Unifying Schemas for The Waste Land

**Eliot's Waste Land :**

Possible Schemas for Unification

I. The Burial of the Dead (asking the question; starting the journey; crossing the threshold)
II. A Game of Chess (the first incomplete, unsatisfactory answer: sex without love in marriage; the road of trials)
III. The Fire Sermon (a second unsatisfactory answer: sex without love outside marriage; various temptations)
IV. Death by Water (the nadir, sparagmos, symbolic death)
V. What the Thunder Said (the final hopeful, or at least on-going answer; reconciliation with parental figures, the return )

One way to understand the structure of The Waste Land is to see it as a traditional Romantic lyric, such as Wordsworth's "Intimations Ode." In his essay on "Structure and Style in the Greater Romatic Lyric," M.H. Abrams defines the essential structure of these poems as the posing of a question, (Initial vision of loss or crisis, centering on a question of renewal or imaginative survival) followed by a series of incomplete or unsatisfactory answers, finally resolved by an answer which offers some hope or on-going possibility.

Since The Waste Land is a quest poem, another structural schema that you can use to look at the poem is Joseph Campbell's account of the hero's quest. To see a chart of the stages in the hero's journey, illustrated in the Star Wars triology, go to my Campbell Chart.

Philip Headings suggests that the poem uses a death-and-rebirth sequence in many contexts: annual death-of-the king vegetation ceremonies; Christian pattern of death and rebirth; death-rebirth of Feriand's father in The Tempest; Dante's journey from Hell through Purgatory

Eliot's reference in his notes to Jesse Weston's FROM RITUAL TO ROMANCE suggests that the poem may also be read in light of the history of the grail quest. Weston's book, among other things, draws parallels between the development of the tarot deck and symbolism associated with the grail. There is som discussion as to whether ELiot actually read Weston or not, but the basic idea here is that the Fisher King (=Ferdinand) represents the wounded hero whose healing would also heal the land. See Brooks' essay for the full dveelopment of this idea.

Here is a web site the summarizes some of Weston's ideas in the process of analyzing Wagner's Parzival.
This web site has a heavily illustrated account of more thanyou ever wanted to know about the Fisher King.
This web site has a good explanation of fertility ceremonies and how they tie in.
Pat Sloane's comments on various allusions in Eliot's poems, often explain or question allusions to the grail quest and the tarot deck.

Tarot Deck

This site has a nice treatment of the tarot deck in the Waste Land
Here is the Waite Tarot Deck, which is probably the one Eliot knew about. The Wheel | The Hanged Man Another fuller explanation of Hanged Man | The Tower | the Man with Three Staves

Lyndall Gordon's extensive work on Eliot's life and research in unpublished manuscripts leads her to believe that that the most important pattern buried in the WL is the religious quest for a mystical unity with God through the purgatorial self-mortification of a saint's life.

Greg Jay suggests that The Waste Land be read in the context of the pastoral elegy: a literary context also invoked by James Miller in his T.S. ELiot's Personal Waste Land. This ties into the idea that the poem is a lament for the death of Jean Verdenal (and also Eliot's own father who died early in 1919). Think in particular of how this poem relates to Milton's Lycidas:

Statement of loss-- nature mourns
Invocation of Muses
Memory of pastoral youth
loss and change
nymphs are gone; didn't save him
digression on fame
who was responsible? (Fountain, sea, boat)
pastoral evocationof St. Peter
call for return of flowers (incomplete resurrection)
TURN --> Lycidas sank low in sea but mounted high to heaven
realistic hope for future

Images

Link to list of cross-referenced themes and images on Richard Parker's Exploring the Waste Land site

Link to all references to the seasons on Richard Parker's Exploring The Waste Land Site

he Elements:

Tarot Deck	Playing Cards	Elements	*Waste Land*
Pentacles (coins)	Clubs	Earth	I. Burial of the dead
Swords	Spades	Air/ Water	II. A Game of Chess
Wands	Diamonds	Fire	III. Fire Sermon
Cups (ace of cups = the grail)	Hearts	Water	IV. Death by Water
			V. What the Thunder Said

References to theTempest in WL:

I -- l. 48: (Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)
II -- l. 125: Those are pearls that were his eyes.
II-- l. 128: O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag
III -- l. 191: Musing upon the king my brother's wreck

192: And on the king my father's death before him.

III -- l. 257: 'This music crept by me upon the waters'
V -- l. 424: Fishing, with the arid plain behind me

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Last updated: November 21, 1999
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