I found myself really enjoying the wasteland. While at first it seems hard to understand the poem, with its weird onomatopoeias, shifts in subject matter, and lines in other languages. However, this "nonsense" allows for the true beauty of the poetry to shine. One may not be able to follow a logical plot within the wasteland, at least not at first, but one will instantly understand the feeling of the poem. Like Plato constructs a city with words, the poet creates emotions with diction and form. A poem like Wasteland, or Jabberwocky, take the focus off of the literal meaning of the poem and forces the reader instead to focus on the image which it is presenting.
Through its "nonsense" the wasteland presents an incredible picture of brokenness and the lack of humanity in society. There is the woman with no care or desire, a great amount of death referenced through the entire work, and a grossness associated with all humanity (the scene of trash on the bank; dinner in tins; animal behavior). This poem is man in his fallen condition. Now we are left to find a solution.
I commented on Kaylie's "Wasteland 0.0"
I like how you referenced Socrates and the Polis. The Wasteland was reallly hard at first. I find myself trying to analyze every little thing about it, but I can't. The overall message about apathy is good. It is definitely a part of the post-modern movement.
ReplyDeleteNice tie-in with Plato. The problem that I have with the wasteland is that while Eliot paints a picture with words, it's more like an extremely abstracted form of impressionism than anything else. You can kind of see what he's going for, but in the end it's just a blurry, chaotic, and jumbled mess of colors. Despite my artistic background, I find it hard to wade through all of the pictures to find the meanings. I feel as if it would be infinitely more clear if Eliot would just simplified everything into it's most true form. While the picture wouldn't be as astounding, it would make a ton more sense.
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