Thomas Stearns Eliot’s magnum work, The Waste Land, is oft cited as changing of the guard in poetry as his form and language were not in keeping with traditional patterns or styles and yet, it was a contributing factor to his Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948. Bu the work has stymied scholars and students alike with the seemingly unintelligible final eleven lines. He quotes from the nursery rhyme about London Bridge, has the narrator question himself and drifts off into a Sanskrit prayer for peace.For many years it was believed that the last lines were some sort of gibberish, understandable only to the poet himself. But scholars have suggested the possibility that the final lines represent a prayer from the Fisher King, an attempt to heal the Waste Land and restore it to its former beauty.
Upon further review, it appears that a prayer or magic spell from the Fisher King would indeed explain the incongruities of those lines and bring the poem to a natural conclusion, drawing the story to an end.Therefore, the final lines of The Waste Land should be viewed a spell or prayer from the Fisher King, representing his attempt to remove the curse upon the land via ancient religious and magical traditions. To achieve this interpretation of the final lines of The Waste Land, it is important to understand the accepted story of the poem and its main actors. It is also important to understand the historical context during which the poem was written and the poet himself. Once these points have been established, the meaning of the final lines of the poem can be discussed and become clear.
First, it is important to understand the context of the poem itself. “Perhaps Eliot’s most famous work, this controversial poem details the journey of the human soul searching for redemption. The Waste Land is known not only for its probing subject matter but also its radical departure from traditional poetic style and structure incorporating historical and literary allusions as well as unconventional use of language” (Bartleby 2007). Historically, the world as Eliot knew it was something of a wasteland in 1922 when the poem was first published.Eliot had left the United States and emigrated in Britain in 1914, when the world was at war. In 1922, the Great War as it was still known, as there hadn’t been a second one yet, was still a great weight on the minds of the people of Britain, Europe and the world.
The Soviet Union had changed the face of diplomacy, with the end of Russian tsars in the Communist Revolution and the war had left much of Europe and Britain war-torn and tired, longing for peace. This was the context that Eliot lived as he wrote the poem.Perhaps more importantly though, to the understanding of the poem and especially its final lines is a familiarity with Arthurian legend and the story of the Fisher King. There are a multitude of versions of the story, which Eliot draws on extensively for the telling of his story, but the constant theme of the Fisher King is that he has been wounded in battle and as long as their King suffers; his lands and his people suffer as well. Furthermore, the male narrator, as opposed to Marie, who narrates some portions of the poem, identifies himself as the Fisher King, obliquely in the final eleven lines of the poem.
Once it is established that Eliot identifies one of the narrators as the Fisher King, the beginning context for the final lines becomes clear. However, it would be remise not to mention the repeated references to religion and various religious documents that Eliot includes in the poem.He references Dante’s “Inferno”, uses a chapter title referencing directly to the Anglican Book of Common Prayers, and in his references to the fisher king, pays homage to the Celtic religions of previous generations (Gordon 566) In fact, many author argue that the poem would have had even more distinctive overtones if not for the editing of Ezra Pound (Gordon 566).However, if one accepts the deeply religious overtones of the earlier part of the poem, it is much easier to see the deeply religious undertones of the final thought. To that end, this discussion regards the identification of the Fisher King and his final prayer that ends “The Waste Land”.The first analysis must be regarding the reference to the Fisher King and its significance.
“The protagonist, here identified with The Fisher King, sits on the shore fishing, with the arid plain behind him, and asks “Shall I at least set my lands in order” (cf. Isaiah 38:1)” (Fowler 1953). By quoting directly from the Bible, Eliot establishes his intent to look for a religious solution to the barren landscape. The allusion to the Biblical call to heal the land is clear and the choice of religious rite to create the healing transcends religion. In the Christian faiths, the Fisher King’s action might be regarded as prayer.
Christian religions which base their teachings on the Bible believe that if people pray, God will heal their land. Specifically, the Christian faiths believe “if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will heal their land,” (King James Version, II Chronicles 7:14) In other faiths, like the traditional Celtic religions where the image of the Fisher King originated or in the druidic tradition of region, the “prayer” might also be considered a spell or a charm to break the curse. Fowler 235).He argues that the fragment has all the marking of a good spell, a mysterious other language and the request for what he wants, peace.
“Just as the hero of the Grail romances was expected to speak the proper words (usually in the form of a question) before the wounded king and his land could be restored, so the protagonist in The Waste Land, as both hero and king, utters an incantation designed to bring about the restoration of life in himself and his environment” (Fowler 235).This explanation of the fragment at the end of “The Waste Land” is very much in keeping with Eliot’s religious and Pound’s attempt to minimize it. Though nothing as direct as a “Dear Lord” or “Amen” identify the prayer, it is given in a manner typical with the polytheistic religions of Ancient Britain. Even the final line of the poem, a Sanskrit word for peace is in keeping with religious traditions. Several religions ranging from Islam to Wicca to Druidic forms use peace as an end to their prayers or a salutation.
Among the Hindus it is well known that sanity is chanted in solemn benediction to oneself and others” (Chandran 681). In fact, in those benedictions, the word is thrice repeated as it is in poem and that it is generally preceded by “om” a fact not lost on Eliot and commented upon in his annotations about the poem (Chandran 682). By eliminating the “om”, he was clearly using poetic license, using imagery to tell the story instead of spelling it out word for word as one might have in prose.Instead, he addresses the God with the Quote from Isaiah, asking somewhat ironically, if he should not put his house in order. In the next line, one can almost hear the sing-song of children as he intones, London bridge is falling down falling down falling down” (Eliot, “The Waste Land” 426).
With this, he redressed his grievance to God, explaining the source of his anguish. This too is typical of prayer, to identify to God what brings the petitioner forward (Fowler, 236).Next, Eliot quotes from Dante’s Inferno “Poi s'ascose nel foco che gli affina” (Eliot, “The Waste Land” 427) years later, in his essay on Dante, Eliot would translate the line “Then dived he back into that fire which refines them. ” In his notes about the poem, he said, “The purgatorial vision of refining fire - as distinct from the fires of lust - represents one of the hopeful fragments shored up by the seeker for regeneration and order. ” (The Eliot Project, 2007), as with much of Eliot’s imagery, it is likely that the choice of phrasing had multiple meanings.
Certainly, it is well-accepted, though only partially true, that many pagan rituals involve the use of a fire and indeed, there is a widespread belief that a bonfire is an important part of the religious rites of pagans and other polytheistic faiths. Others point simply to use of a foreign language as significant, perhaps more significant than the meaning behind the words. “The potency of foreign or strange words in charms was considered to be great. Witness, for example, the use of Latin words and phrases in Old English charms” (Fowler, 236).The argument is made that the meaning of the words is secondary to the feel or sound of them. This may be the case in some instances, but it seems far more likely in this case that Eliot chose his words to elicit both a feeling and image.
However, the next lines of the poem do seem to contribute to the idea that Eliot was choosing his words more for the feel, than for the actual meaning. “Quando fiam ceu chelidon” translates roughly to “What do I do as a swallow” and he concludes the line ‘O Swallow Swallow”. (Eliot, “The Waste Land” 428).Again though, maybe not. The image of the swallow has often been associated with death and God, with Biblical references to God knowing each of the swallows, so that if one should die, He knows. It would not be unconscionable then that Eliot chose the imagery again with deliberate view toward the interpretation of his poem as an ode to the life and death of a man and of the land.
By the time Eliot reaches lines 431 and 432, he feels the needs for the Fisher King to slip back into narrator mode and explain why the story has been told.These words largely speak for themselves, but can be hard to deal with in the midst of the seemingly nonsensical mishmash of languages that surround it. But when broken apart they clearly refer to the world as both Eliot and the Fisher King view it. He tells the reader quite simply that he (the Fisher King) has told this story so that it can be preserved after his death, and that having told it, he is ready to fight again. The personal and national reflections here are ominous and accurate.
Eliot suffered extreme illness during the composing of “The Waste Land”, so much so that he retreated to France after his employer gave him three months off to recover from the shakes. Thus, the parallel to his own life is intriguing. Also though, specifically given the recent reference to London Bridge is the nationalist interpretation of the lines. Britain has just finished the Great War, but any student of political science can observe that the conditions which caused it were into resolved and by this point historically, Germany was already in a financial nightmare that would ultimately lead to the rise of Hitler and the Nazi Party.Though Eliot most likely could not foretell the coming of Hitler, he could observe that the fight was coming back as Europe. The final lines of the poem are again in a foreign language, probably due to both the desire to make them sound different and for their meaning.
Line 433 roughly translates into “Give, Sympathize, Control” and as discussed previously; the final line is Sanskrit for “Peace, peace, peace”. In keeping to the prayer analogy, it is likely that this roughly translates, in more poetic terms to “Give me strength and understanding” and then a blessing of peace.Eliot may, though, have simply been ironic in his invocation of peace. “My own opinion is that the end represents a definite advance over the negativism of the opening lines. But Mr.
Eliot’s fondness for irony preludes any hasty dogmatism” (Fowler 236). Whether intended as the end of a prayer or simply an ironic twist on the horror that is “The Waste Land”, the invocation for peace at the end of the poem is as much a testament to the mental state of the poet as it is a part of the poem itself. The question of whether Eliot’s final 11 lines are sheer brilliance or just so much tripe has been debated since long before the poet’s death.And, he wasn’t telling.
Many scholars even believe that the notes he did provide about “The Waste Land” may simply have been red herrings, designed to confuse literary scholars (Gordon 568). The poem may be even harder to interpret than others given that it was in many ways a collaborative work of Eliot and Pound, with pound having a significant impact on several stanzas and even the title itself (Gordon 566). What is clear, regardless of these facts is that these eleven lines have created much interest and commentary over the years and that can never be discounted when talking about the literary value of the work.Would the meaning of the piece have been the same without the final fragment? Clearly, the answer is, “no”. The final fragment adds a mysterious quality to the poem and either wraps it up nicely in a tight ball or sends it off to the madhouse, kicking and screaming.
Obviously, many critics over the years have chosen to believe the later. “By the final lines, Eliot is sounding like a gone-to-seed, Merlot-addled Cultural Studies lecturer recalling her days in Kathmandu with the Maharishi. ” (“Nobody” 2007). Regardless, the impact of Eliot’s epic cannot be dismissed out of hand.It influenced his contemporaries, like H. P.
Lovecraft to write an ironic response, and authors like Stephen King, who was a teenager when Eliot died, to pay homage to the poem and the poet. While some still claim that the final lines are a useless add –on, there are strong indications that Eliot had a very specific plan in the addition of the foreign phrases and imagery in the end of the poem. Ultimately, it stands to reason that the Fisher King, a myth across several cultures, would incorporate several different religious dogmas into his attempt to mend the land. And, so, he did.
