The Waste Land

E20426

modernist poem poem

The Waste Land is a landmark modernist poem by T. S. Eliot that portrays the spiritual desolation and fragmentation of post–World War I Western society through a dense collage of voices, allusions, and shifting perspectives.

Aliases (4)

Statements (61)

Predicate	Object
instanceOf	modernist poem → poem →
alludesTo	Inferno → The Canterbury Tales → The Golden Bough → The Tempest → The Waste Land (Grail legend) → Tristan und Isolde → Upanishads →
author	T. S. Eliot →
countryOfOrigin	United Kingdom →
dedicatedTo	Ezra Pound →
editor	Ezra Pound →
firstPublicationDate	1922 →
firstPublishedIn	The Criterion → The Dial →
form	free verse →
genre	modernist literature →
hasCriticalReception	considered one of the most important poems of the 20th century →
hasFamousLine	April is the cruellest month → I will show you fear in a handful of dust → Shantih shantih shantih → These fragments I have shored against my ruins →
hasNarrativeMode	shifting perspectives → unreliable narration →
hasParatext	author’s notes →
influenced	Anglophone modernist poetry → New Criticism →
influencedBy	Buddhist texts → Charles Baudelaire → Dante Alighieri → Ezra Pound → Hindu Upanishads → James Joyce → William Shakespeare →
language	English →
lengthInLines	about 433 →
literaryMovement	Modernism →
notableCharacter	Madame Sosostris → Tiresias →
numberOfSections	5 →
publisher	Boni & Liveright → Faber and Faber →
section	A Game of Chess → Death by Water → The Burial of the Dead → The Fire Sermon → What the Thunder Said →
setInTime	post–World War I era →
setting	London →
theme	decay of Western civilization → fragmentation → loss of meaning → post–World War I disillusionment → search for redemption → spiritual desolation →
usesTechnique	literary allusion → montage → multiple voices → mythic method → stream of consciousness →

Referenced by (12)

Subject (surface form when different)	Predicate
Ash-Wednesday → The Hollow Men →	relatedWork
The Waste Land ("The Waste Land (Grail legend)") →	alludesTo
Stearns →	bearerNotableFor
Ash-Wednesday →	followsWork
Lost Generation →	hasNotableWork
St Mary Woolnoth ("The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot") →	mentionedIn
T. S. Eliot →	notableWork
Hogarth Press ("“The Waste Land”") →	notableWorkPublished
Faber and Faber →	publishedWork
The Waste Land ("The Burial of the Dead") →	section
Vivienne Haigh-Wood Eliot →	spouseNotableWork