The Waste Land, read by T.S Eliot (whole poem with notes)

  • il y a 11 ans
The Burial of the Dead: 00:00
A Game of Chess: 04:58
The Fire Sermon: 10:21
Death By Water: 18:19
What The Thunder Said: 19:00

Written in 1921-1922.

01:30 : "And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief" cf Ecclesiastes
01:40 "Only / There is shadow Under this red rock" may refer to Parzival: " And this stone all men call the Graal [...] / As children the Graal doth call them, / Neath its shadow they wax and grow".
02:00 Tristan und Isolde, I, 5-8
02:40 Words that announce to Tristan that Isolde's boat is nowhere to be seen.
03:00 "These are pearls that were his eyes" quotation from The Tempest.
03:48 In the following passage, references to Baudelaire ("Fourmillante cité, cité pleine de rêves / Où le spectre en plein jour raccroche le passant") and to Dante's Inferno ("si lunga tratta / di gente, ch'io non avrei mai creduto / che morte tanta n'avesne disfatta")
04:29 Mylae, 260 B.C : Naval victory of the Romans over the Carthaginians, during the first Punic War, which largely resulted from their commercial rivalry; cf. 1914-1918.
04:54 Baudelaire, Préface aux Fleurs du Mal.

05:05 Quotation from Anthony and Cleopatra.
06:28 Ovid, Metamorphoses, VI, Philomel. The whole passage recalls Milton's Paradise Lost, IV, 140
08:00 Rag = ragtime.
10:12 Ophelia's last words to the dames of the Court, after Hamlet has accused her of being a prostitute.

10:42 Quotation from Spencer's Prothalamion
11:45 Cf. The Fisher King, or Wounded King, in the Arthurian Legends. His imaginary castle is always near a river or the sea.
12:21 "they wash their feet" like the Fisher King before his restauration
12:25 "O ces voix d'enfants chantant dans la coupole" Verlaine, Parsifal.
13:00 Cannon Street Hotel: where businessmen met.
13:20 In Greek mythology, Tiresias was a blind prophet of Apollo in Thebes. He was transformed into a woman for 7 years. Cf. Ovid: "At pater omnipotens [...] pro lumine adempto / Scire futura dedit poenamque levavit honore"
14:33 Bradford prospered thanks to the war.
15:58 "This music crept by me upon the water" quotation from The Tempest.

18:26 In fertility rites, Phlebas was drowned.

21:52 "A woman drew her long black hair out tight" Cf. Ecclesiastes: one of the daughters of music. The following lines also recall Ecclesiastes (cf. "the wheel be broken at the cistern")
22:47 The cock dispels the malevolent spirits (see The Tempest or Hamlet)
23:17 "Datta, dayadhvam, damyata" ("Give, commiserate, govern") from a fable about the meaning of thunder.
24:46 Chorus of a traditional nursery rhyme "London Bridge is broken down / Dance over my lady lee"
25:15 "Hieronymo's mad againe" quotation from Kyd's Spanish Tragedy

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