the wasteland (3).ppt

8/10/2019 the wasteland (3).ppt

1/35

The Waste Land(1922)

T. S. Eliot


2/35

Purpose of The Waste Land

To convey the souls and civilizations

sense of emptiness, confusion, and

aimlessness after WWI

To provide a means of regeneration for the

soul and civilization

To revitalize poetry


3/35

Objective Correlative

The only way of expressing emotion in the

form of art is by finding the objective

correlative, in other words, a set of objects,

a situation, a chain of events which shall be

the formula of that particular emotion; such

that when the external facts, which must

terminate in sensory experience, are given,the emotion is immediately evoked.


4/35

The Objective Correlative

The waste land is the situation that

signifies human despair and fear of

death


5/35

Premise of The Waste Land

We need to accept that all wars are one war,

all battles are one battle, all journeys one

journey, all rivers one river, all rooms oneroom, all loves one love, and ultimately, all

people one person.

All of the specific examples of these thingsin the poem are in every case representative

of their kind.


6/35

The Meaning of The Waste Land

convey the state of post-war civilization and

the soul through the heap of broken

images

transcend the ego by identifying with the

continuity of significant tradition, of the

inherited wisdom of the human race


7/35

External Sources

Biographical and historical background

The collective vision


8/35

The Waste Land: Biographical and Historical

ContextsModern Aimlessness

T. S. Eliot Post-war society


9/35

Biographical Context

met Ezra Pound, who introduced him to

several modernist poets

married Vivien Haigh-Wood

worked at Lloyds Bank

had a nervous breakdown; recuperated in

Margate and Lausanne, Switzerland


10/35

Historical Context: WWI

had laid the battlefields to waste

had spiritually scarred soldiers and the

population at large

had physically weakened populations,

enabling the Spanish flu to kill over 50

million people


11/35

The Waste Land: Regeneration

Carl Jung

The Golden Bough

From Ritual to RomanceThe Tarot


12/35

Carl Jungs Collective Unconscious

the unconscious inherited wisdom of therace

contains all of the images, archetypes, thathave ever given rise to myths

archetypes, to be of value, must be recreated

in collaboration with the consciousintelligence into a process of orderedgrowth, of transformation


13/35

Jungs Archetypes of

Transformation refers to the integration of the personality

occurs with the detachment from the world

of objective reality as the center of

experience and the finding of a new

dimension in which to live

involves the death of an old pattern of lifeand the birth of a new


14/35

Jungs Archetypes of

Transformation During the process of transformation, certain

archetypical images occur, forming a continuity

and an interaction of symbols expressing thedisintegration and death of the old pattern and the

gradual emergence of the new.

After the transformation, the center of the

personality shifts from the ego to a point ofequilibrium between the individual consciousness

and the collective psyche.


15/35

Jessie L. Weston:From Ritual to

Romance (1920) an attempt to explain the roots of the legend of the

Holy Grail

enumerates the seemingly inexplicable elements ofthe quest--The Fisher King, The Wasteland, theChapel Perilous, and the Grail Cup itself

ties them to the symbols and initiatory rites of the

ancient mystery religions whose common sourcewere the vegetation rituals and fertility rites


16/35

The Legend: The Curse

concerns a land which has been blighted by

a curse so that it is arid and waterless,

rendering it infertile linked with the plight of a ruler, the Fisher

King, who as a result of an illness or a

wound has become sexually impotent


17/35

The Legend: The Curse

removed when a Knight appears who must

ask the question as to the meaning of the

Lance and the Grail the lance which pierced Christs side at the

Crucifixion

The cup from which Christ and the disciplesdrank at the Last Supper


18/35

The Legend: Other Versions of the

Curse removed when Knight asks why this curse

has taken place

removed when the Knight undertakesvarious ordeals, culminating in that of the

Chapel or Cemetery Perilous


19/35

James Frazer: The Golden Bough:

A Study of Magic and Religion

(1890-1915) reads a bit like a novel that touches on

almost anything

explores the roots of mythology, folklore,magic, and religion from the far East, thenear East, Africa, Europe, America andmore

shows the parallels between these andChristianity


20/35

Significance of The Golden Bough

Its thesis is that ancient religions were fertility

cults that centered around the worship of, and

periodic sacrifice of, a sacred king, the incarnationof a dying and reviving god, a solar deity who

underwent a mystic marriage to a goddess of the

earth, and who died at the harvest and who was

reincarnated in the spring. It claimed that this legend was central to almost all

of the world's mythologies.


21/35

Significance

The golden bough is a reference to a mystical tree in aGreco-Roman myth.

In the ancient tale the hero Aeneas consults the prophetess who is

one of the Sybil at Cumae. The Sybil tells Aeneas to break a branch from a certain tree that is

sacred to Juno Inferno.

Then Aeneas is led to the entrance of the Underworld that hedescends.

Aeneas approaches the Stygian lake that Charon will not ferry himacross because he is not dead.

The Sybil who accompanies Aeneas then produces a golden boughthat allows Aeneas entrance into the Underworld.


22/35

The Tarot

Based on similarities of the imagery and

numbering, some associate the Tarot with

ancient Egypt. The pack of cards was used to forecast the

rising and falling of the waters of the Nile.

Cards were used to control the sources oflife.


23/35

The Form of The Waste Land

fragments of human experience of the

present moment

allusions to the significant tradition of thepast


24/35

The Form

The Mythical Method

The Labyrinth

FilmCollage

The Kaleidoscope

Alchemy


25/35

The Mythical Method

The presentation of experience in symbolic

form

The creation of a pattern that brings humanbeings into significant relationship with

mysterious forces outside the actualities of

daily life


26/35


27/35

Alchemy

an early protoscientific practice combining elements ofchemistry, physics, astrology, art, semiotics, metallurgy,medicine, and mysticism

most well-known goal was the transmutation of any metalinto either gold or silver

the mythical substance, the Philosophers Stone,believed to be an essential ingredient in this goal

goal of alchemy was really a metaphor for a spiritualtransformation of the self

when reading a book on alchemy, the reader must read"over" the words to figure out the way to followdecoding the secret text to discover its true meaning


28/35

Labyrinths

still being used throughout the world as

meditative and healing tools

suggest going on a pilgrimage to discoversomething about ourselves and God

implies losing ones way and having to start

from the beginning all over again


29/35

Labyrinths

Release of distracting cares as you move toward

the center and let your mind gradually quiet

Receptivity to whatever illumination you receiveas you pause in the center for prayer or meditation

Rejoining the world with your renewed vision or

refreshed spirit as you follow the path outward

again.


30/35

Kaleidoscope

The kaleidoscopeis a tube of mirrors containing loose coloredfragments.

The viewer looks in one end and light enters the other end, reflectingoff the mirrors.

Typically there are two rectangular lengthways mirrors. Setting of themirrors at 45 degrees creates eight duplicate images of the objects, sixat 60 degrees, and four at 90 degrees.

As the tube is rotated, the tumbling of the fragments presents theviewer with varying colors and patterns.

Any arbitrary pattern of objects shows up as a beautiful symmetric

pattern because of the reflections in the mirrors. A two-mirror model yields a pattern or patterns isolated against a solid

black background, while a three-mirror (closed triangle) model yields apattern that fills the entire field.


31/35

Film

made up of images that are spliced (edited)

together to create an emotional reaction

from the viewer can be used to document reality

captures the dynamism and chaos of the

modern age


32/35

Collage

A work composed of bringing together two or

more disparate realities

A new relationship is enacted between lowculture (mass culture) and high culture.

This relationship is felt to be inappropriate,

jarring, or wrongyet interestingly so.

The end result is indecency, paradox, and enigma.


33/35

The Mythical Method

For Eliot, the mythical method was the

means of revitalizing poetry.

According to Eliot, poetry had become in itspresent state too beholden to description,

narrative, discussion, to reflection, to

decoration.


34/35

Meaning: The Mythical Method

For Eliot, the mythical method was the

means of revitalizing poetry.

According to Eliot, poetry had become in itspresent state too beholden to description,

narrative, discussion, to reflection, to

decoration.


35/35

Form: Modern Music and Jazz

imitates the jazz-like syncopation--and, like 1920sjazz, essentially iconoclastic

captures the dissonance and urban rhythms of

modern life parallels The Rite of Springwhich transforms the

rhythm of the steppes into the scream of the motorhorn, the rattle of the machinery, the grind of the

wheels, the beating of iron and steel, the roar ofthe underground railway, and the other barbariccries of modern life; and to transform thesedespairing noises into music

Documents

the wasteland (3).ppt