Use of mythical technique in the waste land

Click this picture to evaluate my assignment

⇓

Use of mythical technique in the waste land

Prepared by- Divya Choudhary

Course- M.A.

Semester- 3

Paper no. - 9

Paper name- Modern Literature

Enrolment no - PG15101007

Batch- 2015-17

Email id- choudharydivya400@gmail.com

Submitted to- Smt. S. B. Gardi Department of English

Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University

Use of Mythical technique in the Waste Land

Introduction: T.S.Eliot was born in 1888, in St. Louis, Missouri. His first work was “The love song of J.Alfred Prufrock” in 1915. He wrote the poem “The Waste Land” while recovering from the exhaustion. From 1911 to 1914 he returned back to Harvard where he expanded his knowledge by reading Indian philosophy and studying Sanskrit. In 1919, Eliot published poems which contained “Gerontion”.In 1922 his poetic work comes out in shape of “The Waste Land” a complex examination of disillusionment. This work was immediately spread like a virus in all literary corners and it is frequently considered as the most influential work in 20^th century. He founded what would become an influential literary journal called ‘Criterion’ (1922-1939).His major works are “Ash Wednesday” (1930), “Four Quartets”(1943),”Use of Criticism”(1933), “After strange Gods”(1934) and received Nobel Prize in literature in 1948. (Wikipedia)

T.S.Eliot ‘The Waste Land’ is an important achievement in the history of English poetry and one of the most talked poems of the 20^th century by Thomas Stern Eliot. This poem is very long one including four hundred forty lines which is divided into five parts. They are given below:

(1) The Burial of the Dead

(2) A Game of chess

(3) The fire sermon

(4) Death by water

(5) What the Thunder said

What is a Myth?

“A traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining a natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events” (oxford dictionaries)

An exaggerated or idealized conception of a person or thing: ‘the book is a scholarly study of the Churchill myth’.

A fictitious or imaginary person or thing: ‘nobody had ever heard of Simon’s mysterious friend – Anna said he was a myth’. (oxford dictionaries)

There are many myths which can be observed in this poem. T.S Eliot’s The waste land is an important land mark in the history of English poetry and one of the most talked poems of the same Age. Here T.S Eliot described the mythical background in his poem. This mythical technique can be elaborated as given below.

·         The Grail Legend

·         The King Fisher

·         Myth of Tiresias

The grail Legend:

The Myth about this vessel was that at have acquired medicinal and miraculous properties so the result is that it became an object for purity or one kind of devotion and worship. The lance used to pierce the sides of Christ and kept with it. But a time the original Grail was mysteriously disappeared and many of the bold Knights staked their lives and them searching for this vessel. It was generally believed that the grail was sometimes could be found in the sky as the floating saucer but it could only see by those, Knights who were virginal beauty. (Bhammar)

Picture of the Grail Legend 

Myth of Tiresias:

Here in this poem this myth often comes up to the end of this poem. Tiresias is represented as a bi-sexual in The Waste Land as he was blind but he has the gift of prophecy and immortality. Many stories are same like Tiresias story. According to one story this wise Theban soothsayer in his youth once saw the goddess Athena naked in a pond and goddess struck him blind but his mother was a friend of hers so she bestowed upon him. According to Eliot, Tiresias comes out as the central figure through this poem, what Tiresias sees is the substance of the whole poem. The importance of Tiresias is complex and varied but it is connected with history with the story of King Oedipus, Thebes the classical legend of a waste land. Let’s see the story of King Oedipus in the context of Tiresias and see how it is connected with waste and as a myth. (Bhammar)

Picture of Tiresias

King Fisher:

According to this myth King Fisher was the prince named King Fisher. It was one of the regions where Grail worship had been anciently vogue, and a temple Known as Chapel Perilous, still stood there, broken and dilapidated, as a mournful memorial of what once was, but later had ceased to be. It was said that the lost Grail was hidden in this chapel. At that time the king himself had become a physical wreck, maimed and impotent, as a result. It was whispered, of a sin committed by his soldiery in outraging the chastity of a group of nuns attached to the Grail chapel. The impotency of the Fisher King was reflected sympathetically in the land of which he was the head and ruler. It had become dry and barren, the haunt and home of want and famine. The King, however, was waiting with hope, despite his illness, that one day the Knight of the pure soul would visit his star-crossed kingdom, march to the Chapel Perilous, answer questions and solve riddles. (Rabhadiya)

So, here Eliot shows the Fisher King as symbolic of humanity robbed of its sexuality potency in the modern world and connected to the meaninglessness of urban existence.

There are other symbols like: 

    Ø  Drought

    Ø  Animals

    Ø  Landscape

    Ø  Thunder

    Ø  Religion etc.

So, here this poem The Waste Land is symbolically very rich poem. We rarely find such a variety of symbols except in T.S.Eliot’s Wasteland. Living beings, animal or insect have been the important symbol.

King Oedipus and his Waste land:

Tiresias serves, in the first place to complicate the mythical frame of the poem and in the second place to universalize. Oedipus unwittingly kills his father and marries with his mother and thus call down upon his supposedly innocent head the curse of the gods in form of virulent plague, epidemic an destructive which neither king nor commoners fails to regard as a punishment for some dark and hidden crime. Tiresias, the blind prophet is summoned and when compelled by the king tells the shocking truth that he, the king himself, is the plague spot.  Such is the conspiracy of circumstances that the king is slowly but irresistibly, driven to the realization of this horrible truth. Nothing remains for the king but the duty of expiation, self mutilation, self-exile, self-abasement and a prolonged penance which eventually result in spiritual calm and inner illumination. (Rabhadiya)

Tiresias is represented as a bi-sexual in The Waste Land as he was blind but he has the gift of prophecy and immortality. Many stories are same like Tiresias story. According to one story this wise Theban soothsayer in his youth once saw the goddess Athena naked in a pond and goddess struck him blind but his mother was a friend of hers so she bestowed upon him. According to another story, Tiresias saw two snakes copulating them with his stick and the snakes in wrath transformed him into women. Later on, he was questioned by love and juno as to whether Man is more passionate or woman. He declared that woman is more passionate. At this Juno was angry and stuck him blind but Zesus or Love compensated him by conferring upon the twin gifts of prophecy and immortality.

Click here to evaluate my assignment

Please post your comments and suggestions in the comment section.
Thank You....

Works Cited

Bhammar, Bharat. Blog. n.d. 2014. <http://bharatbhammar051314.blogspot.in/2014/10/critical-evaluation-of-waste-land.html>.

oxford dictionaries. n.d. <https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/myth>.

Rabhadiya, Vinod. Blog. 14 october 2014. <http://vjrabhadiya.blogspot.in/2014/10/myths-in-waste-land-introduction-t.html>.

Wikipedia. n.d.