The Culmination of Modernism:
T.S Eliot’s The Waste Land and the Aestheticism of Modernism
The aesthetic values of the modernist poets are perhaps best represented by T.S.
Eliot’s epic poem The Waste Land. The Waste Land shows its modernist aesthetic value
mainly through its structure. It is inconsistent in its structure, writing style, voice, and
setting, and rejects conventions set by traditional poetry before it.
The modernists often rejected formal structure, and went for abstraction, rather
than realism, as former poets such as Alexander Pope did. Alexander Pope was
celebrated for his mechanics and use of structure. He was well known for writing in
couplets. T.S. Eliot, however, rejects this kind of structure. The Waste Land is written in
free verse, with no discernable constant structure. At intermittent points in the poem,
structured poetry is added, such as when he quotes Wagner at line 31. These pieces are
juxtaposed abruptly in the poem, though, and the overall poem has no structure. This is
different even when compared to other modernist poets. Robert Frost, for example, often
wrote in iambic pentameter, with definite stanzas and rhyme schemes. This is all thrown
away in The Waste Land.
Throughout the poem, there are segments with vivid imagery and powerful
symbols that stand out from the rest of the poem because they have absolutely no
transition. This is a technique that Eliot uses to put focus on the symbols that he presents.
Just like these small segments, The Waste Land is broken up into four different segments
that are not directly connected to each other. There are no recurring characters, settings,
or writing styles. These different segments do, however, have common themes that
connect to each other to create the overall theme and message of the poem. There is
further discontinuity from Eliot’s constant borrowing from other literary works. He
borrows ideas, quotes, and names of people and places from everything from Greek
mythology (Petronius’s Satyricon) and Christianity (Ezekiel II), to European opera
(Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde) and Shakespeare (Tempest). This forces the reader to
make connections between seemingly unrelated ideas and symbols, helping the reader to
create his own meaning through the solving of this puzzle. This rejection of continuity
forces the reader to put more effort into the reading in order to figure out the connections
between the different segments, and to try to put them together to understand the poem as
a whole. This is a very important idea behind the modernist aesthetic. As opposed to the
traditional poetry, which laid out everything for the reader, modernist poetry demands as
much effort from the reader as it does from the poet. It is equal parts reader and writer.
Therefore, the reader gets out of the poem what he puts into it. The poem is a giant
puzzle, and no clues are given by the author. Moreover, the author does not even give the
reader enough connecting pieces in order to put the puzzle together. The reader must
create his own connecting pieces, meaning the poem can mean many different things to
many different people. No two readings, even by the same person, can be the same. This
is a triumph of modernist poetry. It is less of a statement made by the author, and more of
a launching point for the reader to search for answers himself, and create his own
meaning through careful reading and deep thought.
T.S. Eliot rejects all the conventions of traditional poetic structure, and what
comes forth is a sprawling work that seems to have sprung directly from his head,
without any sort of filter. This is another aspect of modernist poetry. It seems to be
stream-of-consciousness. In fact, though, it is deliberately meant to be this way, so that
the reader puts more effort into the reading. There are long, cryptic metaphors with
hidden meaning. At first, when reading through a segment like the one in The Wasteland
about Madame Sosostris the Tarot reader, it seems to make absolutely no sense. Eliot
describes different cards she draws, without bothering to explain any of the cards’
individual meanings, or what the cards as a whole may mean to the poem. Even when
the reader looks up the meanings to the cards, they seem to add little to the general
meaning of the poem. Segments like these, however, are like the opposite of
impressionistic paintings. At first, when you glance upon an impressionist painting, it is
beautiful, but when you look closely at it, it is a series of dots and small strokes that seem
to be in disarray, and randomly placed. These segments in The Wasteland are the
complete opposite. Through the first reading, they seem to make little sense, and seem to
be a mess. When the reader looks closer into it, though, with multiple readings, and a bit
of effort, he can get much out of it. Not only can he see what Eliot is trying to say, but,
more importantly, he can derive his own meaning from the poem, which is the goal of
modernist poetry. The reader is just as much of a writer as the author is, as the reader is
meant to construct his own meaning from the imagery presented.
In modernist poetry there are also juxtapositions using different styles of writing
and different perspectives. At intermittent points in The Waste Land, there will be a
small piece of clearly structured poetry, in stark contrast to Eliot’s usual sprawling free
verse. At line 231, for example, Eliot writes in lines that contain either ten or eleven
syllables, and uses an A-B-A-B rhyme scheme. He does not even separate this passage
into a different stanza. There is no transition at all, and it is thrown right in with the free
verse. This continues to line 266. He then goes into another stanza of free verse, and
after that goes into a form of poetry using short lines, with each line containing an image
or description. These different writing styles are simply thrown into the mix with Eliot’s
free verse, and just like the scenery changes that are present, they are not guided by
smooth transitions.
Eliot does the same thing with perspective changes. The Waste Land starts out
with a third person perspective. It quickly changes to the perspective of what seems to be
an aging aristocratic woman. The perspective then changes back to third person, then
changes its focus to a clairvoyant woman, then to a city, with a first person view again.
These quick changes in perspective and focus can send the reader reeling, if he is not
careful. The changes in perspective and focus are meant to create connections between
the seemingly unrelated settings and characters.
Another technique used in modernist poetry to attain the effect of added effort
from the reader is the heavy use of imagery, as opposed to making statements. These
images are symbolic, and can represent just about anything depending on who the reader
is. The Waste Land opens up with images and symbols of spring. There are showers of
rain, blooming lilacs, sunlight, and the contrast of memories of the winter past, with
blankets of snow. These images act as symbols representing life and death, permanent
sleep and resurrection. Instead of making statements about life and death, Eliot uses
spring and winter as symbols to express his meaning. Later on in the poem, the heavy
use of imagery is still present. In the second part of the poem, A Game of Chess, we are
given images of incredible opulence, with candelabra, jewels, ivory, coloured glass,
synthetic perfumes. These represent wealth and high standards of living. Further down,
in line 91, these images of opulence are contrasted with images of flames and smoke.
This type of imagery contrast is used throughout The Waste Land in order to provoke
thought, and to make the reader create meaning through the connections and contrasts of
the images. This type of imagery use is common among modernist poets, such as
William Carlos Williams. Much of his poetry is devoid of any type of narrative, and is
filled instead with vivid imagery that stands out in the mind. This abstract technique to
create meaning is one of the defining characteristics of modernist writing. Before,
meaning was conveyed through the author telling the reader directly. The modernist
writers preferred to veer away from this preachy form of writing, and instead go for the
abstract, again letting the reader discern for himself what the poem means.
The modernist poets wanted to break free of the ghosts of the past, and create a
form of poetry all their own, to be judged on its own terms. They wanted to incorporate
the reader, to form a kind of partnership between reader and writer, creating a more
personal poem, and created techniques in order to do so. They went for the abstract, and
the suggestive, rather than the concrete and the definitive. These characteristics that are
present in The Waste Land define much more than just one poem, or one poet, for that
matter. They define an entire generation of poets, who were looking to break free of
traditional confines that were set by poets in the past.