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Fire Sermon Anayalysis

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Fire Sermon Anayalysis
Timothée FERREOL
Marvin ELLIE
Bloc 6

16/04/13

EXPOSE LITTERATURE FIRE SERMON

In this paper I will just briefly describe Eliot's life, and the main sources of intertextuality of "The Fire Sermon", which is the third part of "The Waste Land". Then I will try to analyze "The Fire Sermon" focusing on the role of nature in the poem.
"It is just a piece of rhythmical grumbling" (T.S Eliott)
T.S Elliot was born in 1888 in America he was a famous wiriter, poet and critics. He attended Harvard in 1906 but he soon moved to England in 1914.
This text is a section of the Waste Land a book filled with poems of TS Elliot showing a very sad point of view about life in general. The title is taken from a Buddhist sermon where people are encouraged to free themselves from earthly and materialist passions .. This text is about denouncing loveless sex and lack of true emotions. The section opens in a desolated and barren place on the river Thames and put an ambiance of decaying and desolation which will last for the rest of the scene.. * First two stanzas depicts an infertile and barren world, with no signs of life except the rubbish that are flotting on the river. Theme of death and destruction are evocated. * The third stanza reminds us of section 2 with the rape of Philomel and the nightingale’s song. * The fourth stanza depicts an invitation to Eliot to a lunch at a hotel with another man. * The fifth and sixth stanza introduces the character Tiresias, a prophet, who is a male and a female character at the same time. He is the narrator and depicts us the meaningless of a relationship between a typist and a small house agent’s clerk. The sexual relationship is show as a loveless and automatic one. it is the reflect the state of our society for Eliott.

The poem of TS Elliot : The Fire Sermon is a poem based on various perspective : nature, human behaviour and city. Throughout the text, these perspectives are shown with diffferent angle, different

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