It's Only Teenage Wasteland.. They're All Wasted!

T.S. Eliot's' "The Wasteland" lives true to its reputation for being difficult. The ideas and topics he talks about seem scatter and hard to grasp onto. Which they are. A lot of that has to do with the integration of many different cultural references and languages, many of which are uncommon or considered to be dead such as Sanskrit and Latin. Even though it has some similar details to other modernists we've read such as Frost, specifically "Home Burial" in relation to section II "A Game of Chess" with the common talk of a fighting couple over a child and the societal roles of men and women. I'm actually starting this same poem in a different class and doing a presentation about it. My group and I talked to the teacher about the cultural contexts that lead up to the poem and she mentioned about World War I was heavily involved in this the topics and contexts within this poem. That is, I think, the biggest difference between Eliot and all the other modernists we've read; Eliot draws on the world around him, good and bad aspects, and specifically politics. We talked about the reasons behind the integration of so many different cultural references such as places and the different languages as a way of preserving these cultures around the world that are being destroyed by war and the diminishing of our culture. I'd have to say, it may be one of the more difficult readings we've had to pick apart, but I find it to be one of the more interesting