TS Eliot's poem the “Wasteland”

Thomas Sterns Eliot is considered one of the most influential poets of the twentieth century. He had lots of contributions in poetry, dramas and some other critical work. The Wasteland poem, which was written by him, is considered one of the best works in poetic history. Eliot published this poem in 1922 in his own literary magazine Criterion, then after one month this poem was published in other magazines as well, which created a huge impact in the field of literary world. However, there was criticism by various literatures that his poem seemed to be very modern. However, the main theme which he wanted to convey to the people was the achievement of progress in various fields of life. He said the progress will only be achieved by people, when they would set aside their ego and selfishness. (Rainey, pp.129-145)

When the critics read his poem for the first time, they considered it very modern. From traditional perspective, Eliot produced a poem that seemed to include many unknown references regarding history, religion, mythology, and other disciplines. He even wrote some of the parts in Hindi. He thought that the poem was too difficult to read because of which he had to include extensive notes to refer to the sources to which he was mentioning. This particular step of Eliot was an unusual move for a poet which even caused some poets to think that he deliberately tried to make the poem obscure. However, there was some criticism by various authors but they even felt that this poem has inspired its creation and even has helped in determining the meaning. This poem was seen as a reflection of Eliot's disillusionment with the moral decay of post World War I in Europe. Eliot gave the reference of two books from which he tried to create the poem's symbolism: Jessie L. Weston's From Ritual to Romance (1920) and Sir James G. (Cooper, pp.57-74)

The main theme of his poem is “Are we doomed to repeat past failures, or can history go forward”. He realized the reasons that why people face so much problems in their life. There are certain situations in life where the person makes many mistakes in life and does not even realize it. The realization comes when the mistakes creates problems in that person's life. Sometimes, the mistakes or blunders made in the past causes huge damage not only to one individual of the family but all the members of a family. He stressed the need to remain vigilant in the present day's world so that when it will become a portion of the past and then there will be no regrets of the people. He tried to present the poem as a lesson for all the people. He felt that if this poem can leave an impact on the individual's life, then nothing could be better than this. However, he also felt that if his literature is not going to influence the minds of people, ...