The Waste Land - 1922

Epigraph
I. The Burial of the Dead
II. A Game of Chess
III. The Fire Sermon
IV. Death by Water
V. What the Thunder Said

Eliot uses many primary texts and authors in The Waste Land. Some major topics include:

Weston's From Ritual to Romance
Frazer's The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion
Ovid's Metamorphoses
Virgil's Aeneid
Dante's Divine Comedy
Shakespeare and Contemporary Playwrights
The KJV Bible
Buddha's Fire Sermon

It is also important to note that Eliot is writing in the wake of World War I.

We must remember that, as Eliot mourns the fragmentation and cultural stagnation of Europe, he is simultaneously drawing on thousands of years of literary tradition. Without these texts, there is no Waste Land. Ironically enough, if people actually cared for the kind of intellectual life Eliot's poetry requires then - again - there is no Waste Land.

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