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Overview
T. S. Eliot’s 1921 poem The Waste Land is a keystone of literary modernism
. At once admirable and disorienting, the poem offers a fragmentary meditation on Western civilization in the early twentieth century. This civilization had already been experiencing cultural, economic, and spiritual decline prior to the shattering brutality of World War I, which reduced it to a smoking ruin. With significant editorial contributions from his friend and fellow poet, Ezra Pound, Eliot created a new form of poetry—one assembled from a wide range of literary and historical references. The vision Eliot put forth in this landmark work continues to unsettle readers a century on.Read a summary & analysis, an analysis of the speaker, and explanations of important quotes from The Waste Land.
