"The Waste Land"

Paper Summary:

This paper provides a comprehensive and scholarly critique of T. S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" to identify its symbols. An analysis of what the critics have to say about the work is followed by a summary of the research in the conclusion. Several peer-reviewed sources used.

From the Paper:

"According to Roger Casey, a dominant symbol in The Waste Land is the fisher-king, the "impotent lord of a land cursed by a blight of sterility which can be cured only by the quest of a knight for the meaning of various symbols presented to him" (Casey 1991:192). Following the 1922 publication of his poem, The Waste Land, Eliot won an international reputation. The Waste Land expresses with great power the disenchantment, disillusionment, and disgust of the period after World War I. In a series of vignettes, loosely linked by the legend of the search for the Grail, it portrays a sterile world of panicky fears and barren lusts, and of human beings waiting for some sign or promise of redemption (Casey 1991:192)."

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