Name: Budhiditya Shankar Das
Course: M.A (English)
Topic:
Use of Mythical Technique in The Waste Land
Semester: 03
Roll No. : 07
Paper No.: 09
Paper Name: The Modern Literature
Submitted to: Dr. Dilip Barad,
Smt. S.B.Gardi
Department of English,
Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji
Bhavnagar University
Use of Mythical technique in the Waste Land
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 20th 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 20th 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”. (Dictionary)
An
exaggerated or idealized conception of a person or thing: ‘the book is a
scholarly study of the Churchill myth’. (Dictionary)
A fictitious
or imaginary person or thing: ‘nobody had ever heard of Simon’s mysterious
friend – Anna said he was a myth’. (Dictionary)
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. (Rabhadiya)
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. (Choudhary)
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.
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. (Choudhary)
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. (Choudhary)
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. (Rabhadiya)
Choudhary, Divya. Blog. 26 October 2016.
<http://divyachoudhary19.blogspot.in/2016/10/use-of-mythical-technique-in-waste-land.html>.
Dictionary.
<https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/myth>.
Rabhadiya, Vinod. Blog.
15 October 2014. <http://vjrabhadiya.blogspot.in/2014/10/myths-in-waste-land-introduction-t.html>.
Wikipedia. 1 September 2016.
<https://www.biography.com/people/ts-eliot-9286072>.
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