The Wasteland

[poliphilo]

I took Eliot down to verify the quote I used to head the previous post- and found myself reading Prufrock to Ailz.  Afterwards I read her The Waste Land. Eliot is very good to read aloud. Later I found myself telling Mike- via Skype- that he should read The Waste Land. Well, one should, shouldn't one? It's a foundation stone of the modern world.

I've been thinking about the parallels between Eliot and Picasso-  how the multiple voices of The Wasteland are like the multiple viewpoints in a Cubist painting and how its use of quotation and near-quotation resembles collage.  Both artists are trying to get at the truth by surrounding it.

Comments

wei la la

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

The Waste Land is my least favourite poem although I like the opening lines. I can't be doing with any piece of work that needs a concordance before the woman on the Clapham omnibus has any hope of understanding it. I can't help feeling that Eliot and Pound were having an enormous Tracy-Emin style laugh at the pomposity of culture fans and the whole thing is the Emperor's New Stanzas. Never mind surrounding the truth, let's state it plainly.

Re: wei la la

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

But it's so beautiful.

'Trams and dusty trees.
Highbury bore me. Richmond and Kew
Undid me. By Richmond I raised my knees
Supine on the floor of a narrow canoe.'
'My feet are at Moorgate, and my heart
Under my feet. After the event
He wept. He promised "a new start".
I made no comment. What should I resent?'
'On Margate Sands.
I can connect
Nothing with nothing.
The broken fingernails of dirty hands.
My people humble people who expect
Nothing.'

Nothing difficult about that- Just flat-out, grief-stricken lyricism.