Multimedia
From The Waste Land Wiki
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<blockquote>http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2012/7/19/1342683973685/graffiti-in-London-008.jpg</blockquote> | <blockquote>http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2012/7/19/1342683973685/graffiti-in-London-008.jpg</blockquote> | ||
There is no place that appreciates T.S. Eliot’s ''The Waste Land'' more than London. This remarkable city has created a multimedia walk through Eliot’s poem that starts walkers at West Ham and follows a route through the East London Cemetery to the Greenway Path and beyond. Through this walk visitors see and hear different aspects of Eliot’s poem in a different, more tangible manner. Through meaningful landmarks and historical sites, participants draw their own interpretation through images and locations that relate--literally or obliquely--to ''The Waste Land'', i.e. the rose garden at the cemetery where roses grow from cremated ashes and a staging of Madame Sosostris turning her tarot cards. The walk ends just like the poem past the Saint Mary Woolnoth to the London Bridge. In the middle of the bridge there is a pause and the final lines should be read aloud, “Sweet Thames run softly, til I end my song… / Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata. / Shantih shantih shantih.” While of course there is some degree of ready-made interpretation inherent in the selection of locations, the overall impression of the experience opens up the poem for the reader's interpretation by infusing a fresh life into the lines of the poem. | There is no place that appreciates T.S. Eliot’s ''The Waste Land'' more than London. This remarkable city has created a multimedia walk through Eliot’s poem that starts walkers at West Ham and follows a route through the East London Cemetery to the Greenway Path and beyond. Through this walk visitors see and hear different aspects of Eliot’s poem in a different, more tangible manner. Through meaningful landmarks and historical sites, participants draw their own interpretation through images and locations that relate--literally or obliquely--to ''The Waste Land'', i.e. the rose garden at the cemetery where roses grow from cremated ashes and a staging of Madame Sosostris turning her tarot cards. The walk ends just like the poem past the Saint Mary Woolnoth to the London Bridge. In the middle of the bridge there is a pause and the final lines should be read aloud, “Sweet Thames run softly, til I end my song… / Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata. / Shantih shantih shantih.” While of course there is some degree of ready-made interpretation inherent in the selection of locations, the overall impression of the experience opens up the poem for the reader's interpretation by infusing a fresh life into the lines of the poem. | ||
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| + | In addition to emotional interpretations of ''The Waste Land'', many fascinating derivative works exist throughout the web, one of which is Dave Cole's [http://dodge-gallery.com/cgi-bin/DODGE?s=exhibitions&v=20107231670799676536303116 ''Unreal City''] (referring, of course, back to the Unreal City of Eliot's poem). Cole, who specializes in sculpture, uses objects and ideas of fierce connotation and juxtaposes them in such a way as to change or call into question their usual meaning. A pair of loaded shotguns is displayed in place of knitting needles for an enormous hanging of spun bronze, a grassy landscape is assembled from carved bullet casings, tank treads are cast in salt, making for an uneasy tension between beauty and destruction, life and war. The inspiration clearly arises from the dismal, emptied lines of ''The Waste Land'', but they also speak with a voice of their own. The waste land of this gallery is not the trenches of Europe, but the home turf of the United States; in this way, the artist appears to take the impression he has gleaned from the palimpsest of ''The Waste Land'' and proceeds to write in his own layer. | ||
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| + | The constant fluidity that exists in the flurries of information that inhabit the Web 2.0 space has a twofold effect on the legacy of ''The Waste Land''. The potential for any person of any background to present his or her own interpretations and impressions of the poem causes, on an individual level, the possibility of overinterpretation and obscured meaning; however, as an overall body of work, it can be argued that ''The Waste Land'' is actually given a sort of life and growth. By examining the overall body of work in light of the palimpsest, it becomes possible to... | ||
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==Study Aids & Academic Discussion== | ==Study Aids & Academic Discussion== | ||
