The Mythical Method in the Waste Land

The Mythical Method in the Waste Land

Authors

  • Dr. Swati Shrivastava

Abstract

E.M. Forster wrote of Eliot‟s religion, „What he seeks is not revelation but stability‟. The quest for
stability is central to Eliot‟s work. The social and personal agony of The Wasteland and the individual agony
of „Prufrock‟ are responses to the instability of everything. The power of the religious poems is not their
faith but in the tormenting desire to believe- in the forms and dogma as much as in the Deity. When Stability
is unattainable the tone becomes elegiac, as in Prufrock or satirical, as in the Sweeney poems. Desire for
stability resulted in his lucid conservatism and his technical radicalism as a poet. His search for stability and
a satisfactory dogma structure made him explore the world of myth, it is a barbaric world for Eliot, one
agrees with Spender that “For Eliot Civilization meant the Europe of Dante with its roots in the Rome of
Virgil”. The ritualistic world of Indian Literature also have a similar appeal for Eliot. When Indian antiquity
appears in the poetry of T.S. Eliot, it is not one of valour, violence and intrigue but one of religious awe and
tender sentiments.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

 Chiari , Joseph, T.S. Eliot Poet and Dramatist (London, Vision 1972)

 Eliot , T.S. The Waste Land and other poems. London: Faber and Faber, 1972

 Eliot ,T.S. The Sacred Wood. London : Mathuen and Co.Ltd.,1960

 Feder, Lillian, Ancient Myth in Modern Poetry, Princeton paper back printing, 1977

 Frazer, Sir James George. The Golden Bough. Abridged ed. London: Macmillan and Co.Ltd.,1970

 Gardener, Helen. The Art of T.S.Eliot. London: The Creeset Press,1949

 George , A.G. T.S.Eliot: His Mind and Art. Bombay: Asia Publishing House, 1962

 Howarth, Herbert. Notes on some figures behind T.S. Eliot. London: Chatto and Windus, 1965

 Rai , V. The Waste Land : A Critical Study , Varanasi: Motilal Banarasidass ,1965

 Smidt , Kristian . Poetry and Belief in the work of T.S. Eliot. London : Routledge and Kegan Paul

,1961

 Spender , Stephen, „ Remembering T.S.Eliot‟, Encounter, April , 1965

 Weston , Jessie L. From Ritual to Romance. Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Co., Inc.,1957

Additional Files

Published

10-08-2015

How to Cite

Dr. Swati Shrivastava. (2015). The Mythical Method in the Waste Land. Vidhyayana - An International Multidisciplinary Peer-Reviewed E-Journal - ISSN 2454-8596, 1(1). Retrieved from https://vidhyayanaejournal.org/journal/article/view/131
Loading...