Shoring Up Fragments Against Our Ruin: Quotations and Allusions
From The Waste Land Wiki
(→Introduction) |
(→Introduction) |
||
| Line 11: | Line 11: | ||
‘Sibyl, what do you want?’ she replied, ‘I want to die.’” | ‘Sibyl, what do you want?’ she replied, ‘I want to die.’” | ||
| − | + | The quotation, about the Cumaean Sibyl, is heresay—a retelling of a telling of a myth—which adds to the conversational, unstable feeling of the poem. A character of Petronius’ Satyricon recounts the tale, probably as a way of showcasing his knowledge of Greek, since he seems to be foppish pedant, as evidenced by his prior conflation of Hercules with Ulysses. Operating under this interpretation, the epigraph acts as a humorous concession to readers who might thing Eliot’s work pedantic, considering its sizable inclusion of foreign language and regurgitated rhetoric. | |
However, by looking at the legacy of the Cumaean Sibyl, “The Waste Land” also becomes a poetic prophecy, with divine implications, and Eliot becomes a selfless prophet-poet. The Cumaean Sibyl wrote all of her prophecies in Greek hexameter verse and left them outside of her cave to be collected or discarded to the elements. Likewise, Eliot seems to be offering his work, regardless of his possible reception, with the same fervor and depth of meaning. Further, Christians often cited the Cumaean Sibyl as foretelling the coming of Christ, so by comparing himself to Sibyl, in a time of crisis, he also seems to indicate that he might have knowledge that could lead to social salvation, if not to a messiah figure. | However, by looking at the legacy of the Cumaean Sibyl, “The Waste Land” also becomes a poetic prophecy, with divine implications, and Eliot becomes a selfless prophet-poet. The Cumaean Sibyl wrote all of her prophecies in Greek hexameter verse and left them outside of her cave to be collected or discarded to the elements. Likewise, Eliot seems to be offering his work, regardless of his possible reception, with the same fervor and depth of meaning. Further, Christians often cited the Cumaean Sibyl as foretelling the coming of Christ, so by comparing himself to Sibyl, in a time of crisis, he also seems to indicate that he might have knowledge that could lead to social salvation, if not to a messiah figure. | ||
