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Modernism’s Traces in T.S. Eliot’s

“The Wasteland –I. The Burial of the Dead” and “The Love Song of Alfred Prufrock”

Poetry is having nothing to say and saying it; we possess nothing. -John Cage

As it is stated in Susan Friedman’s definition, “art produced after the First World

War recorded the emotional aspect of this crisis; despair, hopelessness, paralysis, angst, and a

sense of meaninglessness, chaos and the fragmentation of material reality.” Being under these

effects, Eliot resorts to the process of reflecting them in his modernist poetry. The essay will

handle the poems one by one, commenting on their title and certain lines along with their

fragmented structure and the significance of this fragmented structure.

To begin with, even the title “The Waste Land” suggests Eliot’s despair and

disillusionment. If we regard the title as a metaphor for life, we can understand that his

approach to life is a pessimistic one with despair and hopelessness. The quote at the beginning

of the poem taken from Petronius’ Satyricon reflects Sibyl’s desperate psychology because

she wants to die. This allusion to a mythological figure’s will of death is noteworthy because

the poetic persona’s psychology is similar to Sibyl. Moreover, the subtitle, referring to the

Anglican burial service, “I- The Burial of the Dead” adds more to the gloomy atmosphere of

the poem. Eliot opens his poem by calling April “the cruelest month” (1) because it creates an

environment to combine both the dead and the alive. Lilacs are forced to come out of the dead

land and they mix memory and desire. This scene and especially mixing of memory and

desire depict how the poetic persona longs for his old days because memory and desire are

combined and hence memory becomes desirable. In these opening lines, what we see is a

conversion of vegetation myths. Normally, spring, namely renewal of life, is welcomed and

celebrated but, in this case, it is reverse. It is because the poem is written from the perspective

of people in the Waste Land. The people of the Waste Land are not happy by the return of the

spring, of fruitfulness to the soil; they prefer the barrenness of the dead season. The poetic
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persona’s reflection of a desiccated life begins right from this metaphor and continues

throughout the poem. We can see “dried tubers” (7), “dead tree” (23), and “dry stone” (24).

Also, there is a reference to water’s power of killing as an alternative of its being the so-called

life-giver. The poetic persona is warned against water by Madame Sosostris; she says “Fear

death by water.” (55). These imageries add to life’s being desiccated for the poetic persona

without any enjoyment or colour. Besides, there are many biblical allusions in the poem, such

as “Son of man” (20), “broken images” (22), and “dust” (30). Use of these biblical allusions

in such a context shows that religion fails to provide relief or hope for people. Indeed, there

are many other allusions to previous works of art, like Wagner’s opera “Tristan und Isolde”(8,

31-4, 42), Baudelaire’s “Les Sept Vieillards” (60), Dante’s Inferno (62, 64) and also to Tarot

cards and to stories from Greek Mythology. All of these allusions signify that the poetic

persona is actually in a search of meaning in the dimension of art because he points out the

invalidity of relief provided by religion or Tarot by questioning the trustworthiness of the two.

The fortune teller cannot foresee that she will get a cold and also she is unable to see what

“one-eyed merchant” (52) carries on his back. As for religion, Eliot points out to the fact that

“Son of man” (20) is unable to answer the poetic persona’s question. Poetic persona’s

challenging the knowledge of the two seemingly omniscient and/or omnipotent beings is

significant because it reveals the fact that people cannot be fooled by the two anymore.

On the other hand, the fragmented structure of the poem suggests the overwhelming

sense of disorder and fragmentation caused by the modern materialist world. The converted

sentence structures and mixing German and French into the poem adds more to poem’s

fragmentation. Such a structure reflects life better because for the modernists our life is not

made up of continuous and linear events that follow one another chronologically but rather of

fragmented bits and pieces that are connected to one another randomly.
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By the way, the ending is noteworthy because we see a reference to a buried dead

but it seems that he is buried in an improper way. The poetic persona satirizes and mocks the

dead body and Stetson who has buried the corpse. At first he regards the dead body as if it

was a plant by using verbs such as planting and sprouting and by making a pun on “bed” (73).

He also refers to Webster’s White Devil in the lines “Oh keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend

to men,/Or with his nails he’ll dig it [the corpse] up again!” (74-5) where he warns Stetson.

These lines foreshadows the theme of the very last line because the dog digs up the corpse and

disturbs it; likewise, the reader that the poetic persona calls “hypocrite” (76) does the same –

in the sense that he brings to surface the old texts by written dead writers seemingly out of

love but in fact the poetic persona suggests that the reader disturbs the dead writer by doing

so. Yet still, after calling the reader hypocrite, he refers to him as his “likeness and brother” as

well. This may suggest that we all resemble to each other despite the theme of individualism

brought forward by the Romantics with whom T.S. Eliot does not agree at all. So, all in all,

the poem is an embodiment of disillusionment and frustration caused by modernism

developed as a result of WW1. The significance of the individual, search for meaning, looking

for order and pattern, etc. bring their own negation in the poem. Thus, we can see that

meaninglessness is the ultimate meaning for the poetic persona as well as for Eliot himself.

He does reflect such an attitude to depict the frustration and disillusionment in post-war life.

When it comes to “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, the mind of a frustrated

and disillusioned man is reflected in the poem. Like the previous poem, the title is suggestive.

It says we will have a love song yet the dully prosaic name “J. Alfred Prufrock” hints the

irony hidden in the title. The given extract at the beginning of the poem introduces one of the

topics in the poem, dead people’s inability to return to earth, which later appears in the poem

with an allusion to Lazarus. The poem begins as if there was a given situation because the

poetic persona says “Let us go then, you and I.” (1) However, this dialogical tone is not
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applicable to the whole poem. The poem rather seems to be the poetic persona’s talking with

himself and reflecting on his daily routine and thoughts along with commenting on his own

past. Apart from that, there are some statements that do not fit into anywhere. For example the

lines “In the room the women come and go/ Talking of Michelangelo” (13-4, 35-6) are

repeated twice and they appear to be out of no where. This fragmented structure of the poem

shows that anything can follow anything else –like life. Besides repetition of exact lines, there

are also repetition of words and ideas. For example, the poetic persona’s questioning of time

and his hesitance whether to begin or not are apparent most of the time. All these repetitions

signify the routine in life yet the impossibility of repeated actions because each time they are

stated what they signify is not the same. So, they are not exactly repetitive actions. However,

their statement over and over again shows that life repeats itself. The poetic persona alters but

everything around seems unchanged. This situation depresses the poetic persona more

because he is already obsessed with his aging. He cannot even decide where to part his hair.

His indecisiveness makes him close to Hamlet, Shakespearean character famous for his

always questioning and hesitating rather than taking action against his rivals. Nonetheless,

Prufrock claims that he is not “Prince Hamlet”(111) but rather “almost, at times, the Fool”

(119). He undermines himself and his qualifications. He even does not think that the

mermaids would sing to lure him and he assumes that they are singing “each to each” (124).

His undervaluing himself is also against the Romantic idea of individual’s being invaluable

and significant. After the WW1, people understood that they were insignificant and sacrificed

for the benefit of their country or rather for the benefit of their country’s politicians. Hence,

the value of the individual and his significance were understood to be invalid. Feeling of

insignificance, a sense of meaninglessness, despair and paralysis are the dominating tones of

the poem. It is also significant that there is no reference to any feeling throughout the poem

except for the statement “I was afraid” (86). This shows the effect of horror and bloodshed
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resulting in fear of death. Another theme introduced is lack of communication between the

characters which is also an effect of modernism. Prufrock cannot communicate with a woman

he wants to converse; they cannot understand what the other means to say. Because of this

reason the lines: “That is not what I meant, at all./ That is not it, at all” are repeated to clarify

their lack of communication. (97-8, 109-10). In addition, the line “It is impossible to say just

what I mean!” signify a sense of meaninglessness because it is impossible to require a

meaning (104). Thus, it can be stated that for Eliot the modernist purpose of purposelessness

is achieved in this poem.

As the structure of the poem is fragmented, so are Prufrock’s mind and memories.

There is not a chronological time concept. The poetic persona has his own understanding of

measuring time “with coffee spoons” (51). So it can be argued that nothing that belongs to

past, even the calendar technique, is not trusted by the poetic persona anymore. He has lost his

faith in everything that belongs to the past. He has a search for meaning yet he is pre-decisive

that he cannot find it and hence he hesitates in taking action. He is aware of that he cannot do

anything significant so he believes that there will be enough time “for a hundred indecisions”

(32). If we go back to the topic of fragmentation, even his body is not described as a whole

but rather what we see is his hair and some of his clothes. There is no reference to his other

body parts. So, the reader cannot visualize the poetic persona in his mind’s eye. The woman

Prufrock tries to communicate is also described in fragments. We only know of her shawl and

arms. These descriptions are significant because we see that everything is fragmented as it is

stated in Friedman’s definition, “chaos and fragmentation of material reality” are apparent in

the poem.

In addition, “you and I” referred at the beginning of the poem become “we” at the

end of the poem (129). It can be argued that this kind of a unity is what the artist struggle to

create –as it is suggested in Friedman’s definition “symbol and meaning in the dimension of
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art”. Although this situation may seem contradictory to what has been argued so far, about the

meaninglessness and purposelessness of the poem, yet, indeed it does not contradict with

these ideas. The unification reached at the end is a unity in dream. Hence it adds more to the

discussed themes because it points out to the fact that a unity is impossible in the real world.

When human voices wake the poetic persona and his addressee up, they drown because they

cannot exist in the human world in their united form; the human world does not let them

remain so.

All in all, the topics and themes suggested by Susan Friedman in her definition are

all present in both of T.S. Eliot’s poems. Although the poet does not dwell much on specific

emotions except for fear of death in “The Love Song of Alfred Prufrock,” he is quite

successful in employing the other themes of disillusionment, frustration, despair, angst,

meaninglessness and especially the fragmentation of material reality which are pointed out by

Freidman. The artist’s, Eliot’s, attempt to create “what culture could no longer produce:

symbol and meaning in the dimension of art, brought into being through the agency of

language…” is also apparent in its own negation because meaninglessness becomes the

ultimate meaning for the Modernists (Friedman). The quote at the beginning of my paper by

John Cage, “Poetry is having nothing to say and saying it,” shows the Modern approach to

poetry and T.S. Eliot reflects this idea in both of his works.