# Talk:The Waste Land

Should there be a section on the poem's reception by the public and critics?  And its impact and legacy? TuckerResearch (talk) 15:33, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

Yes. And something should be said about interpretation. This is why I'm downgrading this from "B" class to "C". A lot more could be written, & some of what is currently here could be condensed. -- llywrch (talk) 23:42, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

First, the idea that "Eliot's poem loosely follows the legend of the Holy Grail and the Fisher King" needs at least to be sourced.  More importantly, this is only one (very old and contested) interpretation of the poem.  I.e. I suggest "the Fisher King" stuff be deleted.  There should be a section a la "critical reception" to represent the variety of interpretations etc. and various assertions about its relevance/importance to literary modernism. ProfHanley (talk) 17:52, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

Hello ProfHanley, your comment is from 2019. Are you still interested in more accurately situating Weston's From Ritual to Romance in the context of the poem and 1920s? Not as a grail legend analysis, but as a work of comparative religion like Frazer's The Golden Bough, Jane Harrison's Ancient Art and Ritual, and Edward Tylor's Primitive Culture (all essential reading, according to Eliot). In the book, Weston explicitly advises against a focus on the grail in isolation from e.g. the lance, candelabra and associated cult objects. That is reinforced by Eliot, who stated he regretted sending people 'on a wild goose chase' regarding the grail. What Weston does is connect the Fisher King legend to very ancient eastern origins in the Attis myth and early-Semitic (Babylonian, Phoenician etc.) fish symbolism. In her view, the imagery of the Fisher King originates in those ancient sources, travelling west and north across time and space to other mythos such as Celtic paganism, later to be merged with Christian fish symbolism (Ichthys) travelling the same path from the same ancient sources.  WKBrannigan (talk) 12:24, 17 October 2024 (UTC)
Hey WKBrannigan, thanks for your recent additions to the article. Profhanley has not edited in nearly a year, so it's unlikely they will be able to discuss this with you now. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 14:24, 17 October 2024 (UTC)
Ok, thanks for the heads up on that. A pity, he is correct in what he says.  WKBrannigan (talk) 20:51, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

I was curious about whether the Marie in the very first stanza of the poem was based on a real person, so I went on Google and searched up "marie cousin of arch duke germany" (based on the information in that first stanza). The first result was Maria Anna of Bavaria (1574-1616), who married her first cousin, Ferdinand, the Arch-Duke of Inner Austria. It seems to me like her marriage could explain why her memories are so bitter (why April is the cruellest month for mixing memory and desire and for melting away the forgetful snow). I know Wikipedia doesn't like original research, so I'm wondering if there's any general consensus on this topic?
Gridzbispudvetch (talk) 03:48, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

The poem seems to say she comes from Lithuanian, but I think it is valid to ask who Eliot is referring to.--Jack Upland (talk) 05:24, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
I paid ten dollars for an annotated copy of this poem from amazon and it just answers the question right there. It's apparently Countess Marie Larisch, whom Eliot met in person under unknown circumstances. The description of the sledding is taken verbatim from a conversation the two had together. I feel kind of cheated out of my discovery, but it's kinda nice to know I think. --Gridzbispudvetch (talk) 05:10, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
I think that would be worth adding that under "Sources". One of his sources was conversations with real people like Marie Larisch.--Jack Upland (talk) 08:35, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
The second great German Eliot translator  (after Ernst Curtius), the late Eva Hesse, has something on this in the first chapter of a 1973 book of hers on "T.S. Eliot und das Wüste Land" (Suhrkamp Verlag) - sadly no longer in my possession. I think I also like to point out that the short introduction to the here mentioned Annotated edition of the Waste Land has a very good introduction on Eliot by Lawrence Rainey. PS.: The Annotated edition gives the basic facts/ interpretation of Eva Hesse concerning the Countess Marie Larisch, I think. --Ralfdetlef (talk) 20:16, 1 February 2023 (UTC)
Please add it, even if you don't have a page number.--Jack Upland (talk) 06:37, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

In order to maintain consistency in articles using a particular short footnote style, a notice was placed at the beginning of this talk page which appears to fit the style being used for this article.  The intention is to be an aid to contributors and citation maintenance editors in upgrading citations to the highest wikipedia standards.  It is often unclear what the rationale is for sfn and harvnb use due to the mixture with inline ref citations which inevitably occurs due to contributors being unfamiliar with short footnotes.  However I may have incorrectly guessed the style for this article, and that the rule is different.  For example- that primary and secondary sources always are placed in the primary and secondary sections regardless if they have different pages referenced or not.  If that is the case, please add a note here and I will place the correct notice here. J JMesserly (talk) 22:24, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

I am dizzy after reading this section. It goes from relevant background on the author's mental state to the wage, in GBP, said author received at their bank job. 
This is not a biography. I suggest that the section be rewritten with a focus on what factors in Elliot's life impacted The Waste Land. Otter Hunter (talk) 02:33, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

@WKBrannigan: moving this conversation here as it's about the article contents.
Unfortunately per WP:NOTRELIABLE your own book doesn't count as a reliable source, given that it's self-published. I suggest citing the sources you used for your book instead, as and when they're directly relevant to the contents you've added.
Additionally, please be very careful about WP:OR and especially WP:SYNTH, which is a very easy trap to fall into. Lots of the things you've written in the section don't appear to be directly supported by sources. For example, the paragraph:

In The Waste Land, the First Temple aspect of the altarpiece serves as a cultural portal to other Semitic cultures of the ancient Near East in the poem. These include "Phlebas the Phoenician" [line 312] and Queen Dido, suggested by the "laquearia" [line 92] of her palace. As is clear from the Bible, Phoenician master-builders built the Temple of Solomon (1 Kings 9). "The plan of the building, the chisel-dressed masonry, and the various decorative motifs are all clearly of Phoenician inspiration, as we now know."
seems to be your own interpretation, with a single source on archaeology and religion in ancient Israel. The whole section really needs one or more reliable sources linking the poem to the church, as the rest is just on the church itself or refers to the facsimile of the poem drafts. Ligaturama (talk) 11:28, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Hello Ligaturama,
Many thanks for your observations and guidance. In the first instance I've addressed this query - "one or more reliable sources linking the poem to the church". Barry Spurr's book is acknowledged as one of the most authoritative on the importance of the church to the poem (and other such churches in the City of London, and the Anglo-Catholic creed). I can further bolster this with quotes from Jewel Spears Brooker and other Eliot experts if you wish, but I suggest that Spurr be considered weighty enough.
I'm contemplating the rest of your commentary. I'm confident it can be addressed but it needs thought, so back to you on that soon. I will address another aspect - my books and my claim to be an expert - later today.
Thanks
WKB WKBrannigan (talk) 11:50, 19 October 2024 (UTC)
Hello Ligaturama,
Regarding your comment on "a single source on archaeology and religion in ancient Israel."
I have now included an other supporting comment from preeminent contemporary archeologists who specialise in this area.
regards
WKB WKBrannigan (talk) 12:43, 19 October 2024 (UTC)
Hello Ligaturama,
I've read the links you sent regarding the various wrong paths in editing, with thanks. Two aspects are addressed here, my qualification as an expert and my books.
For at least 15 years I have concentrated only on The Waste Land as an independent researcher. Obviously I've read around it in modernism including Joyce's Ulysses (which took a year) and a great majority of the critical writings on Eliot. I completed an MAR (Master by Research) on the poem at a UK university noted for it's Eliot studies in 2020, titled 'Anarchy and the Violet Hour: Eve, Adam, and the Cult of the Individual in the Waste Land' (62,000 words). An MAR is a relatively rare masters without set modules, instead allowing fully independent research on a chosen subject. The thesis was examined by the overseeing professor, a second independent professor within the university, and an external professor from another university. I'll let that commentary speak for me in those parts directly related to the Church of St. Magnus the Martyr, which I hope allows me to claim that I am an expert on the poem, and in the relationship of the church to the poem.
"The examiners were greatly impressed by the erudition of the thesis, and by its patient, intelligent explication of the many images and allusions connecting the work of T. S. Eliot to the Church of St Magnus the Martyr. In particular, the examiners felt that the thesis opened up new ways of thinking about The Waste Land, of understanding its mythical structure, and of placing the poem in relation to other major literary and artistic works of the modernist period." (Joint Report)
"This very scholarly thesis is inspired by the reredos of the Church of St Magnus the Martyr in Lower Thames Street, London and its complex, multivalent associations with T. S. Eliot and The Waste Land (the church appears in Part 3 of The Waste Land, ‘The Fire Sermon’, ll. 263-65). In many ways, the Church of St Magnus the Martyr is seen as the meeting place for the powerful constellation of ideas informing Eliot’s 1922 modernist composition, with the nearby London Bridge (also mentioned in the poem) serving as a point of entry into Eliot’s imaginative world, as well as a locus of transition between the different historical, theological, and political realms that are represented in the poem. Just as the individual features of the altarpiece provide the foundation for an intensive study of Eliot’s cultural and poetic ideals, so too the lines in which Eliot alludes to ‘Magnus Martyr’ (immediately preceded by the meeting of ‘the typist’ and ‘the young man carbuncular’) provide the starting point for what proves to be a surprisingly comprehensive and revealing study of Eliot’s work ... The thesis makes significant gains in terms of advancing new ideas and developing existing scholarship on Eliot. It offers an exceptionally thorough exploration of images and allusions that have sometimes baffled readers of The Waste Land." (Internal examining professor)
"In addition to the good work undertaken here in situating The Waste Land within a continuum of ideas and debates, the thesis also undertakes a kind of critical detective work that compellingly and convincingly illuminates key aspects of the poem through an investigation of the role and influence of the reredos of the Church of St Magnus the Martyr. One of the most admirable features of this thesis is the manner in which it weaves a very meticulous and perceptive reading of the physical space of the church into the analysis of key touchstones in the poetry ... This is an excellent piece of scholarship: lively, subtle, illuminating and rigorous." (External examining professor).
Apologies for posting this material here, I would not choose to do so. But I do believe that those who love the poem will very much want to see what this aspect means, and so I'm defending its necessary presence on Wikipedia. Please note that, while the thesis is said to make significant gains, it is also "developing existing scholarship on Eliot." In that, I would put myself forward as what Wikipedia describes as a subject-matter expert (SME). "A person with a master's degree in electronic engineering could be considered a subject-matter expert in electronics." Subject-matter expert - Wikipedia.
My books continue and develop the thesis and as such the books are not themselves original research, the thesis is - and the thesis has been rigorously reviewed. The books are printed by Alep Press (which I own) and use the same book printer as large publishing houses. Alep Press will publish other books by independent authors not related to Eliot or modernism. The publication of the books has been announced on the T.S. Eliot society website. They have have been rigorously edited, and e.g. A Modern Eve has 392 endnotes referring to other academic works of literature, archeology and theology, as well as the works of Eliot.
I've not included original research from the books, such as the battle with Nietzsche's overman waged through the young man carbuncular, as that could be controversial. But the architectural language of the church is not, as you can see from e.g. the work of Barry Spurr etc. Always happy to address any part you consider under-supported with additional arms-length scholarly comment.
With apologies again for the length,
regards
WKB WKBrannigan (talk) 16:04, 19 October 2024 (UTC)
Thanks for your reply. It's really not a question of your own expertise, but reliability and verifiability of sources. All information needs to be backed up by publicly-available reliable sources; we can't just rely on your own interpretation based on expertise, and self-published books are not considered reliable as they don't have the same amount of scrutiny as those published by unaffiliated houses.
You have added more citations to the passage I quoted as an example, but it still demonstrates WP:SYNTH. The individual statements are sourced, but the assertion that "In The Waste Land, the First Temple aspect of the altarpiece serves as a cultural portal to other Semitic cultures of the ancient Near East" is entirely your own: it's you who links Phlebas to Phoenicians building the Temple of Solomon, archaeological findings and 1 Kings, not a cited source. It's the same elsewhere in the section: sources need to back up the exact things you're saying, otherwise it's original research and synthesis. Ligaturama (talk) 07:54, 21 October 2024 (UTC)
Let me first strip out any WP:SYNTH in the paragraph in question.  WKBrannigan (talk) 16:21, 21 October 2024 (UTC)
Hello Ligaturama, I've now stripped out any SYNTH in the paragraph.  WKBrannigan (talk) 15:53, 22 October 2024 (UTC)
I've gone through the section again and tagged the issues I see. The synthesis issue is still present: a link between the Temple of Solomon and the poem is unsupported by a reliable source. There isn't even a reliable source stating that "The London temple at the centre of the poem is the Anglo-Catholic Church of St. Magnus the Martyr in the City of London": if Spurr explicitly states this then he should be cited. The section also goes into a lot of detail that is not relevant to the poem. Ligaturama (talk) 09:56, 4 November 2024 (UTC)
Hello Ligaturama, I've addressed the matters you flagged down to the white and gold, I'll address the rest when I have time, perhaps tomorrow. You make very assured statements here on this work of high modernism, such as 'a lot of detail not relevant to the poem'. I've been open about my status in addressing the poem here, may I ask are you an academic? Best, B.  WKBrannigan (talk) 18:00, 4 November 2024 (UTC)
Perhaps that wasn't the right phrasing - what I really meant was that you need to clearly demonstrate how your passages are relevant to the poem. The digressions into the Temple of Solomon don't do that, and the newly expanded part on the colours of white and gold looks like synthesis again.
I'm not an academic, but as previously discussed, personal credentials are of no use for verifiability. Ligaturama (talk) 10:02, 5 November 2024 (UTC)
Ok, thanks for that and I appreciate your commentary here, an education in itself.
On a macro level regarding the church interior and its importance, the Notes on the Waste Land [264] press the reader to look at that interior - Eliot uses that word twice. May I ask that you go to the sections above - Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism. All emphasize the confluence or synergy of other religions with Judeo-Christianity in the poem. See the statement "The Bible has been described as "probably the single most pervasive influence on the poem"." An omission is the last note [433] that equates the repeated "Shantih" of the Upanishads with the "Peace which passeth understanding" of St. Paul (Philippians 4:7). And, "New Testament symbols include the card of the Hanged Man, which represents Jesus" is an inaccuracy, since there is no such card in the New Testament. It is a Tarot card that Eliot links to the dying god Attis [Note 46] linked in turn by Frazer in The Golden Bough to Jesus. So, Eliot's newly minted literary symbol transposes a Tarot symbol into Christ imagery (if I recall correctly, Weston argues that Tarot symbolism, like the Fisher King, is also rooted in very ancient Mesopotamian myth, both linked to the ancient versions of the yearly dying god). All these acutely written religious sections in this wiki article direct the reader to the spiritual confluence between the religions of the world and Christianity. In doing that, they all contain a form of synth, since it is not explicit in the poem. There are also some very definite statements made, such as "the voice of prophecy". Not disagreeing with any of it, it's very much in the small c catholic (universal) spirit of the poem.
More concerning is the section on post-war disillusionment. Here there is a marked difference between the well supported material I have put up, which is completely in tune with the preceding sections on religion in the article, and an extended section forcing a disillusionment reading on the poem which Eliot himself described as nonsense. Again, this is a form of synth: if enough people are shown to have said it, a reading can be synthesized and imposed on the poem even if the author emphatically called it nonsense. In essence, it is synthesizing a claim that Eliot is not in control of his poetry, doesn't know what he is doing, and that these more intelligent critics know better.
Please review the white and gold "list" again. I say list because I've included the span of meanings in 1922 of those colours in theology, literature, ancient history and the history of the church. All supported by arms-length references, and done precisely to avoid synth by offering a spectrum of meaning all of which (this can be said here, but not in that article) are undoubtedly contained in Eliot's reference to white and gold. In 1918 Eliot wrote of James Joyce, author of the work of literature that most inspired him to write The Waste Land using the mythic method, 'James Joyce, another very learned literary artist, uses allusions suddenly and with great speed, part of the effect being the extent of the vista opened to the imagination with the lightest touch’. Best, B.  WKBrannigan (talk) 12:41, 5 November 2024 (UTC)
I've also eliminated references to my own work, to ensure impartiality is not in question WKBrannigan (talk) 14:00, 5 November 2024 (UTC)
I don't know why you keep referring to Eliot's own interpretation as if it's the "correct" one - unless academic consensus has changed in recent years, I was under the impression that we still live in the age of the death of the author, where Eliot's views are not privileged. If you have reliable secondary sources disputing anything in the article then by all means include their point of view, bearing in mind that they should not be given undue weight if they are minority viewpoints.
The interpretations in the other sections of the article are backed up by reliable sources which make them explicitly. As I've explained above, WP:SYNTH/WP:OR is about the article itself making the connections that are otherwise not present in the sources. Taking just the first paragraph of "White and Gold":
In theology, the "white and gold" colours of that church in the poem are the "liturgical colours of Easter,"
- supported with a relevant reference
described by Lord Harries, Bishop of Oxford, as "white or gold, anticipating the resurrection, a shaft of sunlight in the darkness."
- is there anything in this source which links this to the poem?
In the work of literature that most inspired Eliot during the time of writing his poem, white and gold are the colours of the opening episode of James Joyce's Ulysses (with 'theology' named as its art theme).
- is there anything in this source which links this to the poem?
- the statement that Ulysses is "the work of literature that most inspired Eliot" while he was writing the poem needs a reference
In ancient history, according to Flavius Josephus, white and gold were the colours of the First Temple, also called the Temple of Solomon.
- Nothing to connect this to the poem
In the history of the church, Thomas Allen reports that the altarpiece of Magnus Martyr was white and gold in the 1800s.
- The implicit assumption here is that it was white and gold when Eliot saw it, and that influenced the poem, which is not supported by the source.
Ligaturama (talk) 09:07, 8 November 2024 (UTC)
I'm grateful to be directed to Barthes' famous assertion as it is a good retrospective lens. I'd argue for significant caution in deploying Barthes Death of the Author unreservedly. An aspect of the pseudo-anarchic fragmented layer of Eliot's poem is a 1920s representation of the babel that will arise from Nietzsche's there-is-no-truth perspectivism and associated ideas, reflecting his thinking of the early 1900s. In an address to the Harvard Philosophical Club in 1914, Eliot said "what Nietzsche has done is to have built another creed. And I think that perhaps Nietzsche is the most vicious intellectualist of any of us." Nietzsche's Death of God underwrites Barthes essay. "Thus literature (it would be better, henceforth, to say writing), by refusing to assign to the text (and to the world as text) a "secret:' that is, an ultimate meaning, liberates an activity which we might call counter-theological, properly revolutionary, for to refuse to arrest meaning is finally to refuse God and his hypostases, reason, science, the law." (It's something of an irony that Barthes, Foucault and Derrida have become the capital A Authors within that school of there-is-no-truth literary criticism). The anti-Enlightenment antipathy to "reason, science, the law" arises from Romanticism, which proposed something in humanity that exceeded reason, later expressed in Nietzsche's satyr as an expression of the primal drives of his overman. In Eliot's thinking, that valorizes chaos. During the public argument with Middleton Murray on Romanticism V Classicism in the 1920s, Eliot wrote, "With Mr. Murry’s formulation of Classicism and Romanticism I cannot agree; the difference seems to me rather the difference between the complete and the fragmentary, the adult and the immature, the orderly and the chaotic." A 2nd comment of the 1920s also addresses cohesion. "‘One of the surest tests is the way in which a poet borrows … The bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion." Each of these comments on its own should make it clear that Eliot would not write a purely fragmented (anarchic) poem. A person who decides to read Joyce's Ulysses without any assistance and declares it to be only an account of an anarchic pub crawl in Dublin (devoid of a unifying mythic layer) is entitled to their opinion, but these are the Dunning-Kruger opinions encouraged at the outer edges of Barthes Death of the Author, delivering the undifferentiated babel of competing voices you here in The Waste Land. Underneath, the poem is as deep a work, and as controlled, disciplined and unified, as Ulysses.
I will hopefully address your concerns in specific instances in the article as soon as I get the time. Meanwhile, to answer one, here is Eliot on Ulysses and the mythic method in 1923.
Best, B.  WKBrannigan (talk) 13:59, 11 November 2024 (UTC)
In using the myth, in manipulating a continuous parallel between contemporaneity and antiquity, Mr. Joyce is pursuing a method which others must pursue after him. They will not be imitators, any more than the scientist who uses the discoveries of an Einstein in pursuing his own, independent, further investigations. It is simply a way of controlling, of ordering, of giving a shape and a significance to the immense panorama of futility and anarchy which is contemporary history. It is a method already adumbrated by Mr. Yeats, and of the need for which I believe Mr. Yeats to have been the first contemporary to be conscious. It is a method for which the horoscope is auspicious. Psychology (such as it is, and whether our reaction to it be comic or serious), ethnology, and The Golden Bough have concurred to make possible what was impossible even a few years ago. Instead of narrative method, we may now use the mythical method. It is, I seriously believe, a step toward making the modern world possible for art, toward that order and form which Mr. Aldington so earnestly desires. And only those who have won their own discipline in secret and without aid, in a world which offers very little assistance to that end, can be of any use in furthering this advance.
(Eliot Ulysses, Order, and Myth, 1923) WKBrannigan (talk) 14:01, 11 November 2024 (UTC)
I've removed the section from the article as we're a month on and it still has fundamental issues. It's still in the page history, and can be re-added once they're addressed. Ligaturama (talk) 16:16, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
That seems high-handed and aggressive, since you've always been treated respectfully. If worried about time, you might have done the same by sending a reminder, as I would have told you that I intended to address the matters this week. I'd ask you please to reinstate it and I will then do that.  WKBrannigan (talk) 19:36, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
As discussed, the section doesn't follow to Wikipedia standards in a number of ways. I suggest you draft it in your sandbox and re-add it once it is free of synthesis and original research, all its assertions are backed up by reliable sources, all of it relates directly to the poem, and it follows the rest of WP:POLICY and WP:MOS. Ligaturama (talk) 09:49, 28 November 2024 (UTC)
I'm not going to do that as I've lost faith in your objectivity and sense of balance. One example will suffice.
In the 2 opening paragraphs of the Fertility and the Fisher King myth section, none of the approximately 25 sentences from "In the story" to "restores the land" are directly related to The Waste Land. They are there to provide context. I see no flagging from you in this section.
Yet when I add one sentence of context from Lord Harries Bishop of Oxford (a noted Eliot scholar) explaining what the liturgical colours white and gold mean - most assuredly related to the poem, and the church at the center of the poem, since the colours are explicit in the poem - you flag it by asking "- is there anything in this source which links this to the poem?".
So I won't be engaging further.  WKBrannigan (talk) 14:07, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

Addressing relevance of material, added commentary from Robert Crawford, a foremost Eliot scholar, makes clear Eliot's central interest in the anthropological foundations of modern religion. In addition, the 2 books explicitly named by Eliot in the Notes on the Waste Land permanently attached to the poem from the outset are books of Comparative Religion. Both books examine in detail (and are focused entirely on) the roots of much of the symbolism, rituals and imagery of Christianity that arise from earlier religions. [As an aside purely for interest, the church is likely to have been built on or very near to the Temple of Isis of Roman Londinium]. 
Addressing amount of material, it is the very minimum considering Magnus Martyr is the London temple at the center of the poem and as such is at the center of any analysis of the poem that looks at its spiritual and anthropological aspects. There is voluminous material on it in Eliot studies.  WKBrannigan (talk) 16:35, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

The books Eliot names in the notes are The Golden Bough by James Frazer (which traces the dying god to Mesopotamian roots) and From Ritual to Romance by Jessie Weston. Contrary to erroneous characterizations of it in this wiki article, Weston's book is not a grail legend book and she explicitly advises against reading it that way, as does Eliot. She develops on the work of Frazer by tracing the roots of the Fisher King legend (later absorbed into pagan and then Christianised Arthurian literature) back to  the dying gods Attis (see Notes on the Waste Land) and Tammuz, and other very ancient roots in Mesopotamian fish symbolism.  WKBrannigan (talk) 16:44, 3 November 2024 (UTC)