View source for Decoding "The Burial of the Dead"


    Go to [[The Waste Land Text]]
    Go to [[Eliot's Notes]]
    Go back to [[Shoring Up Fragments Against Our Ruin: Quotations and Allusions]]
    Go to [["The Burial of the Dead" Annotations]]
    Go to "[[Order for the Burial of the Dead]]"
    Go to [[Biblical Stop Words List]]

='''''Decoding "The Burial of the Dead": Understanding Eliot's WWI Crisis of Faith'''''=

The Anglican burial service, the "[[Order for the Burial of the Dead]]" saw a lot of use after the massive death toll of WWI, because of the decimation of nearly an entire generation of England's young men.  "The Waste Land," in its title and content deals directly with what life was like for civilians, affected by these deaths without really seeing them.  England was one of the countries with the greatest casualties and T.S. Eliot, who had moved to England at the outbreak of the war after being rejected from admission to the U.S. Navy, witnessed the English response to the decimation of fighting men, watching and waiting from the sidelines.  

"The Waste Land" unveils Eliot's feelings of impotence, guilt,  anger, and the personal anxieties, resultant both from the troubles of his marriage, and from the troubles, as he saw it, of the Western world. Young Eliot the artist, so firmly a staunch Anglican for most of his life, saw this event as a crisis of faith for all Christian nations.  By looking at the "[[The Waste Land Text]]," especially "The Burial of the Dead," and critically comparing it to the Anglican "[[Order for the Burial of the Dead]]," it is possible to see Eliot's concerns with the promise of salvation, in a time which seems to be comparable to the Biblical vision of the end times.

='''Figure 1: Eliot's Prophetic Terms from "The Burial of the Dead" -vs- "Order for the Burial of the Dead"'''=

Voyeur Tools provides a basic and revealing way of visualizing the thematic divergences of "The Burial of the Dead" from the "[[Order for the Burial of the Dead]]."  The key terms--"life," "eternal," "dead," and "death"--are all related in a Judeo-Christian resurrection of the eternal soul--a notion that is meant to be comforting, which "The Waste Land" is most certainly not.  

As the graph shows, in the "Order for the Burial of the Dead," which includes many passages from the Bible underscoring death as a sort of stopping point to the next stage of life (such as [[1 Corinthians 15]]: 20-22 " But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that slept.  For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.  For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive."), the four terms are closer together and almost overlap entirely, with life occurring more frequently than any other term.  The "Order" promises life, even after death, and the service is for the living, who have to continue living on without the deceased.  

Alternatively, in "Burial of the Dead," the word "dead" outstrips all other terms, "life" goes down in importance, "eternal" does not occur at all, and "death" stays the same as it did in the "Order."  More emphasis is place on the individual dead, and on being dead, than on those who are left behind, and no promise of anything "eternal" is made.  

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='''Figure 2: Recurrent Words from "The Burial of the Dead" '''=

Go to [["The Burial of the Dead" Annotations]]

The words that do feature prominently in Eliot's "The Burial of the Dead," are particularly telling for his attitude.  Both "dead," and "death," feature prominently, but so does "shadow," "winter," "roots," and "fear."  The last, "fear," introduces the crisis of faith most strongly.  One of the interesting correlations of Figure 2 is the path that "dead," "winter," and "roots," share for most of the graph.  This is telling, because roots do not really die in the winter, they merely remain dormant.  Of course, in the poem, the dead feed on the roots,a and the winter preserves their bodies, so either way, the poem speaks to death as a temporary state.  Nevertheless, it is one to be feared.  The biggest peak in the graph is "death."  Underneath that peak, there is one little bump for "fear."  This arrangement brings into mind the Lord's Prayer.  It would appear that in the shadow, there is fear.  However, the final three to drop off, "fear," "death," and "dead" fall off the graph in that order.  As "fear" is quelled, "death is vanquished," and the "dead" are no longer dead.  The graph ends with a rise in the word "garden," indicating that the soil is fertile for new life.  This brings to mind the very end of "The Burial of the Dead," when the narrator asks Stetson if "that corpse you planted last year...has it begun to sprout?" as though there is an expectation that the dead are like seeds, germinating under the earth (lines 71-72).  In this last section, even the resurrection of the dead is mentioned in an oblique manner.  One of the voices says "Oh keep the Dog (capitalization original) far hence, that's friend to men, or with his nails he'll dig it up again." (lines 74-75).  Just as Christ is a product of his father, God, the word Dog is an inversion of God.  While this interpretation might be a stretch elsewhere, the capital "D" like the capital "G" in God makes this connection clear.  Further "with his nails," easily refers to the nails of the Cross, since Jesus' death is the guarantee of salvation for all, and thus, resurrection for all Christians.  


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In the "[[Order for the Burial of the Dead]]," the selected scriptures treat death as a natural process and, in fact, one to be embraced as a time of union with God and a way of finding comfort from the difficulties of life.  Life, in fact, is denigrated as a time of man's vanity, and a time of trial, where man is tested in order to be admitted to the New Earth after the Second Coming of Christ.  That "fear" features so prominently in "The Burial of the Dead," contradicts Christian precepts of embracing death, further underscored by the section's allusion to a document so full of comfort in a time of death.  The Lord's Prayer, [[Psalm 23]], features prominently in the "Order," and distinctly says "...though I walk through the alley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me..." (Psalm 23:4).  Interestingly, "shadow," is another frequently occurring word of this section of the poem.

='''Figure 3: Recurring Words from "[[Order for the Burial of the Dead]]"'''=

Although the graph of the recurring words from the "[[Order for the Burial of the Dead]]" includes the text of Psalm 23, as well as the texts of all of the other scriptures included in the "Order," the recurring words reaffirm the conclusion made from Figure 1, that the "Order" deals with eternal life of the body, kept holy by a covenant with the Lord even after death.  Thus, the recurrent words are "body," "life," "holy," "eternal," and "death."

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In an interesting way, the graph of the "[[Order for the Burial of the Dead]]," tells the story of the process of life after death.  At the beginning, "eternal," and "life" overlap for the most frequently occurring terms, indicating perhaps their greater importance, and directly below them, "death," and "body" overlap, indicating the the body has died, beginning the process towards eternal life.  "Holy," does not feature heavily at the beginning, perhaps because no divine intervention has occurred yet.

Then, the "holy" process takes off, creating life from the dead body, the "body," rises, becomes holy, and at the end, life skyrockets off, as does "eternal."

='''Figure 4: Recurring Terms in the Biblical Allusions of "The Burial of the Dead"'''=

In order to read more deeply into "The Burial of the Dead," and to understand its relationship to Christianity, and to the Message of the Bible, the chart traces the usage of recurring terms in "The Burial of the Dead" to see what aspects of these passages are most important, and thus, most influential to Eliot.  These terms, "idols," "broken," "evil," and "forsaken" tell a very dark story of Eliot's intent--one that accords with Old Testament Godly wrath.

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Since the books of the Bible are arranged in the order that Eliot uses them at the bottom, the change over time is remarkable.  It begins with the introduction of "evil," or perhaps, the beginning of evil's reign, and creates a huge proliferation of idols.  Of course, the worship of idols breaks one of the commandments, and it appears, according to the chart, that Eliot's usage of [[Isaiah 2]] and [[Ezekiel 6]] (where the most frequent usages of "idols" occur) indicates that he believes his own time to be one of idolatry.  Looking at [[Isaiah 2]], the sort of idolatry occurring in the scriptures would certain resonate with Eliot.  [[Isaiah 2]]:7-8 shows idolatry to be an obsession with wealth, and a worship of the arts as a means of boosting an artist's ego--both would appeal to the times.  The transition from idols to "broken," however, shows that God has already begun the process of breaking man's idols.  In [[Ezekiel 6]], in fact, God makes the mountains of Israel a "Waste Land," in his wrath, as a means of humbling and frightening the Israelites into penance.  It would appear, then, that "The Burial of the Dead" indicates that this process has already begun.  When the "idols," come crashing down, the "evil" ones are "forsaken."  

It seems possible, therefore, that Eliot sees "The Waste Land" of his times as a time when God has smashed all of the cultural idols, as a way of humbling man.  All of the agonizing horrors that so many see or endure after World War I are directed towards idolators and sinners, as a means of expiating them from their sins.  Even the dead are being punished.  Spring rain reminds the corpses waiting in the ground for resurrection of their lives before death.  Even the dead continue to atone.

=='''Biblical Allusions'''==

Using [["The Burial of the Dead" Annotations]], it was possible to suss out the Bible passages most heavily used in writing "The Burial of the Dead," according to scholars. For a more in-depth analysis of these allusions, see the annotations. 

===[[Job 8]]===

===[[Ezekiel 2]]===

===[[Ezekiel 6]]===

===[[Ecclesiastes 12]]===

===[[Isaiah 2]]===

===[[Isaiah 32]]===

='''Figure 5: Recurring Terms in the Biblical Allusions from "[[Order for the Burial of the Dead]]" '''=

While Eliot does seem to believe that World War I is a form of punishment for mankind, titling this section of the poem after the comforting "[[Order for the Burial of the Dead]]" indicates that "The Waste Land" is a way of dealing with God's wrath, and a way of trusting in a divine plan.  Since the "[[Order for the Burial of the Dead]]" gives a lot of creative flexibility in the selection of Biblical passages according to each individuals' funeral service, it is difficult to pinpoint exactly the service that Eliot would have heard or read, but because of the high number of deaths at that time, it is likely that Eliot and others heard many modifications, and probably heard every possible scriptural passage at some point.  Thus, this service is a part of the early-twentieth century British zeitgeist, and is crucial to understand the nature of English mourning during WWI.

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<iframe width="760" height="520" src="http://voyant-tools.org/tool/TypeFrequenciesChart/?corpus=1355173620318.6363&stopList=1355173744941bx&type=body&type=death&type=throne&type=dead&type=everlasting&mode=corpus"></iframe></html>

The chart for the scriptural passages in the "[[Order for the Burial of the Dead]]" is actually not as indicative of its content as the other Figures presented, perhaps because it uses twenty Biblical passages, each differing length, and of a falsely constructed order, according to one way of structuring a funeral service.  It does, however, confirm key aspects of life after death.  It demonstrates the tension between a dead body and an everlasting body and, interestingly, "dead," and "death," overlap on [[1 Corinthians 15]]:20-26, and on [[1 Corinthians 15]]:26, Christ defeats death as the last enemy.  Soon after, the word "throne," rises in usage in [[Revelation 7]]:9-17, in which John the Apostle sees the heavenly court of God, and describes how the dead will live with Christ.  In His court, they will "They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat.  For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." [[Revelation 7]]:16-17.  This is an interesting passage to compare to the beginning of "The Burial of the Dead" in which the corpse is stirred by spring rain  (line 4) and is kept alive by feeding on "dried tubers" (lines 6-7).  It is almost as though these natural processes mock the corpse as he waits for the divine substances promised him, since until resurrection, the corpse will never really eat again.  Further, at the heavenly court, John the Apostle describes every language being spoken, representative of every creed of people.  This image of life after death informs Eliots' understanding of contemporary society--God's continuing punishment of his children--since they have to wait further even for the rewards of death.  

=='''Biblical Allusions'''==

===[[John 11]].25-26===

===[[Job 19]].25-7===

===[[1 Timothy 6]].7===

===[[Job 1]].21===
 	 	
===[[Psalm 25]].6===

===[[Deuteronomy 33]].27===
 	 	 
===[[Romans 8]].38-39===
 	 	 
===[[Romans 14]].8-9===
 	 	
===[[Matthew 5]].4===

===[[John 14]].1===

===[[Psalm 39]]===
 	 	 
===[[Psalm 23]]===

===[[Psalm 130]]===

===End of Psalm Prayer=== 

===[[1 Corinthians 15]].20-6===

===[[1 Corinthians 15]].35-38===

===[[1 Corinthians 15]].42-44===

===[[1 Corinthians 15]].53-58===
 	 	 
===[[2 Corinthians 4]].16 - 5.10===
 
===[[Revelation 7]].9-17===
 	 	 
===[[Revelation 21]].1-7===

===[[Psalm 103]]===

=Conclusion=

By looking at Eliot's usage of Biblical allusions, and in his allusion to the "[[Order for the Burial of the Dead]]," Eliot formulates the fall of the Western world, both culturally and demographically, as a necessary result of the prior sins of European men and women.  All war and strife, according to this worldview, is fueled by God's wrath, but is, in a morbid manner, a sort of delayed good.  The decimation of peoples, and the cowing of nations results in a new, spiritually clean slate for the survivors, and after a period of punishment, also rewards the dead.  While the tone of "The Burial of the Dead," seems depressed and pessimistic, the Biblical Allusions of both the poem itself and the service it alludes to create a positive ending for all of the dead and the people left behind.