The Waste Land is a 434-line modernist poem by T. S. Eliot published in 1992. It has been called one of the most important long poems of the 20th century. Despite the alleged obscurity of the poem – its shifts between satire and prophecy, its abrupt and unannounced changes of speaker, location and time, its elegiac but intimidating summoning up of a vast and dissonant range of cultures and literatures – the poem has nonetheless become a familiar touchstone of modern literature. Among its famous phrases are "April is the cruelest month" (its first line); "I will show you fear in a handful of dust"; and the Sanskrit “Shantih shantih shantih”
The five parts of The Waste Land are entitled:
1. The Burial of the Dead, 2. A Game of Chess, 3. The Fire Sermon, 4. Death by Water, 5. What the Thunder Said.
The first four sections of the poem correspond to the Greek classical elements of Earth (burial), Air (voices – the draft title for this section was "In the Cage", an image of hanging in air; also, the element of Air is generally thought to be aligned with the intellect and the mind), Fire (passion), and Water (the draft of the poem had additional water imagery in a fishing voyage.) The title of the fifth section could be a reference to the fifth element of Aether, which is included in many mystical traditions.
The title refers to a myth from Ritual to Romance, in which Weston describes a kingdom where the genitals of the king, known as the Fisher King, have been wounded in some way. This injury, which affects the king’s fertility, also mythically affects the kingdom itself. With its vital, regenerative power gone, the kingdom has dried up and turned into a waste land.
In order for the land to be restored, a hero must complete several tasks, or trials. Weston notes that this ancient myth was the basis for various other quest stories from many cultures, including the Christian quest for the Holy Grail. Eliot says he drew heavily on this myth for his poem, and critics have noted that many of the poem’s references refer to this idea.
The main theme is "modern life as a waste land." Eliot supports the theme by showing what was wrong with society in the early twentieth century. These shortcomings include lack of faith, lack of communication, fear of both life and death, corruption of the life-water symbol, and corruption of sex. There are two kinds of people in the modern waste land, according to Eliot. These are seen in the crowd that flows over London Bridge (62-65).
He states, "I had not thought death had undone so many." This is a reference to Dante's description of the people in Limbo. They were the dead who were neither bad nor good, just secularized. This is one category of people in the waste land (Williamson 133). The other is given by another reference to Dante: "Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled." This is descriptive of people in the first level of hell, those who were born before Christ.
There are several references in the poem to "hooded hordes walking in a ring." Madame Sosostris sees them, and the protagonist meets them as he journeys to the Perilous Chapel. The hooded hordes are hooded because they cannot see the hooded figure, the "third that always walks beside you," who represents Christ (Brooks 26). They are walking in a ring, with no sense of purpose or direction, because they have no faith (Williamson 149).
The people in the waste land also have problems with communication. This is first illustrated in the Hyacinth girl scene (35-41). She indicates that she is unable to speak, and therefore cannot communicate with the protagonist (Unger, Moments 120). Similarly, the lady of situations says "Speak to me. Why do you never speak? Speak." She feels the need to communicate but does not know how (Traversi 35).
The response to the command "Dayadhvam" (sympathize) also shows that the people cannot communicate. They are all sitting in their prisons, thinking of the keys that will release them, yet never getting out., the encounter between the typist and the young man reinforces the problem of selfishness. Neither the typist nor her visitor is interested in the other. They just want to please themselves.
Eliot is very discouraged about the society he has described as a waste land, but he does offer hope and a means of recovery. In Part V "What the Thunder Said," the three interpretations of DA - Datta (give), Dayadhvam (sympathize) and Damayata (control) - are the keys to new life for the waste land. They are the antithesis of modern problems. If people learn to give, sex will gain new meaning as an expression of emotion and it will no longer be corrupted. If they sympathize with each other, they will be able to communicate their true feelings and listen to those of others. Finally, if they develop self-control, their faith will return and they will no longer fear life or death.