Allusions in Context
From The Waste Land Wiki
(→Looking at Allusions with Gephi) |
(→Looking at Allusions with Gephi) |
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| + | This network clearly shows that pieces in The Dial bring Egyptian mythology and more Greek mythology, on top of Christianity, to the picture, but The Criterion only contributes Christian allusions. It follows that mysticism and Buddhism are referred to exclusively in “The Wasteland.” Out of all the authors contributing to both magazines, Eliot must intend to stretch his readers’ minds the most, which he does by subtly forcing them to think about a wider variety of religions—just by mentioning and alluding to them—than his contemporary contributors do. This is also a comment on the universality of the point Eliot means to make. The First World War was a universal event, and everyone, from all backgrounds including religious traditions, suffered from it. By alluding to an array of religions, Eliot is able to catalogue this universal event in a universal way. His method complements his intention. | ||
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| + | Looking back at Network C, the most frequent category besides religion is “person.” (Recall that in “The Wasteland” the top three categories were religion, place, and literature.) It is interesting that the magazines have one “most frequent” category of allusions in common with “The Wasteland” but their other “most frequents” differ. This may have to do with the purpose of the pieces represented in each network. Names of people are often the most recognizable items in the catalogues of history, which renders it unsurprising that overall, people are some of the most referred-to “items” across the corpus of the October/November 1922 issues. Whether to consult an authority on a philosophical topic in an essay on modern poetry, or to call to mind a specific English poet, the contributing authors of the two magazines are able to generate for readers a certain level of comfort with their text by calling upon the familiarity of real people their readers have already heard of. | ||
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| + | However, in “The Wasteland,” Eliot refers not so often to people but rather to specific places, which grounds his poem in the real world of his audience. His poem is a kind of archive of reactions to and conditions surrounding WWI. So, referring to real-world places that readers can recognize emphasizes the realness of what he is writing about. Furthermore, by alluding to other works of literature, Eliot does a couple clever things. First, by so often alluding to great works of literature from the past, Eliot accredits the entire corpus of Literature as a relevant—and important—source for understanding (in this case, to understand his poem), which in turn legitimates his poem, as a member of the body of all literature, for his readers as a source for understanding (here, to understand the war and their post-war world). | ||
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| + | Second, he does not limit himself to any certain literary genre or time period, but includes poetry from the fifteenth century (i.e. The Canterbury Tales), a memoir from the fourth century (i.e. The Confessions), drama from the seventeenth century (i.e. Hamlet), as well as more recent works in poetry and prose. The variety here also contributes to the universality of the poem, and it hints at timelessness, even though it is so closely connected with the time-fixed event of the War. Timelessness is further allowed precisely by Eliot’s sparing use of allusions to specific people, quite unlike the pieces that surround the poem in the magazines. This may be because referring to certain people could tie down the poem to be associated only with their time periods, and thus undermine the universality of “The Wasteland.” | ||
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| + | ''Network E: Allusions in The Criterion, The Dial, and “The Wasteland”'' | ||
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| + | Network E is a conglomeration of Networks A and C. Although this network looks overwhelming because of how large it is, it should be manageable based on prior exposure to the other networks. In this one, the pieces from the magazines are lined up at the top, the sections of the poem are listed down the right side, the names of the sources are on the left side, and the categories of allusions are along the bottom of the image. The cluster of things referred to in the middle is organized only so far as necessary to make the nodes mostly legible. My intent with this graph is mainly to show the potential a network graph has for making a large amount of information—135 rows by four columns of input in Excel—visible quickly. Indeed, this network is much less cumbersome than my pages of notes from which I extracted the node names and relationships. It sums up the premise of this project concisely: the way allusions are used in “The Wasteland” and the other pieces that were published alongside it in The Dial and The Criterion in 1922 are related in a significant way, and technology like Gephi can help make it possible to literally see where the connections are. | ||
