Online Reading Group: T S Eliot’s ’The Waste Land’
‘These fragments I have shored against my ruins’, says the speaker in T S Eliot’s The Waste Land. These words thematically mirror this seminal poem’s fragmentary structure, episodic nature, and allusiveness to a range of texts and perspectives. This course will examine the connection between this aesthetic of fragmentation and the ‘ruins’ of a post-War Europe that Eliot attempts to recreate. How does the stylistic polyphony of voices in the poem affect the way we read it? Does Eliot’s use of what he called ‘the mythic method’ in Joyce’s Ulysses contribute to the poem’s overarching structure? You will also focus on the aural resonances of the poem and, by listening to performances of the text, will appreciate its inherent, if elusive, humour. Finally, students will be encouraged to explore multiple ways of engaging with this modernist poem in order to better understand, and revision, its relevance to contemporary poetic practice.
To book your place on this course please visit: http://www.poetryschool.com/courses-workshops/online/online-reading-group–t-s-eliot-s-the-waste-land.php
This is a private group. To join you must be a registered site member and request group membership.