In this presentation I have explained first part of the Eliot's poem 'The waste land', The burial of the dead.

1. Subject: ‘Burial of the Dead’ from “The Waste Land”
Ajit A. Kaliya
M.A. Sem 3
Roll No. 1
Enrollment No. 2069108420170013
Batch 2016-18
Department of English, MKBU
Paper 9 : The Modernist Literature

2. Introduction
• ‘The Waste Land’ is one of the most important poems of 20th century and
central work of modernist poetry.
•Published in 1922
• References of myths, Bible, Buddhism and Upanishads
• Five parts:
1. Burial of the dead
2. A game of chess
3. The fire sermon
4. Death by water
5.What the thunder said

3. The Burial of the Dead
Burial service by Anglican church.
April
April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
- Regeneration
- Memory
- Memory and desire gives pain
Winter
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dread tubers.
- Forgetfulness
- Spiritual death
- Life in death

4. Event of Marie
And when we were children, staying at the archduke’s,
My cousin’s he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.
-Spiritual degradation
- Sexual desire
- From world of innocence to world of experience
- Nostalgia

5. Image of the waste land
What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone, no sound of water.
Only there is shadow under this red rock.
-Reference to Bible, spoken by prophet Ezekiel and Ecclesiastes in Old Testaments
- Description of waste land symbolizes spiritual death and spiritual dryness.
- Red rock means faith in God. Only hope to bring spirituality is faith in God.

6. Madame Sosotris and Tarot cards
The drowned Phoenician sailor:
- Hope for life and rebirth
- Purification by water
Belladonna
- A beautiful lady
- The lady of the rocks
- lady of situation
- Renewal of life by holy grail or a
seductive woman

7. The man with three staves
- Three staves of DA, to give, to sympathize, to control
- Signifies the fisher king
- Search for spiritual truth and compassion for others
The wheel
-The wheel of fortune, of seasons, of ups and
downs of life.
- the wheel turns round and round, like the
“crowds of people walking in a ring”
-Symbol of change

8. One eyed merchant
- Mr. Euginides from Syria who brings merchandise,
myths and religion.
-Hope of change by compassion and religion
- Lost eye can be read as lost of religion
The hanged man
-Sacrifice of the Christ
- Madame Sosostris say that she does not
find The Hanged Man. He indicates that
there is no renewal for us, that the traditions
and religions of the past have been lost

9. Unreal city
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.
Flowed up the hill and down king William street,
To where saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours
With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.
- Death in life
- aimless wandering
- Painful routine
- Soulless living of modern people

10. Conversation with Stetson
There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying “Stetson!
“You who were with me in the ships at Mylae!
“That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
“Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?
Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?
“Oh keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend to man,
“Or with his nails he’ll dig it again!
“You! Hypocrite lecteur! Mon semblable, - mon frere!”
-Reference of great naval battle of 260BC between Rome and
Carthage
- Stetson represents humanity of all time
- Dog symbolizes spiritual awareness and conscience.
- Keeping it away suggests that modern man does not want to live
with spirituality and morality
- Last line suggests that for this spiritual degradation you, me and all
are responsible.

11. Works Cited
crossroadtarot.com. Madame Sosostris’ Tarot Reading in T. S. Eliot's The
Waste Land: An Annotative Essay. 30 October 2017
<http://crossroadstarot.com/thewastelandandtarot.htm>.
shmoop.com. The Waste Land: The Burial of the Dead Summary. 11
November 2008. 30 October 2017 <https://www.shmoop.com/the-waste-
land/burial-dead-summary.html>.
wikipedia. The Waste Land. 24 October 2017. 30 october 2017
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Waste_Land>.