The Waste Land was the subject of my own MA thesis and affected my personal life most profoundly. I was introduced to Wallace Stevens in 9th grade, and his poem Of Mere Being left me speechless.
To use a phrase from Eliot, that final poem of his made me feel like I was "looking into the heart of light, the silence."
In an upcoming book, I will assert and demonstrate that The Waste Land isn't a poem, but something else, something new, less comprehensible, less satisfying, and inevitably less capable in its execution than what has come before it, occurring at the breakdown of poetry and the other arts, with concomitant destructive effects upon what became a century of certificated illiteracy.
The Waste Land was the subject of my own MA thesis and affected my personal life most profoundly. I was introduced to Wallace Stevens in 9th grade, and his poem Of Mere Being left me speechless.
To use a phrase from Eliot, that final poem of his made me feel like I was "looking into the heart of light, the silence."
Liza, I found the quote I was looking for in the original draft of "The Waste Land" :
What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?
Carrying away the little light dead people.
Glad to have found this.
Thank you for posting this.
In an upcoming book, I will assert and demonstrate that The Waste Land isn't a poem, but something else, something new, less comprehensible, less satisfying, and inevitably less capable in its execution than what has come before it, occurring at the breakdown of poetry and the other arts, with concomitant destructive effects upon what became a century of certificated illiteracy.