Cubism and Multiplicity of Narration in the Waste Land
Cubism and Multiplicity of Narration in The Waste Land
Abstract
The aim of this essay is to consider the multiplicity of narration in The Waste Land and its relationship in enrichment of content and meaning in the poem. There is an attempt to convey the Cubist traits and find concrete examples in the poem. This study will try to specify evidences for conformity of cubism and multiplicity of narration in the poem. While Eliot juxtaposed so many perspectives in seemingly set of disjointed images, there is “painful task of unifying .., jarring and incompatible perspectives“ in The Waste Land. Like a cubist painting, there is a kind of variety of narration in unity through the poem. The usage of different languages and narrations in the poem helps to convey sense of the strain of modern living in modern waste land.
Introduction
The Waste Land is like a cubistic painting. The cubist painters rejected the inherited concept that art should copy nature, or that they should adopt the traditional techniques of perspective, modeling, and foreshortening. They wanted instead to emphasize the two dimensionality of the canvas. So they reduced and fractured objects into geometric forms, and then realigned these forms within a relief-like space. They also used multiple or contrasting vantage points for narration of their story on canvas. The most conspicuous feature of cubist form is the abandonment of single perspective. The multiperspectivism in cubism suggests that the many appearances in the world are less true than the abstract design in which produced by their juxtaposition. Eliot dedicated an entire chapter of his
1
doctoral thesis on the problem of solipsism. It is a problem raised by the fact that in any human experience of the world, the world is always experienced from an individual perspective or (in Bradley’s term) finite centre. An individual’s mental life consists in a changing series of such finite centres, and there is no guarantee that his centres will
Abstract
The aim of this essay is to consider the multiplicity of narration in The Waste Land and its relationship in enrichment of content and meaning in the poem. There is an attempt to convey the Cubist traits and find concrete examples in the poem. This study will try to specify evidences for conformity of cubism and multiplicity of narration in the poem. While Eliot juxtaposed so many perspectives in seemingly set of disjointed images, there is “painful task of unifying .., jarring and incompatible perspectives“ in The Waste Land. Like a cubist painting, there is a kind of variety of narration in unity through the poem. The usage of different languages and narrations in the poem helps to convey sense of the strain of modern living in modern waste land.
Introduction
The Waste Land is like a cubistic painting. The cubist painters rejected the inherited concept that art should copy nature, or that they should adopt the traditional techniques of perspective, modeling, and foreshortening. They wanted instead to emphasize the two dimensionality of the canvas. So they reduced and fractured objects into geometric forms, and then realigned these forms within a relief-like space. They also used multiple or contrasting vantage points for narration of their story on canvas. The most conspicuous feature of cubist form is the abandonment of single perspective. The multiperspectivism in cubism suggests that the many appearances in the world are less true than the abstract design in which produced by their juxtaposition. Eliot dedicated an entire chapter of his
1
doctoral thesis on the problem of solipsism. It is a problem raised by the fact that in any human experience of the world, the world is always experienced from an individual perspective or (in Bradley’s term) finite centre. An individual’s mental life consists in a changing series of such finite centres, and there is no guarantee that his centres will
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