"The Waste Land" by T S Eliot: Explanations or RTC
Some explanations from Eliot’s The Waste Land with reference to context I sat upon the shore Fishing, with the arid plain behind me Shall I at least set my lands in order? Answer : This excerpt has been taken from the last section of T.S. Eliot’s poem The Waste Land . The excerpt reminds is of the speaker persona’s fishing experience in a nasty canal in lines 189 – 192 of the same poem. We are reminded of the Fisher King in the Grail Legends and the Arthurian Romances. The speaker is surrounded by an ‘arid plain’ or a ‘waste land’ where there is no symptom of rebirth and regeneration. The European civilisation, in the wake of World War I, became as ‘arid’ and shattered as a wasteland where there is no question of life and hope. Everything is shallow and numb. The utmost crisis led to nothingness, disillusionment etc. the speaker wonders and questions himself whether he will ever be able to “set” his “lands in order”. Here the poet has ...