How Far Does T. S. Eliot’s the Waste Land Present a Realistic Picture of London After the First World War?
How Far Does T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land Present a Realistic Picture of London After the First World War?
Eliot’s 1922 poem The Waste Land is unarguably a poem about the decline of western civilization in general. It is for this reason that the reader would not expect to find many specific references to time and place. Surprisingly, however, there are a large number of particular references to London – though, interestingly, only one to the recently-concluded World War One: the demobilisation of “Lil’s husband” from the British Army (line 139). This essay aims to identify to what extent the poem presents a picture of London immediately after the First World War and how it achieves that. What role is London playing within the poem?
Eliot presents a detailed picture of London and its civilization. This is partly achieved through place names. The geographical locations given by Eliot are preponderantly rooted in London. Examples include “Queen Victoria Street” (line 258), “Richmond” (line 294), “The Strand” (line 258), “King William Street” (line 66), “The Cannon Street Hotel” (line 213) and “London Bridge” (line 427). Further examples of typical London locations include churches, pubs and bed sitting rooms. Coote argues that these are “descriptions whose principal purpose is to root the poem in the contemporary physical world” (Coote 49), but this is achieved by other aspects of the poem too.
Eliot shows that ‘life goes on’ regardless of difficulties. One aspect of this can be seen in Eliot’s portrayal of ‘work’, or the working population in a busy and important city. In the poem, work is presented as sterile and meaningless. Eliot shows this through the symbolism of the crowd that “flowed over London Bridge” (line 62):
so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.
Flowed up the hill and down King
Eliot’s 1922 poem The Waste Land is unarguably a poem about the decline of western civilization in general. It is for this reason that the reader would not expect to find many specific references to time and place. Surprisingly, however, there are a large number of particular references to London – though, interestingly, only one to the recently-concluded World War One: the demobilisation of “Lil’s husband” from the British Army (line 139). This essay aims to identify to what extent the poem presents a picture of London immediately after the First World War and how it achieves that. What role is London playing within the poem?
Eliot presents a detailed picture of London and its civilization. This is partly achieved through place names. The geographical locations given by Eliot are preponderantly rooted in London. Examples include “Queen Victoria Street” (line 258), “Richmond” (line 294), “The Strand” (line 258), “King William Street” (line 66), “The Cannon Street Hotel” (line 213) and “London Bridge” (line 427). Further examples of typical London locations include churches, pubs and bed sitting rooms. Coote argues that these are “descriptions whose principal purpose is to root the poem in the contemporary physical world” (Coote 49), but this is achieved by other aspects of the poem too.
Eliot shows that ‘life goes on’ regardless of difficulties. One aspect of this can be seen in Eliot’s portrayal of ‘work’, or the working population in a busy and important city. In the poem, work is presented as sterile and meaningless. Eliot shows this through the symbolism of the crowd that “flowed over London Bridge” (line 62):
so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.
Flowed up the hill and down King