critical views the waste land

Question 1

‘as Eliot tears literary voices from one context to relocate them in another, he forces himself, his readers and even his sources to enter into a dialogue’

Answer 1

Dr Andrew Green- suggests that Eliot attempts to bring in a plethora of references in order to stimulate a cultural awakening following the horrific world war which plagued Europe and provided fertile grounds for TWL

Question 2

the references ‘create the ongoing dialogue between the present and the past is at the very heart of TWL’

Answer 2

Andrew Green- speaks to the central technique and theme: intertextuality and historical continuity- creating a continuity of references

Question 3

Hannah Sullivan 1 (Cleopatra)

Answer 3

‘behind every scene is some other scene, so the ‘she’ who sits languidly in a chair at the beginning of ‘A Game of Chess’ is set up for tragedy by the allusion of Cleopatra

Question 4

Hannah Sullivan 2 (marriage)

Answer 4

‘the unhappy modern marriages seen in the snatches of conversation’

Question 5

Adrian Barlow 1 (conversation with readers and writers)

Answer 5

‘all Eliot’s poems are conversations, not just with the reader, but with other writers and other texts’

Question 6

Peter Howarth

Answer 6

Eliot feels that ‘other people are imposing on us their idea of who we really are’

Question 7

Keverne Smith (Emily and Vivienne)

Answer 7

‘when he married Vivien in 1915 he was probably still in love with Emily Hale’

Question 8

Rick Rylance (symbolises of TWL)

Answer 8

‘the wasteland also symbolises spiritual, egological and social desolation’

Question 9

Barbra Morden

Answer 9

‘there is a neurotic society, as ‘synthetic’ as their perfumes, moving to the contrapuntal rhythms of jazz while the edifice of Western culture crumbles around them’