"The Fire Sermon" Annotations

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Go back to [[Shoring Up Fragments Against Our Ruin: Quotations and Allusions]]
 
Go back to [[Shoring Up Fragments Against Our Ruin: Quotations and Allusions]]
  
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==Buddha==
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Go to [[The Waste Land Text]]
  
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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 section concludes along the same lines, tying in the burning of passions with the feeling of despair so prevalent in modernist literature.
 
  
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Burning burning burning burning
 
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O Lord Thou pluckest me out
 
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O Lord Thou pluckest
 
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burning
 
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A prior stanza refers back to the liberation of passions.
 
  
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He wept.  He promised a 'new start.'
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==Section Title==
  
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This "he" adopts the role of a Buddha-like figure, who promises deliverance from the overwhelming feeling of dejection in modern society.
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<html>
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<iframe width="950" height="475" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" src="https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&amp;msid=205087301525898876143.0004ce52654ea33c0be11&amp;hl=en&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;t=p&amp;ll=30.826781,46.40625&amp;spn=35.397168,83.496094&amp;z=4&amp;output=embed"></iframe><br /><small>View <a href="https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&amp;msid=205087301525898876143.0004ce52654ea33c0be11&amp;hl=en&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;t=p&amp;ll=30.826781,46.40625&amp;spn=35.397168,83.496094&amp;z=4&amp;source=embed" style="color:#0000FF;text-align:left">The Fire Sermon</a> in a larger map</small>
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</html>
  
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==Shakespeare==
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===[[Buddha]]===
  
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The lines 173-174 allude to Ophelia's death in [[Hamlet (Act IV Scene VII)]].
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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.
  
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[T]he last fingers of leaf
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===[[The Bible]]===
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The Fire Sermon in itself correlates with [[The Sermon on the Mount]], in which Jesus blesses those who suffer for righteous reasons.
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==Stanza 1==
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===William [[Shakespeare]]===
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The river's tent is broken:  the last fingers of leaf
 
  Clutch and sink into the wet bank  
 
  Clutch and sink into the wet bank  
  
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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.
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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.
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===Edmund Spenser===
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Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song
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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. 
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Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends
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Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed.
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And their friends, the loitering heirs of city directors;
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Departed, have left no addresses.
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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.
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==Stanza 2==
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===Andrew Marvell===
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But at my back in a cold blast I hear
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The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear.
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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."
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Eliot's work, however, relates this poem to death and war battle.  The chuckle concluding the excerpt creates an eerie adaptation of the poem.
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==Stanza 3==
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===[[Ovid]]===
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Twit twit twit
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Jug jug jug jug jug jug
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So rudely forc'd.
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Tereu
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This excerpt alludes to the story of Procne and Philomela in Ovid's ''Metamorphoses''.  The sounds mimic the sorrowful song of the nightingale after Philomela was transformed. 
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==Stanza 4==
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===Charles [[Baudelaire]]===
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Unreal City
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Under the brown fog of a winter noon
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This short quotation refers to Baudelaire's poem [[“Des Sept Viellards”]] from ''Les Fleurs du Mal''.  "Des Sept Viellards" translates to "seven old men," and ''Les Fleurs du Mal'' to "the flowers of evil."  The referred to quotation that Eliot parallels is below:
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:Swarming city, city full of dreams
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:Where the spector in full daylight accosts the passerby
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===Walt Whitman===
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Unshaven, with a pocket full of currants
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The word "currants" alludes to Whitman's [[“These I Singing in Spring”]] from ''Leaves of Grass''.  Currants are seedless berries representing infertility.  Whitman thus uses them as symbols of homosexuality.
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==Stanza 5==
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===[[Tiresias]]===
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I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives,
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Old man with wrinkled female breasts, can see
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I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs
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Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest -
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I too awaited the expected guest.
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(And I Tiresias have foresuffered all
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Enacted on this same divan or bed;
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I who have sat by Thebes below the wall
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And walked among the lowest of the dead.)
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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.
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In this context, Tiresias adopts the role of a woman sympathizer, as he watches the interactions between a woman and her lover.
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===Robert Louis Stevenson===
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Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea,
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The typist home at teatime
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This alludes to Stevenson's [["Requiem"]].  The paralleled text reads, “Home is the sailor, home from the sea / And the hunter, home from the hill."  The sailor could be representative of the soldier returning home from war.
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==Oedipus the King==
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I who have sat by Thebes below the wall
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This is a 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.
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==Stanza 6==
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===Oliver Goldsmith===
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When lovely woman stoops to folly
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This quotation alludes to Goldsmith's book ''The Vicar of Wakefield'':
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:“When lovely woman stoops to folly,
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:And finds too late that men betray,
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:What charm can soothe her melancholy?
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:What art can wash her guilt away?
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:The only art her guilt to cover,
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:To hide her shame from every eye,
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:To give repentance to her lover,
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:And wring his bosom, is-to die.”
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The context in ''The Waste Land'' differs in that the woman does not feel shameful after intercourse with lover, and instead resumes her everyday life.  Directly before the quotation reads:
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Hardly aware of her departed lover;
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Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass:
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"Well now that's done: and I'm glad it's over."
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Th reactions of the woman in ''Vicar'' and in ''Waste Land'' are polarized--while one feels the guilt and shame of her sinful act, the other seems entirely detached from emotional ties or burdens.
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==Stanza 7==
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"This music crept by me upon the waters"
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This quotation, which is being played on the gramophone, directly quotes [[''The Tempest'' (Act I Scene II)]].
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:Sitting on a bank,
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:Weeping again the king my father’s wreck,
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:This music crept by me upon the waters,
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:Allaying both their fury and my passion
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:With its sweet air: thence I have follow’d it,
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:Or it hath drawn me rather.
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==Stanza 8==
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===Jack the Ripper===
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The river sweats
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      Oil and tar
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      The barges drift
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      With the turning tide
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      Red sails
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      Wide
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      To leeward, swing on the heavy spar.
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      The barges wash
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      Drifting logs
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      Down Greenwich reach
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      Past the Isle of Dogs.
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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.
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===Thames Daughters===
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Weialala leia
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Wallala leialala
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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.
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===St. Augustine===
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To Carthage then I came
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This alludes to St. Augustine’s [[''Confessions'']]:  “To Carthage then I came, where a cauldron of unholy loves sang all about mine ears."
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==Stanza 11==
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===[[Buddha]]===
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He wept.  He promised a 'new start.'
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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.
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==Stanza 13==
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===[[Buddha]]===
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Burning burning burning burning
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O Lord Thou pluckest me out
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O Lord Thou pluckest
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burning
  
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Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song" alludes to [[Spenser’s ''Prothalamion'']].
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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.

Latest revision as of 19:32, 3 December 2012

Retrieved from "http://courses.utulsa.edu/modmag/waste-land-wiki/index.php?title=%22The_Fire_Sermon%22_Annotations&oldid=903"
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