View source for "The Fire Sermon" Annotations

Go back to [[Shoring Up Fragments Against Our Ruin: Quotations and Allusions]]

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==Section Title==

===[[Buddha]]===

The title of the section "The Fire Sermon" alludes to a Buddhist speech known as [[Pāli Canon Aditta-pariyaya-sutta:  The Fire Sermon]].  In this speech, Buddha relates the burning of fire with sinful passions such as lust, hatred, and sorrow.  The sermon is so powerful it frees the Bhikkhus from their passions.  ''The Waste Land'' inverts this liberating moment, spinning it as the incarceration in an emotionally devoid state rather than a freedom.

===[[The Bible]]===

The Fire Sermon in itself correlates with [[The Sermon on the Mount]], in which Jesus blesses those who suffer for righteous reasons.

==Stanza 1==

===William [[Shakespeare]]===

 The river's tent is broken:  the last fingers of leaf
 Clutch and sink into the wet bank 

These lines allude to Queen Gertrude announcing Ophelia's death in [[''Hamlet'' (Act IV Scene VII)]].  Ophelia had climbed a willow tree when a branch snapped, plummeting her to the brook below.

The Shakespearean tragedy associates old, distinguished literary tragedies with the tragic new territory of modernity.  The war itself was a tragedy, and Eliot is referencing the returning veterans who may have survived the battles but are no longer psychologically present. 

===Edmund Spenser===

 Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song

This line nearly mirrors the refrain of the marriage song by Edmund Spenser [["Prothalamion"]].  The Thames River runs through London and is the scene where the narrator meets two lovely maidens.  

 Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends
 Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed.
 And their friends, the loitering heirs of city directors;
 Departed, have left no addresses.

Directly after the quotation, ''The Waste Land'' proceeds to portray a contrasting image of modern London.  Abandoned and left in ruins, London is far from picturesque.  The reference to nymphs ties back this modern version of London to the 1596 poem, identifying the maidens in "Prothalamion" to nymphs, and the mention of hankerchiefs, cigarettes, and night suggest sexual indulgence.

==Stanza 2==

===Andrew Marvell===

 But at my back in a cold blast I hear 
 The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear.

This excerpt alludes to Marvell's [["To His Coy Mistress"]], in which the narrator attempts to persuade a woman to engage in sexual intercourse with him.  A direct quote from that passage reads:  "But at my back I always hear / Time's wingèd chariot hurrying near."

Eliot's work, however, relates this poem to death and war battle.  The chuckle concluding the excerpt creates an eerie adaptation of the poem.

==Stanza 3==

===[[Ovid]]===

Allusion to Ovid's [[''Metamorphoses'']]

 Twit twit twit
 Jug jug jug jug jug jug 
 So rudely forc'd.
 Tereu

==Stanza 4==

===Charles [[Baudelaire]]===

Allusion to [[“Des Sept Viellards”]] from ''Les Fleurs du Mal''

 Unreal City
 Under the brown fog of a winter noon

===Walt Whitman===

Allusion to [[“These I Singing in Spring”]] from ''Leaves of Grass''

 Unshaven, with a pocket full of currants

==Stanza 5==

===[[Tiresias]]===

 I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives,
 Old man with wrinkled female breasts, can see

 I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs
 Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest -
 I too awaited the expected guest.

 (And I Tiresias have foresuffered all
 Enacted on this same divan or bed;
 I who have sat by Thebes below the wall 
 And walked among the lowest of the dead.)

Tiresias, a blind, wise Theban prophet, was a mythological character.  He served seven years as a woman, causing him to be sympathetic to women’s issues.  After expressing his belief that women enjoy sex more than men to Jupiter and Juno, Juno struck him blind, but Jupiter gave him the gift of prophecy and the lifespan of seven men.

In this context, Tiresias adopts the role of a woman sympathizer, as he watches the interactions between a woman and her lover.

===Robert Louis Stevenson===

Allusion to [["Requiem"]]

 Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea,
 The typist home at teatime

==Oedipus the King==

Reference to Oedipus the king of Thebes.  A prophet correctly predicted that he would unwittingly kill his father and marry his mother.  After solving the Sphinx’s riddle, he was made king.

 I who have sat by Thebes below the wall 

==Stanza 6==

===Oliver Goldsmith===

Allusion to [[''The Vicar of Wakefield'']]

 When lovely woman stoops to folly

==Stanza 7==

Line 257 alludes to [[''The Tempest'' (Act I Scene II)]]

 "This music crept by me upon the waters"

==Stanza 8==

===Jack the Ripper===

 The river sweats
      Oil and tar
      The barges drift
      With the turning tide
      Red sails
      Wide
      To leeward, swing on the heavy spar.
      The barges wash
      Drifting logs
      Down Greenwich reach
      Past the Isle of Dogs.

Greenwich and the Isle of Dogs are both places where Jack the Ripper murders were committed.  The reference to the homicides contribute to the tragic elements of the poem.

===Thames Daughters===

 Weialala leia
 Wallala leialala

This is the song of the Thames daughters, also known as the Rhine daughters. They were nymphs who sang a song to guard the Rhine gold.  The owner of the gold could rule the world, but would have to sacrifice love and live in eternal desolation.

===St. Augustine===

Allusion to [[''Confessions'']]

 To Carthage then I came

==Stanza 11==

===[[Buddha]]===

 He wept.  He promised a 'new start.'

This refers back to the allusion to Buddha's "The Fire Sermon."  The "he" adopts the role of a Buddha-like figure, who promises deliverance from the overwhelming feeling of dejection in modern society.  Contrasting the use of fire as the liberating force are this character's tears.

==Stanza 13==

===[[Buddha]]===

 Burning burning burning burning
 O Lord Thou pluckest me out
 O Lord Thou pluckest
 burning

This excerpt concludes the section and refers back to the title "The Fire Sermon," tying in the burning of passions with the feeling of despair so prevalent in modernist literature.  This allusion to the Buddhist sermon applies his lesson to the text.  The narrator in this section begs to be "plucked" from the burning, implying perhaps that the fire is not in fact a liberating tool but an abstract prison.  The fire can also be interpreted as a war battle, in which the soldier indeed earns a detached emotional state.