think they would say the meaning of the poem has to be found in the text of a poem.

The "intentional fallacy" has nothing to do with any of that. It simply means that an author's interpretation of a poem is not privileged. First of all, it may simply be wrong. Author's don't always know what they're doing.

Imagine a conference with an editor before publication where the editor says, "What's going on in Chapter II." The author explains. The editor says, "No one is going to get that. You haven't said that at all."

Second, it may be a very reasonable interpretation but there may be other more interesting and profound interpretations.

And it's only relevant to an argument about interpretation. As I said, you can't say that "The Waste Land" is about the joys of sunrise just because Eliot said so. (He didn't, of course.) You have to justify an interpretation with what's going on in the poem. You may agree with an author's interpretation, but you'll still have to justify with reference to the text. His notion is not evidence.

Now I've read and reread "The Waste Land" quite a lot in preparation for the read, and I've also read about the sources of allusions, some biography and critical literature.

I've been looking for a way in. I think there are helpful ways to look at the poem. But I think "answers" in your sense of the word -- exactly why the poem is structured as it is, for example -- do NOT exist.

[Traveller]

Whitney wrote: "Irony understood. ."

I'm very glad... I would have been sad if, after all that, there was still a lack in communicating my own authorial intent in my little 'essay' above
... :P

@ Bill. I agree with most of what you say. That's why I said I prefer an eclectic approach, that fits, moreover with the style and context of the specific text. We do know that there's a lot of allusion in The Waste Land, so I'd like to at least have some background on what he was alluding to.

..and it's probably just a personal quirk of mine, wanting to know more about an author and where he or she is coming from, I agree its not essential to appreciating the text, though I do believe it can in many cases enrich the text. Anyway, I guess I rambled on enough in previous posts already.

I just want to mention though, that although the new critics probably didn't intend to say that "relevant historical and cultural information couldn't be brought to bear", they did say a lot of what is summarised in the paragraph I quoted below:

(NC is:)
"A literary movement that started in the late 1920s and 1930s and originated in reaction to traditional criticism that new critics saw as largely concerned with matters extraneous to the text, e.g., with the biography or psychology of the author or the work's relationship to literary history. New Criticism proposed that a work of literary art should be regarded as autonomous, and so should not be judged by reference to considerations beyond itself. A poem consists less of a series of referential and verifiable statements about the 'real' world beyond it, than of the presentation and sophisticated organization of a set of complex experiences in a verbal form ."

- I shamelessly copied and pasted that from this nice-looking site: http://www.kristisiegel.com/theory.htm

Now, to me, if I read Eliot's poem, it doesn't seem like an experience to me rather than it seems like a bunch of allusions.

But maybe you (Bill) can fix that perception for me. :)
And I think I know what you mean by answers don't exist, but we'll see when we get to the discussion, I guess...

[Jim]

Traveller wrote: "The revolution against what we know as "realism" in art, ('realism' being paintings that attempt to depict the forms, shapes and colors of the depicted objects in as realistic a fashion as as possible), formally started in France with Claude Monet when he did a painting in 1872, which he called "Impression: Sunrise" in which Monet attempted to capture his impression of a sunrise through the abstract use of color and blurred outlines."

The revolution began a decade earlier with the work of Edouard Manet. In particular, his 1863 painting The Luncheon on the Grass (Le déjeuner sur l'herbe) was the first major shot fired at the Academie des Beaux-Arts. This painting created a big stir and paved the way for the impressionists, including Monet, to challenge and overtake the realism of Courbet, the romanticism of Gericault, and the neo-classical work of David.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Man...

T.J. Clark published an excellent book about this period in art history:
The Painting Of Modern Life: Paris In The Art Of Manet And His Followers

[Traveller]

Jim wrote: "Traveller wrote: "The revolution began a decade earlier with the work of Edouard Manet. In particular, his 1863 painting The Luncheon on the Grass (Le déjeuner sur l'herbe) was the first major shot fired at the Academie des Beaux-Arts. This painting created a big stir and paved the way for the impressionists, including Monet, to challenge and overtake the realism of Courbet, the romanticism of Gericault, and the neo-classical work of David.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Manet,...

T.J. Clark published an excellent book about this period in art history:
The Painting Of Modern Life: Paris In The Art Of Manet And His Followers
"

Sure, I won't disagree with you on the details. Its been a while since I did art history...

I was going to mention Manet, then I decided to google the Impressionists, before saying anything specific, and interestingly, according to this Wikipedia page, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impressi... Manet never formally called himself an "Impressionist", in spite of his close association with them, and in spite of his paving the way for them.

So, since, for me, the revolution kinda started with the Impressionists, I just went with Impressionism in general, though you are of course correct regarding The Luncheon on the Grass (Le déjeuner sur l'herbe) .

I do so love the Impressionists, don't you?
To me in spirit at the very least, Manet was one of them. He is certainly included in many impressionist summaries and collections.

I'll look up the book you mentioned, thanks for the rec.

[Bill]

Traveller,

I was in school during the height of the New Criticism. As a practical matter, it meant defending an interpretation with reference to a text. You didn't get to say "I got the feeling that..." or "The author said in his letter that..." You did have to support your interpretation with a close reading of the text.

Now exactly what "an autonomous art object" is can be debated and what different individuals might have accepted as theoretically proper would require my reading a great deal more source material on the New Criticism as well as the particular kind of criticism they were complaining about.

However, I did recommend the Norton edition because it not only explains the references BUT gives you the source material. In other words, it won't only explain the reference to a Baudelaire poem -- it will print the Baudelaire poem. I definitely think you should read the allusions.

That is not to say the meaning of the poem is in the allusions.

And as said, I went to the allusions, biography, criticism, etc. as well as frequently rereading the poem -- and I'm still doing it.

What started this was my comment that the play "Tom and Viv" -- and I suspect the movie made from it -- isn't a help as a way into "The Waste Land". That's not because, on principle, it wouldn't be. The reason is I don't think that play, in particular, is helpful.

[Traveller]

Gotcha Bill.

Tom was such a devil. He must be laughing at us all from the other side of the grave, trying to figure out this darn poem of his. :|

Although, I think he was expressing a lot of what he felt, which isn't all too pretty, so possibly he wouldn't actually be laughing. :(

[Bill]

Actually, I was going to avoid the art discussion, but

1) "Impression: the Rising Sun" is a painting by Monet, whose title a critic used to name the "movement".

2) Impressionism is not anti-realist -- it's about the catching the exact movement of light at an instant of time, which isn't the way we remember what we see. We remember averages of what we see. Past memories of objects influence us and organize the world.

3) Translate Manet's painting as "Lunch on the Grass". It's aboslutely accurate -- déjeuner simply means lunch. And it's funnier -- and Manet's painting is above all funny. It's a direct allusion to Titian's "Fete Champetre" but Manet put the men in modern dress. To imagine the effect, put the men in contemporary business suits. Or imagine a painting of an office meeting where the women are unaccountably nude just because the artist felt like painting nudes.

[Liz]

I'm reading this poem in 'The Norton Anthology of English Literature'. Does anyone know if this is the same as the Norton Edition?

[Bill]

The poem will be the same as the Norton Anthology but the Anthology has only the poem.

The Norton Edition is entirely devoted to the one poem.

The point of the Norton Edition is that it has extensive footnotes (not just Eliot's -- pages and pages -- and when there's an allusion it not only shows you the reference but will sometimes print the entire poem.) Then there are additional supplementary materials.

The whole book is devoted JUST to that poem.

[Rachel]

Just now starting my Norton Anthology reading of the poem (Norton Critical is on the way.) I am so excited! And I really appreciate the clues, resources and especially, as one who got no farther than English-major wannabe, the above discussions on critical theories and interpretation.

(And Jim, I really like that Clark book. Have you readOlympia: Paris in the Age of Manet? I cannot tell a lie; it greatly enriched my Manet experience. Although perhaps her propensity for hanging around in the buff may provide artifactual evidence of Victorine's career path...)

[Jim]

Rachel wrote: "And Jim, I really like that Clark book. Have you readOlympia: Paris in the Age of Manet? I cannot tell a lie; it greatly enriched my Manet experience. Although perhaps her propensity for hanging around in the buff may provide artifactual evidence of Victorine's career path..."

I'll have to look check it out. Manet's Olympia was a very high-impact painting that literally changed the Paris art world. By contrast, here's what won the prize at the Paris Salon during that time

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:186...

This painting and Olympia are hanging about 100 meters apart in the Musee D'Orsay, but are much further apart in every other way.

Manet, Zola, and others definitely laid the ground work for 20th century Modernism.

[Jim]

I came across this interview with Eliot in the Paris Review from 1959:

http://www.theparisreview.org/intervi...

Two quotes caught my attention:

I wonder what an “intention” means! One wants to get something off one's chest. One doesn't know quite what it is that one wants to get off the chest until one's got it off. But I couldn't apply the word “intention” positively to any of my poems. Or to any poem.


and while discussing the differences between writing poems and plays:


I see the later Quartets as being much simpler and easier to understand than The Waste Land and “Ash Wednesday.” Sometimes the thing I'm trying to say, the subject matter, may be difficult, but it seems to me that I'm saying it in a simpler way.
The other element that enters into it, I think, is just experience and maturity. I think that in the early poems it was a question of not being able to—of having more to say than one knew how to say, and having something one wanted to put into words and rhythm which one didn't have the command of words and rhythm to put in a way immediately apprehensible.
That type of obscurity comes when the poet is still at the stage of learning how to use language. You have to say the thing the difficult way. The only alternative is not saying it at all, at that stage. By the time of the Four Quartets, I couldn't have written in the style of The Waste Land. In The Waste Land, I wasn't even bothering whether I understood what I was saying. These things, however, become easier to people with time. You get used to having The Waste Land, or Ulysses, about.

Hmmmm....

[Traveller]

Jim wrote: "In The Waste Land, I wasn't even bothering whether I understood what I was saying. These things, however, become easier to people with time. You get used to having The Waste Land, or Ulysses, about.
.."

OMG... if Eliot himself didn't understand it, how the heck are we supposed to...? :P It just shows you how open a text is to interpretation.

[Jim]

Traveller wrote: "OMG... if Eliot himself didn't understand it, how the heck are we supposed to...? :P It just shows you how open a text is to interpretation. ..."

By the time he did this interview, TWL had been subjected to nearly 40 years of scrutiny and criticism. I imagine his original ideas and recollections of the poem's composition were somewhat remote to him...

[Bill]

Traveller wrote: "OMG... if Eliot himself didn't understand it, how the heck are we supposed to...? :P It just shows you how open a text is to interpretation..."

Well, a text is open for interpretation regardless. So this text it's simply more of a stretch then others.

The interesting questions about The Waste Land are its effects and its power and the grip it has on people.

As literary history, Eliot's different comments on it are interesting -- but they may or may not help in relation to the poem.

[Traveller]

Bill wrote: The interesting questions about The Waste Land are its effects and its power and the grip it hand on people. "

Yes, quite.

[Lily]

From T.S. Eliot by Peter Ackroyd, p. 107 (bold added):

"Eliot provided literature with an order and certainty all the more potent because these were the qualities lacking in social and political life after the First World War: the older generation had lost its authority, and the younger not found any way forward....He reaffirmed the status of literature, as a way both of understanding the larger culture and of disciplining private feelings and experience. His own need for order reflected that which existed among his generation; his own fears of fragmentation and meaninglessness ('the Void') were also theirs. He had, I believe, a clairvoyant sense of his time -- clairvoyant because he found its preoccupations within himself."

[Traveller]

Yes, you know, there's almost a sense of he "spoke for his time and society" in an intuitive way. He didn't have to "understand" all of it, because some of it, I suspect, has to do with fears, and fear isn't rational.

[Lily]

Traveller wrote: "...He didn't have to "understand" all of it, because some of it, I suspect, has to do with fears, and fear isn't rational. ..."

Are you saying it wasn't necessary to understand the irrational to speak of it? Or...?

[Traveller]

Lily wrote: "Are you saying it wasn't necessary to understand the irrational to speak of it? Or...? "

Of course! Fears are often quite fuzzy, because it often involves the unknown to some extent, doesn't it?

But you can still express a fear or a foreboding without really "understanding" every aspect of it.

[Traveller]

In the case of this poem, I feel a great "unease" being expressed between the lines.

I also meant that he was probably also to some extent expressing a "zeidgeist", a general feeling, a social climate.

[Lily]

Thanks for your responses, Traveller. Nice elaboration!

[Rachel]

Jim wrote: "Rachel wrote: "And Jim, I really like that Clark book. Have you readOlympia: Paris in the Age of Manet? I cannot tell a lie; it greatly enriched my Manet experience. Although perhaps her propensity..."

Yeah. I got to take a class in college, "Paris and the Birth of the Modern," exploring the way Manet, Zola, Baudelaire, Degas et al. broke with the past, kicking off true Modernity. Pretty much the funnest class ever.

Finally got to see Olympia a couple of years ago. My daughter and I both liked it: "Mama! That lady FORGOT HER JAMMIES!!!"

[Bill]

I did like Olympia, Paris in the Age of Manet, at least what I read of it. I don't know I finished. I may even still own it.

I did see Olympia and indeed she was not wearing jammies. I wonder what age children understand there's a certain pleasure in looking at people without jammies.

[Cleo]

Well, I took a quick run across the border today to a used book store and what do you think I found ....??

The Waste Land: Facsimile Edition

It was exciting to see copies of the original work! Much of the original poem is completely different from the finished product; for example Part IV Death by Water fills four pages. This book also includes Ezra Pound's annotations/edits ...... he's very direct: "make up yr. mind" "...... you Tiresias, if you know, know damn well or else you don't" ..... "Bad --- but cant attack until I get typescript"....

Basically it shows the process of the creation of this poem. Pretty neat!

[Jim]

Cleo wrote: "Well, I took a quick run across the border today to a used book store and what do you think I found ....??

The Waste Land: Facsimile Edition [bookcover:The Waste Land: Facsimile Edi..."

I think this book is the one Bill will be using for the Week Six discussion

[Jenny]

I ended up checking T.S. Eliot's Collected Poems 1909 - 1962 out of the library. It is always interesting to me when reading someone like Eliot or Pound that they could assume that their readers were well educated and well read enough to make sense of at least some of the allusions in their poems. I don't think that an author today can make those same assumptions.

I enjoyed reading the poems and noticing both which allusions were to works, people, or events that I am familiar with and also to find lines that have become part of our popular culture and are referred to in other works.

[aPriL does feral sometimes]

I studied accounting and computer programming. I'm reading this anyway.

[aPriL does feral sometimes]

As a poem illiterate, my impressions listed below on having finished the poem, but not having read the criticism in the Norton Edition (for your disgust, probably, and my amusement)

1. It's about despair, and because of the despair, Eliot spent his time while recovering from his nervous breakdown by reading all of the classics, noting every line about death, especially unjust and vengeful and political deaths.

2. He literally cut out his favorite bits and put them in an empty shoe box.

3. He shook the box.

4. Pasting on a piece of large paper as he went, he pulled out a slip of paper with a line from Shakespeare here, a line from Dante there. Sometimes he changed a word or two.

5. In between the pasted lines, he inserted his own poetry about certain remembered conversations and other memories.

This poem gives me the kind of headache I get from hour long TV shows that use a shaking hand-held camera. I think Eliot wanted to give everyone a nervous breakdown studying this monster.

Before you ask me, yes, I'm going to read the rest of the Norton book now. I already read all what you lot wrote in the previous comments and the other sections with clues and the 'pastiche' or 'modernism' or 'post-modernism' and WWI comments. Blake is as deep as I can go, clever word play based on styling' brouhaha the centuries is over my head.

[Jim]

So then you are already familiar with the waste land - LOL!!!

[aPriL does feral sometimes]

: D

[aPriL does feral sometimes]

The essay that most reflects my opinion is the on page 163 by Malcolm Cowley titled "The Dilemma of 'The Waste Land',. Despite the craft and the intelligence that the poem represents, it is the lament of an aristrocrat crying over the death of the medieval world. But hasn't everyone who turns 40 had a night like this? Thankfully, for most of us it's transitory and we hope to walk on Mars.

[aPriL does feral sometimes]

The essay that is pure crap is the one on page185, Cleanth Brooks, Jr's "The Waste Land: an Analysis". It was written in 1937, and talk about turning the poem on its head and calling it an analysis! I call this essay an exercise of transmogrification of Cinderella into Pinocchio. WTF?

[Bill]

Actually, the Cleanth Brooks essay is the classic new critical interpretation. But it's been challenged in recent years by people who have argued that Brooks looked at writings of Eliot after he wrote it, not at the same time.

Others looking at the manuscript when it was published have argued for a more personal interpretation -- and others a more complex one. more complex interpretation. I could point you to sources beyond the Norton edition, but if you don't like the poem, why bother.:-)

The fact is that this poem resonated deeply with the post WWI generation -- it was their poem. John Peale Bishop said he was reading it three times a time when it first came out.

The interesting question is why? And how can you feel what they felt? And what can you feel/think now so far removed?

It is the most influential poem in English in the 20th century. It may not be the best, but it's certainly the most influential.

And there is no rational interpretation of this -- with its references to literature from many, many different centuries and countries which would call it an a lament of the medieval world.

And it's not a simple lament for the past because the past as presented is not pretty -- just as the present is degraded. The underlying Greek myth is that of Philomel. Because Procne's husband, Tereus, raped and cut out the tongue of her sister, Philomel, Procne killed his (and her) son and served him up to Tereus for dinner in revenge.

My recommendation of the Norton edition was not to read the criticism in it -- although obviously it was there for anyone interested.

The reason I recommended the Norton edition was that it had the best notes because it not only gave you references but quoted extensively from the sources.

[aPriL does feral sometimes]

I love books I dislike almost more than when I like them when they are smart. Do you know what I mean? At least when there are available comparisons and criticisms that can be made I feel like I'm consuming brain candy.

The poem itself is so gosh darn personal and disconnected it is like reading the thinking of a genius schizophrenic. The accompanying criticisms by critics and appropriated texts used by the poet are a real treat. My whining and whinging does not distract me from being dazzled by the literature and the commentary.

I'm not kidding when I say I'm a poetry illiterate. I came from a blue-collar family and education was not appreciated but thought useless. I got educated anyway, but it was and is eclectic and personally guided for the most part. I went to college but earning a living was more important than the liberal arts. My exposure to books, despite my love of reading, had to be limited to 101, essentially. Probably too much information, but I thought you might appreciate the range of interest in Brain Pain. I know nothing of Lit 301 and 401, but it is interesting to see the comments of those who were liberal arts majors. Even if you lot all are effete snobs. Kidding! I'm jealous, really. But it probably means I'll read the entire book, while for you guys who are Arts people it's all reruns.

BTW, I know I'm not the only blue-collar here, so I'm not special in my interest. All I ask is for some space to stumble around and be dumb. Any advice and information from the learned will be appreciated.

[Jim]

April the Cheshire Meow wrote: "I love books I dislike almost more than when I like them when they are smart. Do you know what I mean? At least when there are available comparisons and criticisms that can be made I feel like I'm ..."

Sorry April, but we can't allow you to to use the old "blue collar" dodge. You made it through college and you're reading some of the world's great literature. No one cares where you came from, because you're here now and your opinions and ideas are as valid as every other member. I will ask you to refrain from name calling - including when you refer to yourself.

Bill, as you will note, has been studying the Modernists for a long time. Like all of us, he continues to learn more each time he reads a text. In his reply, the key questions are:

The fact is that this poem resonated deeply with the post WWI generation -- it was their poem. John Peale Bishop said he was reading it three times a time when it first came out.

The interesting question is why? And how can you feel what they felt? And what can you feel/think now so far removed?

That generation witnessed a world in 1919 that was vastly different from 1913. So it isn't strange that it seems disjointed and jumbled. Our challenge with The Waste Land, and with any book outside our own time and place, is to try and understand these "others" and search for connections and correspondences to our own experience of life - blue collar, white collar, sailor, or saint.

And please, don't call yourself dumb. That's my best advice. It is unnecessary and untrue - your comments on Rashomon are proof enough that you are among peers.

[aPriL does feral sometimes]

Ok.

; )

[Bill]

April,

And this poem has ALWAYS been difficult, disconnected and personal. John Peale Bishop didn't actually understand it. He was just drawn to it.

The poem is famous for this. It's like going to the Himalayas to climb Everest and complaining it's so damn high, dangerous, you can't do it overnight, and you need oxygen.

This poem is famously difficult. :-)

And it's not "difficult at first" but "when you into it, it's clear." It's never entirely clear. Your relationship with the poem is like a relationship with a very difficult individual. You may make headway, but it's never easy.

You have to find/create your own relationship with it -- and you have to find value. If you don't, fine -- it's not like any of us are going to understand every difficult piece of literature ever written.

I think The Waste Land's power comes from the marriage of an international collapse and loss personal collapse and loss. The world was coming apart in a way it hadn't before. And Eliot was undergoing a psychic collapse -- of sorts -- at the same time. And interwoven among this are questions of unbridled desire -- from both Christian and Buddhist perspectives.

And while it's different for us today, it's always the end of Western Civilization as we know it (which is not the same as the end of Western Civilization) and desire without control is still fabulously destructive.

Above all, modernism in all the arts was famously unpopular. Artists in different media felt they had to do things that people wouldn't easily relate to.

In art there were various forms of abstraction and expressionism -- even "abstract expressionism" -- and then the identification of non-art objects as museum art: Andy Warhol's Campbell soup can, Roy Lichetenstein's giant comics.

In music there was increasing dissonance and atonality -- and the end of "classical" music as a popular art form.

In literature there was broken narratives, attempts to explore consciousness, facts with explanations, unexplained allusiveness, organizing myths that may or may not be explanatory.

And if you read the newspapers, the world is still collapsing, things are changing, and the mind is uncertain territory.

So here we are. :-)

[aPriL does feral sometimes]

: D

Easy target.

[Jenny]

Bill wrote: "April,

And this poem has ALWAYS been difficult, disconnected and personal. John Peale Bishop didn't actually understand it. He was just drawn to it.

The poem is famous for this. It's like going t..."

Religion came apart too and many post WWI modernists struggled with their faith as well. I am more familiar with French poetry than I am with American or British, but you see some of the same themes and structural changes.

I am also interested in the relationships between writers -- I did not realize that Ezra Pound edited Eliot's work until I read the introductory notes in the beginning of my copy of The Wasteland.

[aPriL does feral sometimes]

The introductory notes and other included essays in the Norton book caused me to wonder if this poem should have had a co-author. It sounds like Pound did a lot of work on it, too. But from the same essays it sounds like Eliot really needed the money. I want to read a book of Pounds's poetry now.

[Bill]

I don't think so, and I've read original manuscript. One critic notes that after -- get this -- a very thorough scientific analysis of the typescript to determine what was written first -- a lot of what Pound did was remove later accretions -- for example, the opening that preceded "April is the cruelest month" and the Fresca section which gives you some insight into how Eliot viewed Vivienne -- in couplets. Interestingly, she was reading all this and had her own comments.

Also The Waste Land is neither Eliot's first poem nor, necessarily, his best. I have a deep sentimental attachment to "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." I came across it at fifteen or sixteen and loved it. It was part of my introduction to serious poetry It also was my revelation that Eliot didn't just write poetry for children. :-) I had a teacher who spent a lot of time on "Macavity, The Mystery Cat" from "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats" in the 4th grade -- so I just assumed Eliot wrote for children. That's the book the musical "Cats" was based on. "Old Possum" was Pound's nickname for Eliot.

Eliot himself thought The Four Quartets was his masterpiece -- although they're not exactly a day at the beach either.

For Pound I'd get either get this selection which just came out

New Selected Poems and Translations 2nd edition

I can't link this because Goodreads has confused it with the earlier edition.

However, it's ISBN is 978-0811217330

It will pull up the right book on Amazon.

or the older version

[aPriL does feral sometimes]

Ordered it just now.

:)

[Bill]

April pounced like a cat
With paws full of rain
The long winter's nap
Was over again
She lay on her back
Scratching her mane
Bringing Chaucer's flowers,
And Eliot's pain

[Laurel]

Excellent! Christina Rossetti, who is curled up on my lap as we speak, approves.

This has been a great discussion, Bill, even when we were silent.

[aPriL does feral sometimes]

Bill wrote: "April pounced like a cat
With paws full of rain
The long winter's nap
Was over again
She lay on her back
Scratching her mane
Bringing Chaucer's flowers,
And Eliot's pain




.

Flowers sitting on..."

meow!

[Jenny]

Bill wrote: "I don't think so, and I've read original manuscript. One critic notes that after -- get this -- a very thorough scientific analysis of the typescript to determine what was written first -- a lot of..."

The way I read the commentary, Pound removed material from The Wasteland rather than rewriting or adding to it.

I guess because I never studied 20th Century American or English literature in school, I didn't realize until recently the important role that some authors played in editing or publishing the work of others. Reading about Ford Maddox Ford last year kind of woke me up to that fact and although I have read quite a bit of Pound's work, I never realized that he helped edit the work of others.

I took a lot of literature courses for a Chemical Engineering student but they were all in French.

Jenny

[Bill]

Jenny,

Yes, that's what I understand also. But what's interesting to me is that it wasn't the original material. One thing writers may do, I think, is not leave well-enough alone, which may have been the case here.

It's also extremely common for writers to show each other their work and get reactions. And for prose writers, the work was typically edited by the publisher, although I don't know there are many editors left like the legendary Max Perkins.

Imaginative writers, and creative artists in general, even intellectual ones and even ones who have a highly conscious understanding of craft, work, I think, far more intuitively than people realize.

Jenny,

Just curious. Is there any reason you didn't take any lit courses except in French? Was French spoken at home or were you just trying to keep up your French or was it just a love affair with French literature?

Laurele,

For that little ditty, I'm very glad to have received a laurel from the spirit of Christina Rossetti in the form of a cat. :-)