"The Fire Sermon" Annotations
From The Waste Land Wiki
(→Stanza 7) |
(→Edmund Spenser) |
||
| Line 27: | Line 27: | ||
===Edmund Spenser=== | ===Edmund Spenser=== | ||
| − | |||
| − | |||
Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song | 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. | ||
===Andrew Marvell=== | ===Andrew Marvell=== | ||
