The Mythical Tecnique in The waste Land

Name                -            Vyas Foram

Roll no:             -            21

M.A.Part-2       -            Sem-3

Paper                -            02, Ec-301

Paper name     -            Modernist Literature 

      

Topic for assignment  -

The Mythical Technique in the waste land

Submitted To: Dr.Dilipsir Barad

  Department of English,

  Bhavnagar university,

  Bhavnagar.                  

 Topic: - The Mythical Technique in the waste land

                      Introduction  :-

            T.S. Eliot’s ‘The waste Land’ is an important landmark in the history of English poetry and one of the most talked about poems of the 20^th century.  It is a long poem of about four hundred forty lines in five parts entitled (1) The Burial of the Dead. (2) A game of chess (3) The Fire sermon. (4) Death by water and (5) What the Thunder said.  The poem was first published in serial from in the criterion in October and November, 1922.  The First publication of the poem raised a storm of adverse criticism.  It was considered, at best, a series of slightly related Separate poems.  The new statement called it, “Several separate poems entitled ‘The waste land.”  Alec Brown in The scrutinizes called it,” a set of shorter poems talked together,” and Even as important a critic as E.V. Lucas, reviewing the Poem in 1923 commented that the poet found his inspiration in literature rather than in life, and Untermeyer, writing in the same vein, said the poem appeals only to our acquired knowledge.

                      “The waste Land”:

Ø The Mythical Background

          On the eve of the composition of the waste land, T.S. Eliot had been reading Jessie Weston’s book from Ritual to Romance, and James Frazer’s famous book the Golden tough.  The poet himself has acknowledged that he was deeply influenced by these works or anthropology, and the ancient and primitive myths and legends which from the mythical background to poem are derived from these books Miss Weston’s book supplied him with the legend of the Grail and the Eisner King, and from the Golden Bough he derived his knowledge of a number of vegetation and fertility myths and rituals, especially those connected with Attics, Adonis and Osiris.

Ø The Grail Legend:-

          The Holy Grail legend is a medieval legend associated with the adventure of King Author and his Knights of the Round Table.  The Grail was the cup or plate used by Christ for his last supper, in which the blood of the savior was collected when he was crucified.  It was not long before this holy vessel was discovered to have acquired medicinal and also miraculous properties so that it became an object of devotion and warship, and chapels for it became to be built in several countries and its warship was organized.  The lance used to pierce the sides of Christ was also kept with it.  But a time came when the original Grail disappeared mysteriously from the chapel where it was kept many a bold knight staked his life and lost in the arduous task of searching for it.

Ø The Fisher king: His Desolate Land:-

          It is said that in the course of their hazardous quest Parsifal, the quested, and his fellow – adventurers happened to arrive in a country ruled over by a prince named the fisher king.  It was one of the regions where Grail work ship had been anciently in vogue, and a temple, known as chapel perilous, still stood there, broken and dilapidated as a mournful memorial of what once was, but later had ceased to be.  It was said that the lost grail was hidden in this chapel.

        At that time the king himself had become a physical work, maimed and important, as a result, it was whispered, of a sin committed by his soldiery in outraging the chastity of a group of nuns attached to the Grail chapel.  The impotency of the fisher king was reflected sympathetically in the Land of which he was the head and the ruler.  It had become dry and barren the haunt and home of want and famine the king, however, was waiting with hope, despite his illness, that one day the night of the pure soul would visit his star – crossed kingdom, march to the chapel perilous, answer questions and solve riddles.  This would be followed by a ritual washing of his, king fisher’s sinful body, which would purge it and renew its health and energy.  It was also hoped that this rebirth of the king would be followed by the life-giving rains to the parched land and the thirsty kingdom, which would once more enjoy its earlier fertility.  The poem was considered as a sort of scholarly nonsense, and the hope was expressed that it would be left gradually, “to sink itself.”

Ø It’s Symbolic Significance:-

     The mythical land of the fisher king symbolizes contemporary decay and spiritual sterility.  The Sick king symbolizes the sick humanity and this sickness results, as in the case of the fisher king from its Sexual sins.  It has been degraded to mere ‘animal copulation’, and this Sexual perversion has led to Spiritual death.  Spiritual health can be regained only through penance, suffering and self-discipline.

Ø The Mythical Technique: Its Advantage:-

          Eliot has used the mythical method in Germanton, in Sweeney among the Nightingales and in most other poems of the volume entitled the Poems 1920.  However, the waste Land is the most extended example of Eliot’s use of the mythical technique.  For the modern waste land, Eliot Finds Several close parallels in the waste land of the past, what is happening today is not peculiar to the present age; it also happened in the death.  This has been represented symbolically be the picture of a kingdom laid waste by the sexual sin or Sickness of its ruler or by war.  The land becomes waste, but it is invariably restored to health either by the hero, or by the penance of the ruler himself.  Salvation has always come, and so it is bound to come to the modern waste land as well, only if its denizens are prepared to pay the price – sacrifice and suffering by the use of this technique, the poem is able to bring together several planes of experience, suggest the likeness between them, and increase the richness and allusiveness of his Poem.

Ø “Resembling Contrasts:-

          It has been said that Eliot uses the mythical method as a criticism of the present.  The past is glorified and the sordidness and squalor of the present is accentuated by contrast.  Even such a penetrating critic as Elizabeth Drew commits this mistake nothing can be Further from the truth.  As a matter of fact, Eliot merely suggests “The sameness as the heart of contrast,” “resembling contrasts” – that human life has basically been the same despite superficial differences for example, though in a famous passage in “The fire sermon”, the mention of, “Elizabeth and Leicester brings an illusion of glamour, close thought reveals that the stale pretence of their relationship left it essentially as empty as that between the typist and Cleark.” But the poet does not say so explicitly; he juxtaposes the past and the present and leaves the readers to draw out their own conclusions.  The Contrast Ps obvious, but the sameness is implicit.

Ø Allusions and Quotations: Their Function:-

          The passage also illustrates that not only does Eliot use Pagan myths and legends for ordering and controlling his material, he also uses European literature, the literature of his own country, as well as Biblical myths for the same purpose.  His use of allusions and quotations is not pedantic; it is functional.  It is part of his technique of juxtaposing the past and the present.  In the famous passage at the close of the Burial of the dead, ‘the unreal city’ is London or any other city in the modern waste land.  But it is also the city of Baudelaire as well as the Limbo of Dante the boredom and depression of the crowds moving over London Bridge reminds one of Similar personages in Dante and the implication is that the reminds one of similar methods of salvation are also the same.  The opening of what the thunder said is a fine example of the way in which Eliot portrays the Sameness of different experience by linking together different myths drawn from various source, the final scenes from the life of Christ, from the perilous quest of Galanad, and the pagan vegetation myths.

Ø Extreme Condensation:-

          The mythical method can be used in either of the two ways (1) Expansion and (2) Compression.  Joyce’s Ulysses is the finest example of the first method, while Eliot’s the waste Land provides the perfect illustration of the second alternative.  Eliot has concentrated on interpretation f a whole condition of society into slightly over four hundred lines, and has thus created, what T.S. Pearce calls, the Epic of contemporary Society.  He has telescoped within a short span the past and the present, or, in the words of Matthiessen,

        “Has compressed in to a single moment the memory and the sameness of other moments.”

        He has enclosed ‘vast immensities’ within little space.  Eliot eliminates all connectives, everything that was not entirely essential, and in this way increased the energy and lyric intensity f the poem.  He thus created a work of art, a triumph of intellectual organization and conscious effort.

        To wind up, myths as “Objective co-relatives” one aspects of Eliot’s use of the mythical technique is his use of ancient myths as “objective correlatives.’ Eliot defined objective correlative as a, “set of objects, a situation, and a chain of events” which shall be formula for some particular emotion of the Poet, so that when the external facts are given, the emotion is immediately evoked’.  The waste Land contains, according to A.G. George.

        “A series of emotions and impressions of the poet which are expressed through the objective correlative of the mythical waste lands, a series of emotions and also impressions which originate in the Poet’s mind as he surveys human life in the present as well as in the past.”

        The ancient myths act as objective co-relatives for the poet’s emotions, in ancient customs and rituals he finds symbols for his emotions and ideas.