Intro to Critical Reading
Waste Land Paper (1st Draft)
Sarah Schaefer
3/25/10
It is difficult to imagine T.S. Eliot’s most famous work “The Waste Land” as
being anything but the familiar poem that was first published in 1922. Each section,
each section title, the language and diction, and the epigraph seem to fit seamlessly
into the poem and thus lead the reader to believe that the poem was perfectly and
deliberately created. The release of “The Waste Land: A Facsimile and Transcript of
the Original Drafts Including the Annotations of Ezra Pound” in 1974 illuminated the
truth—that “The Waste Land” was in some parts a drastically different piece when it
was originally sent to Pound for editing than when it was later published. The
section that best exemplifies this is “The Burial of the Dead,” which originally
featured a long opening section that Pound decided to cut. The changes suggested
by Pound, his reasoning behind the suggestions, and the poem’s original state
provide insight into the minds of two of the most historically significant Modernist
poets.
In the draft that was sent to Pound for revising, Eliot had included a lengthy
scene that described a typical night out for young men at the time. He describes
having a “couple of feelers” and “sopping up some gin.” At one point the young men
lose their friend, Steve, and later into the night they stop by the local brothel and
attempt to spend some time with the women. The owner of the brothel takes pity on
them in their drunken state and lets them have a bed and a bath. The scene ends
with the narrator taking a taxi home and stepping out into the sunrise. Pound made
several notes to this part of the text; he crosses out many phrases such as “I thought
so. You know who I am? Yes, I do, said the fresh cop, very peevish,” and suggests that
Intro to Critical Reading
Waste Land Paper (1st Draft)
Sarah Schaefer
3/25/10
some of the character names like Joe Leahy be changed to something like Gus or
Heinie Krutzch. In one note, Pound struggles to find the best way to phrase “I had a
good laugh”—he scratches out several attempts including “couple of laughs” and
“real good(?).” Surprisingly, after clearly spending a significant amount of time
deliberating over such minor details, Pound decided to draw a line through the
entire section and suggested that Eliot start at the segment that began with the now
famous line, “April is the cruellest month.”
The decision to cut the entire section that Eliot had originally selected as the
one with which to open the poem was a bold one—one that may or may not have
been the best choice. In one sense, the cut makes sense; the structure is loose and
the descriptions rambling, and its connection (if there is one) to the next stanza and
to the rest of “The Burial of the Dead” is difficult to pinpoint. Despite these faults, the
section is striking in many ways. The true-to-life depiction of the young men
resorting to an abundance of alcohol and women in order to have fun seems to be an
excellent way to illustrate the monotony and the desire for cheap entertainment
that characterized the generation and society that Eliot was condemning throughout
most of “The Waste Land.” The section is closely related to the scene in “A Game of
Chess” when two people in a bar are discussing the necessity of one of them to give
her husband “a good time.” In both scenes, topics that are often controversial and
considered unseemly to discuss or write about are treated with frankness, and as a
result Eliot’s message is communicated in a simple and memorable way.
Admittedly, the abandoned section would have been an unusual way to start to
poem, but perhaps the scene could have been moved to another place, such as at the
Intro to Critical Reading
Waste Land Paper (1st Draft)
Sarah Schaefer
3/25/10
beginning of “What the Thunder Said.” The scene would have supported the theme
that “he who was living is now dead, we who were living are now dying, with a little
patience.”
Pound evidently found the rest of “Burial of the Dead” to be worthy of the
published version of “The Waste Land,” though he still added quite a few notes and
corrections. He suggested that Eliot move the stanza that begins with “Frisch weht
der Wind der Heimat Zu, mein Irish kind, wo weilest du?” to an earlier part of the
section (prior to “What are the roots that clutch”) and that he add the German
phrase “Oed’ und leer das Meer” to the same stanza. Later in the section he scratches
out the lines “I John saw these things, and heard them” and “to where Saint Mary
Woolnoth kept the hours with a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.” Pound also
changed the first word of the final section of the paragraph from “terrible” to
“unreal.”
Eliot, for the most part, followed Pound’s suggestions and made the proposed
changes to “The Burial of the Dead,” but in a few notable cases he did not. He chose
to leave the stanza that featured German in its original place and to keep the line
about Saint Mary Woolnoth. Both choices were no doubt made because Eliot felt the
sections were both necessary and strategically placed. The stanza containing
German would have seemed out of place and jarring if placed between the stanzas
beginning with “April is the cruellest month” and “What are the roots that clutch,”
because both sections feature mostly nature-related images. Similarly, the line about
Saint Mary Woolnoth (an Anglican church) keeping the time contributes to the
London imagery that is featured in the final stanza of “The Burial of the Dead;”
Intro to Critical Reading
Waste Land Paper (1st Draft)
Sarah Schaefer
3/25/10
Eliot’s decision to keep the line indicates that he understood the importance and
value of painting a vivid and recognizable place in his poem. Despite Eliot’s
willingness to remain true to his original vision in these instances, he generally
observed Pound’s suggestions. He added the line “Oed’ und leer das Meer,” which
was absolutely a good decision—it helps bring closure to the part that contains
German and establishes a connection between the final lines and the opening lines
of the stanza. Eliot also saw the necessity of changing his description of the city from
“terrible” to “unreal.” Though the word has entirely different connotations than the
initial word used, “unreal” suits the tone and theme of the section much better and
correlates with references to “The Inferno” that occur one line later (“I had not
thought death had undone so many. Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled, and
each man fixed his eyes before his feet”). Though these decisions to adhere to
Pound’s corrections are understandable, the logic behind the choice to remove the
line “I John saw these things, and heard them” is unclear. The phrase, a reference to
the Gospel of John, is a succinct and striking way to convey Eliot’s meaning in the
second to last stanza of the section. He is describing a tarot card reading, so the
biblical reference is at once ironic and sincere. Perhaps Pound felt the reference was
inappropriate or overly used, but the line no doubt contributed to the scene, so it is
a shame that it was removed.
Pound’s corrections and suggestions contributed greatly to the final draft of
the section “The Burial of the Dead.” In several instances, Pound made a decision
that was unarguably the best one—beginning the entire poem with the line “April is
the cruellest month” makes much more sense that starting with a rambling scene
Intro to Critical Reading
Waste Land Paper (1st Draft)
Sarah Schaefer
3/25/10
about a night on the town. Yet some of his changes seem unnecessary or
unforgiving; his removal of the entire first scene was a foolish choice if the section
could have contributed to the poem in a different place, and his decision to remove
the line “I John saw these things, and heard them” was detrimental to the stanza.
Thankfully, Eliot remained true to his vision for the poem and only made changes
where he felt they were beneficial.
Intro to Critical Reading
Waste Land Paper (1st Draft)
Sarah Schaefer
3/25/10
WORKS CITED
1. Eliot, T.S. The Waste Land: A Facsimile and Transcript of the Original Drafts
Including the Annotations of Ezra Pound. Orlando, Florida: Library in Congress
Cataloging-in-Publication Data, 1971.
2. Eliot, T.S. The Waste Land, 1922.