Homages, Quotations, and Allusions: A look at the borrowed bits from The Waste Land.

T.S. Eliot in his five-part poem “The Waste Land” borrows many different elements from existing literary and non-literary sources in a variety of languages. The borrowings take the form of allusions to other works, direct quotes from other works, paraphrasing lines from of other works, and direct translations of other works.

The sources that Eliot uses that originate from English he either paraphrases them such as he has done with the lyrics of “That Shakespearean Rag” or he takes the unmodified version of the line directly, which he has done with the text of “The Tempest”. Compare the original lyrical content of the song That Shakespearean Rag:

That Shakespearean Rag / Most Intelligent / Very Elegant

To the lines in that are found in the poem (128-30):

“O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag -
It’s so elegant
So Intelligent”

There is only the most subtle of changes only modifying the adjectives "most" and "very" both to "so", and referencing an "it" possibly the song itself. The line that appears in both “The Burial of the Dead” and in “A Game of Chess” has been added as an unmodified direct quotation from “The Tempest”

“Those were pearls that were his eyes”

When citing from works written in a language other than English Eliot will either directly translate the work himself or leave the work untranslated in its original form. The entire fourth section (Death by Water) of the poem originally was the closing lines of Eliot’s own “Dans Le Restaurant” which was originally written in French. Another direct translation is from “Blick ins Chaos” which was written by the German Nobel Laurette Herman Hesse. Lines 31-4 of the poem were originally from the famous German opera, “Tristan und Isolde”, which was written by Richard Wagner. In this instance the work is left untranslated as such:

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

There are lines written in other contemporaneously popular languages as well. The second line of “El Desdicha” written in French by Gerard de Nerval, and the quote from Purgatorio originally written in Italian by Dante are two examples of this again these have been left untranslated.

“Et, O ces voix d'enfants, chantant dans la coupole!”

and

“Poi s'ascose nel foco che gli affina”

The usage of multiple languages is often considered a barrier to the understandability of the poem in particular lines such as:

“Quando fiam uti chelidon”,
“Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.”
and
“Shantih Shantih Shantih”

This is due to the fact the first of these line was taken from the poem “Pervigilium Veneris” which was written in Latin and the following two were from Brihadaranyaka Upanishad which was written in Sanskrit. Neither Latin nor Sanskrit were not popular in the Modernist period when “The Waste Land” was written. The works of the ancients also appear through an allusion to the character from Homer’s epic poem Odyssey, Tiresias, but does not quote any passage or translated passage from the work.

“And I Tiresias have foresuffered all”

The thematic nature of the borrowings are often religious with such texts as: “The Holy Bible”, “The Fire Sermon”, “Paradise Lost”, and the “Anglican Book of Common Prayer” referenced. Two of the sections names’ are references to religious works: “The Burial of the Dead” is from the Burial Service in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, and “The Fire Sermon” is reference to a sermon given by Gotama Buddha entitled “The Fire-Sermon”. The only non-original section name to not be taken from something of religious nature is “A Game of Chess” which was named after the Thomas Middleton play. The Bible is a constant source of reference with quotes or allusions from at least five different books: Isiah, Ezekiel, Ecclesiastes, Psalms, and Matthew.

The quote from “The Fire-Sermon” is the most peculiar out of all of these religious borrowings as it not only is not Christian in original but it was also redacted from the sermon after it was written; it appears as the closing of the section “The Fire Sermon”:

“Burning burning burning burning
O Lord Thou pluckest me out
O Lord Thou pluckest
burning”

Another reference that stands out as being peculiar is the opening line from the popular children’s nursery rhyme “London Bridge is Falling Down” as most referenced texts are either in the great echelons of literature (such as: The Tempest, Hamlet, Antony and Cleopatra, Odessey, and Inferno) or religious in nature (as mentioned above).

“London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down”

“The Waste Land” is more than just simply a collation of different quotes, there is a lot original work, but they are obviously a large part of the appeal of the poem and copious amounts of background knowledge is necessary to fully understand the work.

Discussion point: How much background knowledge do you need to truly get the most of “The Waste Land”? Is it fair to ask the reader to obtain this knowledge?

- Andrew Pilottos