Thomas Eliot Obstacles

Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888-1965) was an American born poet who wrote many pieces of literature. He was a very well educated writer who studied philosophy, English and Hinduism at both Harvard and then Oxford University. He was also a magnificently beautiful writer. Eliot during his youth, and after he graduated, had read a substantial amount of literature due to a disability which had impaired his movements. It is believed that he was the mostly widely-read person of the 20th Century. His most favourite genre that he indulged in was poetry and many of the works paved way for modern poetry/literature. He received a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948. His first work, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1917), is considered, in my opinion, the

His father died during the time he was writing the poem and his therapist advised Eliot to go to Switzerland for rehabilitation. Leman (or Lake Geneva) is a lake found on the borders of Switzerland and France. Eliot must have seen the stark differences between the countries; France partook in the War and suffered many tragedies, whereas Switzerland stayed neutral throughout. Eliot alludes and references many things in his poems (like the above), and this causes the poem to be structured into fragments. Eliot takes snippets of Western high culture (famous plays, books, poems, songs, etc.) and elegantly streams them into his main poem. The fragmented experimental technique is also present in The Hollow Men. Although, it is more brutal because everything in the poem is

The next metaphor shows a comparison between sunlight and a diminished ‘column’ (structure to support a building). In Greek mythology , a column can also represent a portal the afterlife (heaven). This shows that the symbol could represent ancient glory but is now no more. This broken image is further emphasised by the odd word sequence of word ‘eyes are sunlight’ which may represent the fact that ‘eyes’ are mere reflections with the sunlight being distorted – synonymous with modern times.

Many things, in Eliot’s belief, had changed drastically since the War, one of which was art.

Art is a theme that perpetrates The Waste Land periodically. The first hint of this is in the opening four lines:

“April is the cruellest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring