Discussion - Week Two - The Waste Land - Section I

[Jim]

This discussion covers Section I "The Burial of the Dead" in The Waste Land.

Pages 5 - 7 in the Norton Critical Edition

[Bill]

Now we can get to work on the poem itself.

There is a fundamental question of how one approaches a poem like this, and I think it is to point out details.

In the first section, we are confronted with one of the constant themes in Eliot, the relationship of life and death.

[Laurel]

Thanks, Bill. I'm going to read section I again with that in mind. After I get my new kitty back from the vet.

[Bill]

It will be difficult for it to be cuter than the pic in your profile. That's one hell of a pose.

[Traveller]

I'm going to jump in with you guys tomorrow. Just finished a slew of assignments, and need a few hours to catch up with you!

[Laurel]

That's Riley, Bill, but alas, he is no more. I have just been adopted by Christina Rossetti ("Chrissy"), who is a four-pound bundle of energy and cuteness.

[Bill]

SPRING – LIFE and DEATH – THE FIRST SEVEN LINES

April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land...

The opening of the poem is the famous shock -- spring is spoken of negatively because it brings life.

That's an ironic tour de force, even if one doesn't remember The General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales.

Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote:
The droghte of march hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;

In modern English:
When April with his showers sweet
The drought of March pierced to the root
And bathed every vein in such liquor
By virtue of which the flower is engendered

There is the fundamental strangeness of April being cruel. (Speaking personally, I was always struck by it, probably April brought my own life, that is, I have an April birthday.)

The first allusion is to water, April showers, in what will be a wet poem, filled with references to the drowned ("those were pearls that were his eyes") and death by water.

I think it’s also worth noting that spring in The Canterbury Tales leads not only to those familiar flowers but also to “pilgrimages.” And the cathedral in question, Canterbury, is one where Thomas à Becket was murdered, and the murder was subject of Eliot’s later play, Murder in the Cathedral.

Perhaps there is the faintest odor of pilgrimage, religion, and murder.

____

What is breed are "lilacs", flowers to be sure, a flower typical of spring. Eliot went to Harvard. I didn't, but I lived in Cambridge, Mass near Harvard Square in 1969, and I remember riding a bicycle around Cambridge that year in the spring and enjoying the sudden explosion of lilac bushes on so many front lawns.

James Miller in his biography of the young Eliot (Miller ends with “The Waste Land”) notes this:

Eliot wrote of an image of a friend (vividly recollected in 1934): "the memory of a friend coming across the Luxembourg Gardens in the late afternoon, waving a branch of lilacs."

James E. Miller Jr.. T.S. Eliot: The Making Of An American Poet, 1888-1922 (Kindle Location 2181). Kindle Edition.

Was this Verdenal, his friend in Paris in 1910? Miller is committed to a "personal" interpretation of the room and the possibility that Eliot was gay and that he and Verdenal were lovers?

It gives more possible reverberations to the idea of lilacs, and in fact

..........................mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

might refer to the memory of Verdenal who was killed at Gallipoli on May 2nd and was in action in April. If this does refer to Verdenal – and it might even if they were only friends -- then I think the reference to April is governed by Chaucer.

“Memory and desire” have been considered two major themes of the poem. In particular, though, Miller notes that it could be the memory of Verdenal which awakens longing in him. The death that Eliot longs for might be a death of his memories. If it is that way, then “dull roots with spring rain” might be a kind of phallic awakening. And with his strict upbringing and its focus on sexual propriety, then he might wish for a death of desire, particularly inappropriate desire and a longing for a death-in-life.

Winter kept us warm, covering
The earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.

This is also a poem where desire constantly leads to disaster.

Again there is the strongest opposition, winter keeping us warm with forgetfulness, the warmth of sleep under the blankets, and a kind of life support system.

“A little life” is our human life, there are many references, it’s – I forget who pointed this out – it’s common in Christian literature to refer to our lives as “a little life.” But I think here the obvious source is The Tempest because it figures so prominently elsewhere in the poet.

….We are such stuff
As dreams are made on and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

___

Also to appreciate are the “ing” endings in five of the first seven lines which gives the opening the sense of a dirge – breeding, mixing, stirring, covering, feeding. Eliot is poet through and through, wrote plenty of metrical verse, and the versification in this poem is strong, even when it is not conventionally metrical.
___

Throughout these first seven lines, we have introduced on the themes of the poem which is death-in-life. It is thought the narrator(s) have a sense of neither life nor death, and the pain of birth. Birth is associated with pain commonly enough, but for the mother, not the baby.

Of course, that is largely because none of us remember our births – surely if we did, it would not have been an uneventful memory, dark warmth of the womb and the sudden brightness of the air. I can imagine or the swaddled babies chattering away comparing the experience, and of course crying.

“Birth trauma” refers, however, to both physical trauma and psychological trauma. I don’t know this was in Eliot’s mind, but it’s an idea a reader may bring to it.

___

Eliot sense of both life and death as well as death in life is a theme that’s beyond just “The Waste Land”.

For example,

“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” ends this way:

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

This isn’t directly analogous but this notion of sleeping (because, otherwise, how awakened) and awakened into death echoed in my mind.

That’s all for the moment, next SUMMER surprising us. :-)

[Bill]

Glad to see you back, Traveller.

[Laurel]

Lilacs, death, and spring brought Walt Whitman's poem on the death of Lincoln to my mind:

WHEN lilacs last in the door-yard bloom’d,  
And the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night,  
I mourn’d—and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.

http://www.bartleby.com/142/192.html

[Lily]

April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land...

..........................mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

Some statistics have indicated suicide rates (in the U.S. at least) peak in the spring, although I have seen other studies more skeptical or that apply such trends to sub-populations. The suggested effect is that renewing life is somehow threatening or that a change from stasis creates stress.

These were the words of Bill's comments that reminded me of the statistics re: suicide: "The death that Eliot longs for might be a death of his memories." The forces of new life may put pressure on those desires to forget.

[Lily]

Winter kept us warm, covering 5
Earth in forgetful snow,...

Another poem that comes to mind are these lines from
James Russell Lowell's "The First Snow Fall" (1849).

I remembered the gradual patience
That fell from that cloud like snow, 30
Flake by flake, healing and hiding
The scar that renewed our woe.

And again to the child I whispered,
“The snow that husheth all...

Then, with eyes that saw not, I kissed her;
And she, kissing back, could not know
That my kiss was given to her sister,
Folded close under deepening snow.

http://www.bartleby.com/248/351.html

(Little or nothing to do with The Waste Land, but some of my favorite lines of poetry are from lines near the beginning of this poem (E.g., "ridged inch deep with pearl"). They have always epitomized for me the differences I learned between upper Midwestern blizzards and New England snowstorms when I moved to Vermont.)

[Bill]

Thinking more broadly about this business of the pain of birth, the desire to be unawakened. And that reverberates. Life always involves more change than one is comfortable with -- and love involves loss. In Tennyson's In Memoriam -- which is about the loss of his best friend in his early 20s -- Tennyson wrote, "It is better to have loved and lost/Than never to have loved at all." But the poem is 100 pages, and it took him a very, very, very, very long time to reach that conclusion.

I'm thinking more and more of the reading by Harriet Davidson which I found in the Cambridge Introduction to Eliot, that the choice is real life, with all the intricacies of desire, what it leads to and a barrenness. I'm fairly sure that's not all Eliot meant to say or even that he meant to say it. I think the poem is hard to divorce from his moral stance, but I think there's truth to it.

And later in "The Fire Sermon" -- "Burning, Burning, Burning, Burning" -- there is one profound idea -- that full investment in the objects of desire is always sorrowful because in the world of change -- things change. And change always involves loss. If nothing else, we lose youth. And for some people it may be pure relief, but for most the attitude is at best mixed.

And as for a life unlived, I also think of Eliot, the boy, with his double hernia, wearing a truss, being not allowed to play sports, living in his books and Prufrock again.

[Bill]

Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at the archduke’s,
My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.

The first part is relatively recent memory perhaps, going back to Eliot's student days, although one can't know for sure. It's unusually lighthearted. It's of Munich before World War I, and Eliot was there.

It is a rare suggestion of lived life without pain or regret. We will be spending time in Germany in the Hofgarten, in the overheard conversation of "Bin gar..." I'm not Russian, I'm from Lithuania, real German." Marie is German. And then we will here lines from Wagner's Tristan and Isolde" before moving on.

I don't associate the German with Marie because she's (presumably) based on a real character and the real character is not from Lithuania. It seems just cafe a cafe.

From the Site, Exploring the Waste Land, I found the following material on Marie. I can't vouch for the site, but it seems responsible and respectable. http://world.std.com/~raparker/explor...
The creator is not a specialist in Eliot or English literature.

Here is more than you want to know about Marie -- as well as information about her and Mayerling and Mayerling in The Waste Land.

http://world.std.com/~raparker/explor...

Here is a wonderful picture of the young Marie.

http://world.std.com/~raparker/explor...

If Mayerling is an echo because of Marie's involvement as a young woman, it is yet another echo of desire and its consequences with a taste of royal and aristocratic shenanigans.

But I think what is most powerful for the memory of freedom on the sled in the mountains. A sense of a lost pleasure.

[Lily]

Bill wrote: "...But I think what is most powerful for the memory [is] of freedom on the sled in the mountains...."

Unfortunately, the image of the sled takes my head to Edith Wharton's tragic Ethan Frome (1911). I know it can't be really relevant per se, but as a reader, it still sits here.

[Bill]

Oh, you poor thing. Well, you could consider seeing a surgeon and having it removed. I understand the procedure is painless, safe, and covered by insurance and done on an outpatient basis. :-)

[Barbara]

Bill wrote: "SPRING – LIFE and DEATH – THE FIRST SEVEN LINES

April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land...

The opening of the poem is the famous shock -- spring is spoken of negatively ..."


I've fallen a bit behind, and I'm trying to use the notes in the Norton Edition to help break down the first part. Bill, your posts are tremendously helpful. Thank you.

From my own personal point of view, April can be an extremely cruel month. (And unlike Bill, I do not have a birthday in April.) I wish I could remember where I read this, and who wrote it, but someone (I will look around to find which writer this was) had written that they feel so much better in seasons that are gloomy and dark because it matches their own mood.

Of course April is cruel. All the beautiful colors and the fresh scent of a new season, and new life. I don't mean to sound like a "Debbie Downer" or a "Buzz Kill" but really, how many people can get themselves to feel as "alive" as nature is in April?

LILY WROTE: "The suggested effect is that renewing life is somehow threatening or that a change from stasis creates stress."

I completely agree with this.

[Traveller]

Lily wrote: "Another poem that comes to mind are these lines from
James Russell Lowell's "The First Snow Fall" (1849).

I remembered the gradual patience
That fell from that cloud like snow, 30
Flake by flake, healing and hiding
The scar that renewed our woe.

And again to the child I .."

That's a lovely poem!

[Traveller]

Oooh, this thread is wonderful already! I wish I could print it like a book and keep it! :)

Bill wrote: "Thinking more broadly about this business of the pain of birth, the desire to be unawakened. And that reverberates. Life always involves more change than one is comfortable with -- and love involve..."

Referring to one of your earlier posts regarding the trauma of birth being only traumatic/painful for the mother: actually it is pretty traumatic for the baby as well. Before the birth process starts, all sound and light is muffled and muted.

During the birth process, the child has to be squeezed through a narrow channel that is actually too narrow to accommodate him/her and has to be actually stretched in the process, and when the child finally emerges, it is to a change in temperature, sound, light, pressure, etc, and he/she/has to suddenly start breathing - in fact it is usually the "shock" of birth that shocks the child into starting to breathe. Think of how you feel when you've been underwater water a bit too long and burst out to swallow a huge gulp of air.. -it's that little baby's very first gulp of air...


So yes, I can certainly see how birth can be described as traumatic- wonderful, but also traumatic.

[Bill]

Traveller,

Actually, I did mention "birth trauma" which both a medical and a psychological description -- both physical and psychic trauma. But the paragraphs were short. :-)

I do think the notion of birth trauma is at the back of my mind. I'm not sure it was in Eliot's -- but who cares? :-)

[Traveller]

Bill wrote: "do think the notion of birth trauma is at the back of my mind. I'm not sure it was in Eliot's..."

No, I know, I was also wondering if men in those days (or even today) generally even really thought of things like that, but you never know...

Bill wrote: "-- but who cares? :-) " Yes, exactly! Just like we discussed the other day regarding the New Critics, of a text having a life of it's own, bigger often than the mere intent of the author..

Anyway, phew! I'm getting lost in tracking down and reading up on all the allusions - which is why I never tend to get very far with The Waste land.

So this thread is many-faceted wonder for me; - you guys see so much in it, and despite that I'm able to absorb so much from you all, you're going forward at a certain pace, which will force me to, hopefully, this time continue my interest right to the very end of the poem and wrestle a whole lot more of it's secrets to the ground.

(I know, I know - not all of them, but quite a few! )

[Traveller]

Oh, and I forgot to say that I think I finally have a handle on why he mentioned the Hapsburg Marie.

I had always thought that it had been the First WW that had disillusioned and depressed (besides his obvious personal troubles) Eliot so much when he was writing TWL.

..but I read an article a while ago that stresses the role of industrialization and the "waste land" that it tends to create, in Eliot's poem, The Waste Land.

In fact, in many of the novels and poetry of this period, (teens and twenties of the 1900's especially) there is a juxtaposition of the "good old days" before the war, against the new century of mechanical warfare and industrialisation and social revolutions.

I think with the mention of the Hapsburg nobility, he is perhaps using them as a metaphor for 'the good old days' in Europe when the old order still ruled.

In that sense I can also see the birthing or renewal process as people entering a new era in world history, the modern age; a new era which could very well have seemed bleak and barren to people still longing for the "good old days" of (apparent/relative) peace and romanticism and organicness.

[Bill]

Traveller,

Yes, I think it's a mistake to think that WWI was the "cause" of modernism. It was a huge catalyst, but that's not the same thing.

The 19th century saw increased industrialization. Darwin whose evolutionary theories challenged the literal truth of the Bible, and other factors. Women had only just gotten the vote in England in 1918 and there was obviously a period of agitation before that happened (1920 in the US). There is Virginia Woolf's famous comment that human nature change in 1910. Modernism in painting is arguably pre-19th century. Eliot was deeply moved by the performance of the Rite of Spring -- which is a piece that had audience's walk out in Paris.

Eliot also had some extremely conservative professors at Harvard -- including one who objected to freeing the slaves on the grounds that it abrogated property rights and one section of the population didn't have the right to tell another segment that its right to some of its property is illegal. He had another who had been hired to teach French when he thought he should be teaching classics -- and I suspect complained about the decline in a classical education.

And I'm not sure that Tom Eliot was that often in a good mood.

But I think WWI was huge for him as well because of the personal loss of Jean Verdenal -- if nothing else, we know he dedicated "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" to him -- and the general horror in England at the loss, mutilation, shell shock suffered by the boys in the trenches.

Marie could represent an increasingly unimportant aristocracy, the decline of an aristocratic tradition, or the Mayerling mystery/affair etc.

[Bill]

What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.



THE RED ROCK

I think one of the symbols most resistant to interpretation is that red rock. :-) What could it possibly mean?

I think that the Biblic environment is absolutely there. But who is the voice speaking? I think the voice is clearly supernatural -- the voice is different from the "son of man" -- which describes the rest of us. When I read the poem out loud, I read the voice as sinister, teasing, taunting. And I think WE are "the handful of dust" -- dust thou art, etc.

[Traveller]

Bill wrote: "I think that the Biblic environment is absolutely there. But who is the voice speaking? I think the voice is clearly supernatural -- the voice is different from the "son of man" -- which describes the rest of us. When I read the poem out loud, I read the voice as sinister, teasing, taunting. And I think WE are "the handful of dust" -- dust thou art, etc. .."

If I'd read Eliot's notes correctly, according to his reference to Ezekiel there, I suppose that would be the voice of God?

"Fear in a handful of dust"
Ok, so we are the dust, and are we fearful - of what are we fearful in this context - of the future, of nihilism, of change, of death and mortality? Or do you read the "fear" in another context?

[Bill]

I think the environment is Biblical, as I said, but I don't know that I think this is the voice of God. For one reason, God rarely speaks and, when he does, he's not chatty and teasing.

It could be the voice of a prophet. They are chattier and more enigmatic. But what prophet? Not one that's actually in the Bible. The environment is Biblical, but I don't think the speaker sounds Biblical.

I think we are afraid of mortality. Or given Eliot's constant references Dante, perhaps damnation.

And what's with the damn red rock? I found that puzzling. Rocks aren't typically red -- although there are some.

Beats me. :-)

[Laurel]

Bill wrote: "What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree..."

Whenever I come to this section, I find an old hymn humming around in my head:


Beneath the cross of Jesus I fain would take my stand,
The shadow of a mighty rock within a weary land;
A home within the wilderness, a rest upon the way,
From the burning of the noontide heat, and the burden of the day.

Upon that cross of Jesus mine eye at times can see
The very dying form of One Who suffered there for me;
And from my stricken heart with tears two wonders I confess;
The wonders of redeeming love and my unworthiness.

I take, O cross, thy shadow for my abiding place;
I ask no other sunshine than the sunshine of His face;
Content to let the world go by to know no gain or loss,
My sinful self my only shame, my glory all the cross.

You can find the other verses and information about the poet and the composer here: http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/b/t/bt...

The idea comes from several places in the Old and New Testaments, especially 1 Corinthians 10:1-4:

"Moreover, brethren, I would not that you should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and did all eat the same spiritual meat, and did all drink the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ."

The scene this part of the poem brings to my mind is of an old-time preacher-orator using the Corinthians passage as his main text and taking his people through the Bible showing them who the Rock is and how they can come under the Rock's protection. Why red? That would be the blood of the sacrificial lambs and of Christ.

I doubt whether Eliot is presenting this as truth at this point: he is adding it to the other fragments of memory he is giving us. "Fear in a handful of dust" would be the fear of God, the awe and respect that sinful man (the handful of dust) feels in God's presence at the time of repentance. You can get an idea of what the sermon would be like here: http://www.ucg.org/doctrinal-beliefs/...

Or not. Those are just the impressions that come to me at this point in the poem.

[Lily]

Bill wrote: "...I think one of the symbols most resistant to interpretation is that red rock. :-) What could it possibly mean?..."

Hypothesis: Blood of Christ? It flows from the rock like the water in the dessert?


http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=198787065
http://www.devotions.net/bible/00bibl...
Search here for "rock" to find the 156 Biblical references to rock in the NRSV, e.g.:

1 Corinthians 10.4:
and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.

Exodus 17.6:
I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.’ Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel.

Psalm 105.41:
He opened the rock, and water gushed out;
it flowed through the desert like a river.

Isaiah 32.2:
Each will be like a hiding-place from the wind,
a covert from the tempest,
like streams of water in a dry place,
like the shade of a great rock in a weary land.

Some more verse citations, placed to shorten this post:(view spoiler)[Isaiah 48.21:
They did not thirst when he led them through the deserts;
he made water flow for them from the rock;
he split open the rock and the water gushed out.

Deuteronomy 8.15:
who led you through the great and terrible wilderness, an arid waste-land with poisonous snakes and scorpions. He made water flow for you from flint rock,

Deuteronomy 32.18:
You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you;*
you forgot the God who gave you birth.

Deuteronomy 32.37:
Then he will say: Where are their gods,
the rock in which they took refuge,

1 Kings 19.11:
He said, ‘Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.’ Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake;

Job 14.18:
‘But the mountain falls and crumbles away,
and the rock is removed from its place;

Psalm 141.7:
Like a rock that one breaks apart and shatters on the land,
so shall their bones be strewn at the mouth of Sheol (hide spoiler)]

[Laurel]

Lily wrote: "Bill wrote: "...I think one of the symbols most resistant to interpretation is that red rock. :-) What could it possibly mean?..."

Hypothesis: Blood of Christ? It flows from the rock like the wat..."

Great, Lily! We're thinking the same thoughts. You could also add the stone that was Jacob's pillow and altar.

[Bill]

Great research, Lily.

Of course, Eliot was brought up Unitarian. I don't know. It also feels very OT and not very Christian in this passage.

Hmmmm.

This red rock and the voice keeps teasing me.

Hmmm. Hmmm. Hmmm.

[Traveller]

Bill wrote: "Great research, Lily.

Of course, Eliot was brought up Unitarian. I don't know. It also feels very OT and not very Christian in this passage.

Hmmmm.

This red rock and the voice keeps teasing me..."

Well, quoting from somewhere or even alluding to something doesn't mean you embrace it. I could quote for the Tao Te Ching and not be a Taoist.

I should still read more of My Rayner on Eliot. I know Eliot became quite a conventional Christian later on, but apparently not so much the case when he wrote The Waste Land?

[Laurel]

Traveller wrote: "Bill wrote: "Great research, Lily.

Of course, Eliot was brought up Unitarian. I don't know. It also feels very OT and not very Christian in this passage.

Hmmmm.

This red rock and the voice kee..."

In a later passage, Eliot alludes to the two disciples who encountered the risen Christ on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24). Christ asks what they are talking about and then says:

25 “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?” 27 And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.

[Bill]

Yes, Eliot's conversion was later. And he certainly knew the New Testament. And of course he later quotes Augustine also. Forget what I said. :-)

It's really that the passage feels much more OT than NT, Tanakh rather than the Gospels. :-)

[Bill]

Frisch weht der Wind
Der Heimat zu,
Mein Irisch Kind,
Wo weilest du?
“You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
They called me the hyacinth girl.”
—Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.
Öd’ und leer das Meer.

I like reading this passage because I get to sing Wagner, hwoever badly.

A love story of a sort surrounded by a love tragedy, the German is from Wagner's Tristan und Isolde. The first phrase from near the beginning. The second from the end.

Critics say these lines are denoting ecstacy, perhaps even a religious ecstacy -- ek-stasis -- going out of yourself.

Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.

[Lily]

Bill wrote: "...It's really that the passage feels much more OT than NT, Tanakh rather than the Gospels. :-) ..."

So? Maybe my peevishness shows both towards not perceiving the continuity of the old and new testaments and towards any who would claim Jesus was a Christian rather than a Jew, at least during his lifetime.

I did notice the linkage of the Exodus (Moses) story much more strongly with the Pauline letters, particularly the Corinthian passages, than with the Gospels.

I'm not totally satisfied with this hypothesis, however, for "red rock". Incidentally, I got no matches when I searched the Bible (NRSV) for that combination.

Did Eliot visit the Middle East? I saw some pictures from that area today that said "red rock" to me. As I recall, one spoke of using one generation of building from such rock being dismantled for creation of a next generation of structure. Of course, in America we associate the term with the marvelous formations of the West, including the Grand Canyon and Red Rock Canyon and the Colorado National Monument

E.g., http://wheelingit.wordpress.com/2011/...

http://outoflasvegas.com/wp-content/u...

http://www.justwalkedby.com/wp-conten...

I have my doubts these red rocks (note esp. the last image) are what Eliot had in mind, but they certainly come to mine as I read the poem. Those places where I have seen such magnificent red rock formations have often been overwhelmingly beautiful and yet at the same time possessing a real barrenness.

For your own enjoyment of red rock formations, try this: (view spoiler)[

https://www.google.com/search?q=red+r... (hide spoiler)]

Another possibility for "red rock" is an altar stained with the blood of sacrifices.

[Laurel]

Evidently the red rock line is a reworking from an unpublished poem called "The Death of St. Narcissus." The first line of that poem reads, "Come under the shadow of this gray rock." So perhaps the 'red' is just a filler word to keep the meter. I like the altar idea myself. I have a feeling, though, that if we asked Eliot he would say he did not know what he meant.

[Traveller]

Bill wrote: "I think the environment is Biblical, as I said, but I don't know that I think this is the voice of God. For one reason, God rarely speaks and, when he does, he's not chatty and teasing.

It could b..."

Ok, I read somewhere that that voice is the voice of Tiresias, who of course keeps popping up in the poem. How's that for a fit?

[Ellen]

Lily wrote: "Bill wrote: "...It's really that the passage feels much more OT than NT, Tanakh rather than the Gospels. :-) ..."

So? Maybe my peevishness shows both towards not perceiving the continuity of the o..."

Lily, I was thinking exactly the things you wrote about-especially the geography. I know Eliot was born in Missouri, altho I'm not sure where he grew up. There are red rock formations in that area of the country as well (and even a town called Red Rock in Missouri).

[Lily]

Laurele wrote: "Evidently the red rock line is a reworking from an unpublished poem called "The Death of St. Narcissus." The first line of that poem reads, "Come under the shadow of this gray rock." So perhaps the..."

This is a repeat from from msg 27, but with "in a weary land" this passage really stood out for me in thinking about TWL:

Isaiah 32.2:
Each will be like a hiding-place from the wind,
a covert from the tempest,
like streams of water in a dry place,
like the shade of a great rock in a weary land.

I think there may be one or two others among the 156 Biblical "rock" quotations that refer to shade as well, altho I'm not in the frame of mind to recheck right now.

Thanks for the linkage and suggestion on meter, Laurel.

[Lily]

Bill wrote: "...I think we are afraid of mortality. Or given Eliot's constant references Dante, perhaps damnation...."

Another twist is our fear of living, i.e., we are but handfuls of dust (sans the water) and emotions and thoughts -- like those of fear.

[Bill]

Okay, I think the voice is St. Narcissus -- or are at least reasonably can be attributed to him -- or the St. Narcissus in Eliot's early poem -- or a figure inspired by St. Narcissus.

Not that it solves a lot -- but there it is.

In "The Waste Land: Facsimile and Transcript" there is a version beginning with "Come in under the shadow of this grey rock:

There is a reference in the poem to his bloody cloth so the redness may be his blood -- although it my just be a function of an extremely rough life.

Here it is sung by Peter Pears, setting by Benjamin Britten

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFND4_...

I'm not sure that will help -- but for those so inclined there it is.

Search for a copy on line I found a different poem, I'm not sure what's going on, but here

http://annyballardini.blogspot.com/20...

One article on the Death of St. Narcissus is here:

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307...

She's not identifying Narcissus with Tirsias. I have never been too certain how useful Eliot's footnote about Tiresias is.

You can read this by signing up for JSTOR which now allows you three articles at a time -- although you must keep them for 14 days so you are limited in the amount of research you can do.

Another article is here

http://www.lacan.com/narcissus.htm

We do have the voice of an ascetic in the desert, but not a Biblical figure.

I haven't had the time to read everything or think about it all. But I do think we can identify the speaker with the St. Narcissus in the poem.

Be careful though - if you want to search on St. Narcissus there are SEVERAL. The JSTOR article will help identify which one.

Bill

[Bill]

Next

Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,
Had a bad cold, nevertheless
Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,
With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,
Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,
(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)
Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,
The lady of situations.
Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,
And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,
Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,
Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find
The Hanged Man. Fear death by water.
I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.
Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone,
Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:
One must be so careful these days.

No thoughts at the moment. I'm going to try to sleep. :-)

[Bill]

OH -- but -- GREAT WORK everyone.

And ELLIE --

Eliot was from St. Louis -- but the city proper, in a changing neighborhood (not for the better.) His reference there is usually the river.

I do not know much about gods; but I think that the river
Is a strong brown god - sullen, untamed and intractable,

But boating experience was during the summers in New England.

[Traveller]

For some reason, this thread had stopped updating for me - luckily I decided to check on it anyway.

Ok, but now that we get to Madame Sosostris, I would like to tie her in with Tiresias. I'm starting to see a pattern here, (though it might just be my imagination). The pattern that I think I might be seeing, is that Eliot seems to be juxtaposing examples of "old" with examples of "new" (and possibly of "classical" with... ermm "common"/"pop"..what is the word I'm looking for..

But anyway, I suppose what I need to do to test out my theory, is to print the poem out, and start making notes in different colored pens, and see if I see patterns, because at this point the patterns I see are still just in the "suspicion" stage. :P

So.. Tiresias would be the "Classical" clairvoyant,and Madame Sosostris the "contemporary" one.. -the "cheap version" so to speak...

[Traveller]

Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,
The lady of situations.

I have it on some authority, that the Lady of the Rocks,would refer to "La Giocanda" AKA the "Mona Lisa" of Da Vinci. I need to research that more though. I still need to think on how she fits in.

[Traveller]

Fear death by water. What's that about?

[Jim]

Traveller wrote: "Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,
The lady of situations.

I have it on some authority, that the Lady of the Rocks,would refer to "La Giocanda" AKA the "Mona Lisa" of Da Vinci. I need to ..."

You may be thinking of the two "Virgin of the Rocks" paintings

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_o...

[Traveller]

Jim wrote: "Traveller wrote: "Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,
The lady of situations.

I have it on some authority, that the Lady of the Rocks,would refer to "La Giocanda" AKA the "Mona Lisa" of Da ..."

Ah, yes. I was going to still have a look at the Mona Lisa to see if it has rocks in it, since I don't remember any in the picture. Thanks for correcting me on that one, your painting makes a lot more sense re the rocks.
But ok, I still need to figure out how this Lady fits into the poem - she's obviously the Virgin Mary.... hmmm... might the "two versions" have anything to do with it, or am I just tired and missing the obvious?

[Laurel]

Bill wrote: "Okay, I think the voice is St. Narcissus -- or are at least reasonably can be attributed to him -- or the St. Narcissus in Eliot's early poem -- or a figure inspired by St. Narcissus.

Not that it ..."

Great stuff, Bill. I love the Pears/Britten.

[Laurel]

Traveller wrote: "Fear death by water. What's that about?"

That part always takes me back to The Tempest. In scene 1, where all the sailor talk is, Gonzalo says of the boatswain:

"I have great comfort from this fellow: methinks he
hath no drowning mark upon him; his complexion is
perfect gallows. Stand fast, good Fate, to his
hanging: make the rope of his destiny our cable,
for our own doth little advantage. If he be not
born to be hanged, our case is miserable."

Madame Sosostris just changes the proclamation around.

[Lily]

Notes on Belladonna:

"Belladonna is a plant. The leaf and root are used to make medicine.

"The name 'belladonna' means 'beautiful lady,' and was chosen because of a risky practice in Italy. The belladonna berry juice was used historically in Italy to enlarge the pupils of women, giving them a striking appearance. This was not a good idea, because belladonna can be poisonous.

"Though widely regarded as unsafe, belladonna is used as a sedative, to stop bronchial spasms in asthma and whooping cough, and as a cold and hay fever remedy. It is also used for Parkinson's disease, colic, motion sickness, and as a painkiller."

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/dr...

Do we have a picture of Eliot's wife?