3. Meaning of Myth
• A myth is a story that may or
may not be true.
• Myths are generally very old.
• Myths not only beautiful story
but that is something.
Myth means a false belief.
“ Myth convert history in to the
nature ”.
4. “ By myth I mean the
arrangement of the incidents ”
- Aristotle
5. Myths in The Waste Land
Tiresias
Myths
The
Grail
Legend
The
Fisher
king.
Sibyl
The
Vegetati
on and
Fertility
6. Tiresias - a mythical Character.
• Important part of mythical technique.
• He is a ideal character.
• His life is related to past and present.
• In Greek mythology a seer, or prophet, from Thebes ,
said to have been struck blind by the goddess Athena
because he had seen her bathing.
• Tiresias played a prominent part in Theban legends,
delivering prophecies to Oedipus, king of Thebes.
7. The Grail Legend
• The Holly Grail legend is a
medieval legend associated
with the adventure of king
Arthur and his knights of the
Round Table.
• The grail was the cup or plate
used by Christ for his last
Supper, in which the blood of
the Saviour was collected
when he was crucified.
8. Fisher King
• The mythical waste land of the
Fisher King symbolizes
contemporary decay and
spiritual sterility.
• It is said that the course of
their hazardous quest Parsifal,
the Quester, and his fellow
adventures happened to arrive
in a country ruled over by a
prince named the Fisher King.
9. Sibyl
•In a Greek mythology, Sibyls were
women of prophetic power, that of
Cumae being the most famous of them.
•She was beloved of Apollo who granted
her the gift of immortality, but without
internal youth.
•Translated into English, the Epigraph
means, “Once I saw with my own eyes
the Sibyl at Cumae hanging in a cage…”
•She answered, “I want to die”.
10. The Vegetation and Fertility myths.
Life –Death –Rebirth: Recurrent
pattern runs though all myth:
Winter Death
April Re-Birth
Rain Life
This recurrent pattern has been
taken over in the Christian myth, in
the birth of Christ, his crucification,
and his resurrection.
11. Conclusion
• The Waste Land is an important achievement
of 20th century Eliot described mythical
background of Waste Land by immersing or
giving the different myths like the grail
Legend, The Fisher king.
