The Waste Land Allusions Part I

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The Waste Land

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Original Title: "He do the police in different voices" from Charles Dicken's "Our Mutual Friend"

The Waste Land refers to the Fisher King. When he was ill, the entire land was ill. Many knights tried to cure him but none could.

Real title: Inspired by Rituals to Romance by Jesse L Weston. Discusses death of gods in winter and resurrection in spring to induce fertility.

Jesse Weston was inspired by Frazier's The Golden Bough, which discusses the similarities of Holy Grail quests to other natural cults.

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Il miglior fabbro.

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“The Better Craftsman” from Dante’s Purgatorio, Canto XXVI of the Divine Comedy; Poet Guido Guinizelli tells Dante that Guinizelli’s predecessor Arnaut Daniel is the “better craftsman of the mother tongue”

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Epigraph

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With my own eyes I saw the Sybil of Cumae hanging in a bottle, and when the boys said to her: “Sybil, what do you want?” She replied, “I want to die.”

Sybil of Cumae- Oracle, granted long life by Apollo in exchange for sex, she forgot to ask for eternal youth, withered away as she was suspended in a bottle in the temple of Hercules at Cumae near Naples; in The Aeneid Sibyl helps Aeneas to travel to the underworld to meet his dead father; Aeneas asks Sibyl to tell him Apollo’s oracle

Epigraph from The Satyricon by Gaius Petronius; the story of the narrator Encolpius and his lover, a 16 year-old boy Giton. Petronius killed by Nero

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Burial of the Dead

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Anglican burial service, rite of the Anglican Church, from the Book of Common Prayer, Eliot eventually joined the Church of England

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April

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Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, invocation of April, “When April with his showers sweet with fruit,” 29 pilgrims travel to Canterbury for the shrine of the martyr Saint Thomas Becket (refused to accept the Constitutions of Clarendon which gave King Henry II of England much authority over the church), each pilgrim must tell 2 tales on the way there and 2 on the way back; the one with the best story gets a meal paid for by the other pilgrims

Spring, Easter, Resurrection, Rebirth, Pilgrimage Season, Cycle of Life and Death

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Lilac

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When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d by Walt Whitman; in honor of Abraham Lincoln, assassinated in mid-April of 1865

Mid-April: lilacs begin to bloom

Lilac” symbol of Whitman’s loss, reminded of loss with each spring’s bloom, cyclic nature, hope for the future, peace even during anguish, rejuvenation, desire, and promise of romance

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Stranbergese

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Lake where King Ludwig II, the Barvarian King, mysteriously drowned w/ his physician

Ludwig is also called the Fairy King for his castles, including Neuschwonstein

Family was peturbed his homosexuality, so had 7 physicians declare him insane although none saw him directly.

He was Wagner fan, and had many tapestries potraying scenes from his operas along the walls of his castles.

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Hofgarten

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A public garden in Munich with colonnaded walk

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Bin gar keine Russin, stamm' aus Litauen, echt deutsch.

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I’m not Russian at all, I come from Lithuania, a true German.
Possibly from Tarr by Windham Lewis, in which Fralien Vasek says she is “a Russian, [she’s] thoroughly Russian."

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Archduke

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Marie’s first cousin Austria’s Crown Prince Rudolph or her more distant cousin Archduke Francis-Ferdinand who was going to inherit the Empire but was assassinated by Princip

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Marie

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Countess Marie Larisch, illegitimate daughter of Duke Ludwig Wihelm of Augsburg, Bavaria, illegitimate because the Duke’s parents won’t let him marry a commoner, Marie’s mother.
Second Cousin to King Ludwig.

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Feel Free

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Marie felt free when she was away from her husband, the Count, at the Bavarian mountain home Villa Valerie her parents gave her, described in her autobiography, My Past (1913).

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Go south in the winter

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After divorcing the Count, Marie married Otto Brucks and they lived in Munich in the winter and Rottach in the summer. Rottach is south of Munich. Or allusion to the south where the mountain home is.

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Son of Man

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Book of Ezekiel 2:1“And he said unto me, Son of man, stand upon thy feet, and I will speak unto thee.” Written for captives of the tribe of Judah living in exile in Babylon following Siege of Jerusalem of 597 BC.

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And the dead tree gives no shelter, the crickets no relief

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Book of Ecclesiastes 12:5
“Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets”
In the book, Qohelet, son of David and king of Jerusalem, says that people should enjoy the simple pleasures of daily life which are gifts from God.

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dry stone no sound of water

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Story of Moses, speak to rock, water comes out.

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There is shadow under this red rock

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Book of Isaiah 32:2 (man is reference to the Messiah) “And a man shall be as a hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.” Contain prophecies of several cities such as Babylon, Assyria, Israel, Egypt, and Arabia. The nations who think of themselves as secure might be conquered by other nations, at God’s command.

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Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you

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Derived from an earlier, unpublished work of Eliot’s titled The Death of Saint Narcissus.
St. Narcissus had enemies, so he escaped to the desert to become stronger and renew himself. When he came back, he became bishop of Jerusalem.

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Handful of Dust

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John Dunne "Devotions upon Emergent Occasions". Wrote these on his deathbed, but did not die: when man dies, he returns to earth as Dust.

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Frisch weht der Wind
Der Heimat zu.
Mein Irisch Kind,
Wo weilest du?

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Fresh blows the wind/To the homeland/My Irish darling/Where do you linger? From Wagner’s opera Tristan and Isolde I verses 5-8; performed in Munich 1865 in April, about the time of Lincoln’s assassination.

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Hyacinths

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Spring, bellshaped, bloom in April, male symbol.

Apollo and Zephyr’s lovers. Accidentally killed by Apollo.

Emerson’s Threnody about young son’s death from scarlet fever.

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Speak, and my eyes failed

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Donte’s Paradiso

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Neither living nor dead

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Inferno, When Dante is paralyzed in Hell from seeing Lucifer.

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Od' und leer das Meer.

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“Desolte and empty the sea” from T& I III verse 4. Tristan looks for Isolde but is told the sea is empty.

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Heart of Light

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Inversion of heart of darkness.

Refers to Inferno when Dante is enguled in light.

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Madame Sosotris

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Changed the first o from e. Refer to Bertrand Russell, who had an affair with Eliot’s wife.

Allusion to Aldous Huxley’s Crome Yellow; Mr Scogan volunteers to be a fortune teller at a fair and dresses up as a gypsy named Sesostris, the Sorceress of Ecbatana

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Phoenician Sailor

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Phlebus the sailor, found in Arthurian legend; needs to sacrifice his life for the Fisher King to live; he drowned; ironic because Phoenicians were the best sailors.

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(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)

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Sakespeare’s Tempest act I scene II.

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Belladonna

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Allusion to Virgin Mary. Also a poisonous plant used to dilate eyes.

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Lady of the Rocks

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Mona Lisa, Walter Pater critique. ML is a mysterious lady rep. modern ideas

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three staves

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Tarot card, established strength, inner pride, effort, business successful, reminds of Fisher King, keeping the Holy Grail. Fisher king wounded in the legs, when he is injured, his kingdom suffers as he does and reduces to a wasteland. Knights travel to heal him.

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Wheel

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Serpent: cosmic energy, sphinx: equilibrium, anubus, typhon’s children, God of Dead, evil of consciousness. \

Rep. upturn of fortune
*Four zodiacs on outside, which rep. continuity and changing reality. Constants.
*Anubis represents the evolution of man from beast.
*Sphinx was a worker for typhun, god of wind. Rep. equilibrium force. Asked riddle to Oedipus "What walks on four, two, three"
*Snake: typhon, god of wind. Rep. energy

If upside down, downturn of fortune.

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one-eyed merchant

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Merchant depicted only in profile. Oden, trade eye for wisdom. Merchant from the Wheel of Fortune.

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Hanged Man

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Fertility God hangs himself to save the people. Youngman hanging upside down by the leg on the gallows.

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Fear death by water

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Refers to part IV

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I see crowds of people...

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Revelation of St. John the Divine (22:8)
*Past, present, and future seers (along w/ M. Sosostris)
*John was a clairvoyant

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Mrs. Equitone

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Eliot’s wife, the quiet one. Vivian

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One must be so careful these days

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Madame Sosostris not an actual seer. Makes fun of Russell.

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Unreal City

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Charles Beaudelaire “The Seven Old Man” from the The Flowers of Evil. London

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Brown Fog

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The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock by Eliot.

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London Bridgeq

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Nursery rhyme. Unreal city, city full of ghosts and dreams

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I had not thought that death had undone so many

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Donte’s Inferno 3 verse 55-57, 4 verse 5-7

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King William St.

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Financial district in London.

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Saint Mary Woolnoth

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Religious worship, built by Nicholas Hawksmoor, corner of Lombard and King William Street. Anglican church, baroque style.

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Final Stroke of 9

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Time business begins,
Mathew 27:26-Jesus cries, "My god, my god, why have you forsaken me?" @ stroke of 9.

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Stetson

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*Generalization of anyMan
*Australian war during WWI when John Verdenao (friend) died there. Hats that they wore were called Stetson.

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Mylae

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Sicilian seaport that Rome took over in the 1st punic war. First major naval victory for Rome.

Hand grasp other boat so romans could climb aboard.

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Corpse in the garden...

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Isis and Osiris: Orsirus’s brother Set was jealous of Osiris’s prestige as ruler. Set took Osiris’s measurements, made a casket, @ a dinner party Set “Who can fit in this casket?”; Osirus only one who fits. Set close and put molten lead, into Nile; Isis found it and held it in the marshes; Set found it, took body out, and scattered pieces all over Egypt; Isis gathered all the pieces but couldn’t find one (penis); wrapped up like a mummy. Isis breathed life back, and Horus was conceived. Horus seeks revenge against Set, and neither won. Osirus king of underworld, Horus king of living, set ruler of deserts and god of chaos/evil

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Oh, keep the dog far hence

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The white devil: Not dog, but wolf; not hence but fence; not friend but foe; Faminio kills Marcell. If wolf, person murdered. Anubis? Sirius-Dog Star; Orion, master, dies, and Sirius follows failthfully throughout sky. When Sirius follows Orion, Nile overflows: fertility/crops.

The White Devil by John Webster. Wolf. Fence. Foe. In Act 5 Scene 4, Cornelia sings over son's grave. Flamineo kills Marcello in a fight. Marcello is not allowed to be buried because he died in a fight.

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You! Hypocrite lecture! mon semblable, mon frere!

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Hypocrite reader, my double, my brother. (Les Fleurs du Mal preface)

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Sighs, short and infrequent were exhaled

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Inferno, Canto 4: "Here as mine ear could note, no plaint was heard, except of sighs, that made
the eternal air to tremble, not caused by torture but from grief felt by those multitudes, many and
vast."

This canto deals with people - like Socrates - who lived virtuously but never knew the Gospel.
So two kinds of people live in the modern Waste Land: those who are secularised and those who
have no knowledge of the faith.


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