User:Toby Decker

I will show you fear in a handful of dust.<br/>

[[File:Thetriumphofdeath.jpg|right]]In contrast to the Cubist/Modernist approach, which renders truth from varying yet stark perspectives, the cover image of Penguin Classic's [http://www.amazon.com/Waste-Other-Poems-Penguin-Classics/dp/014243731X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1355188736&sr=8-1&keywords=the+wasteland+and+other+poems+2003 reprinting of "The Waste Land"] incorporates Pieter Bruegel's "The Triumph of Death" on its book cover.  The differences between Delaunay's and Bruegel's paintings are remarkable, though Bruegel's work does not inherently controvert textual content.  The editor's choice to use Bruegel's painting to market "The Waste Land" is obviously influenced by themes consistent with the poem.  However, when comparing the work of Delaunay and Bruegel it becomes apparent that the editorial choice concerning which image to use reflects strongly on the editor's perception of the poem.  For instance, though Delaunay's work is not "true to life," it does maintain sufficient pragmatism to assure a level of certainty for the viewer.  In "The Triumph of Death" the image is so absurd, filled with ambiguous yet disturbing symbology, that the viewer is left disoriented and perhaps disenchanted before he or she has considered the text within.   

Penguin's choice to use Bruegel's painting for its ''Waste Land'' cover reveals an editorial perception that death and iconography are perhaps the most essential aspects of the poem.  Bruegel's painting depicts a battle in which death, personified as a militia of skeletons, overwhelms a force of men. The Triumph of Death was painted more than three hundred years before Eliot wrote The Waste Land, well before the introduction of abstraction in the field of visual art.  Whereas Delaunay paints a single image from a variety of different perspectives, Bruegel paints a single scene; nevertheless, Bruegel also challenge the viewer's experience by creating several different scenes within his single panel. The viewer is challenged to consider several different images, or "perspectives" at once.   

Unreal<br/>

How a person reads a text is largely influenced by the text's appearance, as well as the medium by which the text is consumed.  Contemporary readers of texts like The Waste Land may be introduced to a new reading of Eliot's poem depending upon which portion is considered for visual interpretation.  Bornstein writes in "How to Read a Page" that "...the literary work might be said to exist not in any one version, but in all the versions put together.  In reading a particular page we would want to know of the other versions of that page and the first step in reading would then be to discover what pages exist with claims on our attention."  By using various mediums or versions of texts to analyze literature, readers may offer new perspectives to the ongoing challenge of interpreting literature.  To a large degree, humans internalize information based on visual and tactile experiences.  Therefore, it is important to regard each piece of a sample of art before claiming to know the integral sophistication of the work in question.

Nirvana. ''Nevermind''. Gefen, 1991. CD.