Monday, January 30, 2012
Initial Impression of The Waste Land
My initial impression of "The Waste Land" so far is that it is basically a hodgepodge of literary references. I know that it is a historic and renowned piece, but I am still disappointed. I liked "The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock" a lot, but I did not really feel a connection to this poem at all. I understand the significance of it is that T.S. Eliot is able to connect so many different pieces of literature so fluidly, however I still have not been able to really get into it. I think that I must have found "The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock" to be a lot more lyrical perhaps..
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I love T.S. Elliot, not uppity sophistication nonsense that people sometimes associate with Elliot. I've met people who can go on and on about Elliot with this kind of holier-than-thou sorta attitude, and I've met people who totally hate the man and say he hates his audience because he makes readers work their asses off over footnotes. I liked Elliot before I knew what the allusions meant, not that I can say I really know what they mean now. I'm not sure it's possible to totally "get" every inch of this poem if you're not Elliot himself. I like this stuff in spite of the allusions, in fact my absolute favorite stuff by Elliot tends to be poems without allusions. I love the sounds of Elliot's stuff; his words are music and he's the Bach of modern poetry. I could be completely making this up but I think I remember reading or hearing somewhere that Elliot said there was a level of understanding that came solely from hearing his work, like there was an innate feeling or understanding of feeling that preceded actual textual understanding. Maybe not. Anyway T.S. Elliot is one of my favorite poets. Yeah, I can't say I understand everything in wastelands but the language and rhythm are beyond beautiful anyways.
I agree, Mere. The Waste Land is definitely hard to grasp and at first glance seems like a mess of allusions. However even with just the auditory today (probably just because it is another reading) and Mrs. Quinet's other sources, it seems as if The Waste Land is slowly revealing it self. I think it will definitely take me a lot more readings and discussion to fully appreciate The Waste Land like we did Prufrock.
Okay I revoke what I initially said about The Waste Land. I was fascinated by the poem once I realized there were different voices speaking. I loved the recording we listened to today. It really altered my opinion of the poem. I now see the lyricalness in it that I saw in "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", and I'd say it's a very intense poem..maybe even sublime?
Now that we are putting the pieces of this poem together, I like it. At first, it annoyed me. It's extremely complex and it amazes me that someone could make a poem like this work. There are a lot of allusions, but they are aimed at particular points and not simply randomly thrown in
The Wasteland was so hard to understand that at first the footnotes didn't even help me! After listening to the youtube video in class I started to understand it much better. I think the class discussions have benifited me the most though because now I really appreciate the depth of this poem. For instance I would never have picked up on the hycinth girl or tarot card things.
My initial impression of the Wasteland is similar to Meredith's. It was hard to understand and grasp the full theme and concept of the poem. After explaining and analyzing each stanza it is clear that each speaker is dealing with different futile searches, some for redemption and others for salvation.
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