Wednesday, February 11, 2009
The Waste Land/response to, "How to read"
I had to agree with Mary Karr, the poems as individuals are good poems. I felt something when I read this, "In terms of shape, the poem is a collage, somewhat disparate pieces assembled to create in readers the kind of despair that infected much of Western Europe after the Great War." after reading that the poems have more meaning to me. The poems have words from a long time ago and so there is lots of history and changes from the wars, all this brings great depth to the poems. The French language and the other languages do not help but I think it was to add something more to make the poems different and stand out. Look how much controversy it is getting now. I am learning to understand and appreciate all kinds of works in the poem world!
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I think that the quote form Mary Karr was a great quote toward understanding this long work from T.S. Eliot.
ReplyDeleteHe doesn't want this poem to be easy to understand this difficult time that he was living it. There was war, problems in his marriage, and the merging of different cultures in Europe.
But I would have to disagree with what you said about the different languages he used in the poem. I think that it was helpful, especially with the footnotes. Without the footnotes i would have to agree with you, but he was showing the way cultures blend together. And how each language, and culture builds off the other. How one improves because of the other, and why one would want to destroy the other.
Also the music of the poem changes. The different words and languages breaks up the strong images that lace the overall poem. It gives the reader time to catch their breath, and take in all that he has said. Like i said in one of my blogs societies were rebuilding after the world war when he wrote this. These societies were destroying themselves to overcome the others, yet they were laying within their own personal waste lands.