TS Eliot | The Waste Land

The History of Literature

Jacke Wilson

History, Books, Arts

4.6 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 17 August 2020

⏱️ 87 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In 1922, T.S. Eliot (1888-1965), an American living in England, published The Waste Land, widely viewed as perhaps the greatest and most iconic poem of the twentieth century. Virginia Woolf recognized its power immediately, praising it for its "great beauty and force of phrase: symmetry and tensity." And yet, as nearly a hundred years' worth of readers and critics have found, its tangle of cultural and literary references can confound as well as compel. Who was T.S. Eliot? What was Modernism and how did he fit into it? What's The Waste Land about? And what can it offer today's readers? Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/shop. (We appreciate it!) Find out more at historyofliterature.com, jackewilson.com, or by following Jacke and Mike on Twitter at @thejackewilson and @literatureSC. Or send an email to [email protected]. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. *** This show is a part of the Podglomerate network, a company that produces, distributes, and monetizes podcasts. We encourage you to visit the website and sign up for our newsletter for more information about our shows, launches, and events. For more information on how The Podglomerate treats data, please see our Privacy Policy. Since you're listening to The History of Literature, we'd like to suggest you also try other Podglomerate shows surrounding literature, history, and storytelling like Storybound, Micheaux Mission, and The History of Standup. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	The History of Literature Podcast is a member of the Podglamorate Network and LIT Hub Radio. I'm going to Hello, it's been called one of the most important poems of the 20th century, if not the most important,
0:32.0	Virginia Wolf said, quote,
0:33.4	it has great beauty and force of phrase,
0:36.3	symmetry and intensity.
0:39.6	Published in 1922, its 434 lines smashed together the legend of the Holy Grail and the Fisher
0:45.9	King with a modern, contemporary, sophisticated look at the way the world was changing, in particular the urban life of metropolis
0:55.9	like London in the aftermath of the brutal horrors of World War I. The poem shifts and surprises, jarring us, soothing us,
1:06.4	reassuring us only to confuse us all over again. Drawing upon literary and
1:11.8	cultural references like old poems, Buddhist texts, the Hindu Upanishads, wild prophecies, satire, popular music, catchphrases, and overheard dialogue.
1:25.0	The result is a post-apocalyptic vision of a world
1:29.0	with an intellectual and cultural continuity
1:32.0	exploded into fragments, and a half-tultural continuity exploded into fragments and a half-insane mind trying to put it back together. We're talking of course about the wasteland by T.S. Elliot. But who was T.S. Elliot? What was Modernism?
1:53.6	And how did he fit into it?
1:55.3	What's the wasteland about?
1:57.5	And why was it so revolutionary?
2:00.0	And what does the poem have for us today? The T.S. Eliot, today, on the history of literature. Okay, here we go. Welcome to the podcast, I'm Jack Wilson.
2:44.0	I'm Jack Wilson.
2:47.0	I'm Jack Wilson.
2:51.0	I'm glad you're here today.
2:54.7	That music you heard in the opening was by composer Igor Stravinsky, The Rite of Spring,
3:01.3	first composed in 1913.
3:05.0	It still sounds fresh and jarring.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Jacke Wilson, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Jacke Wilson and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.