Allusion in The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot

Submitted by Anna Martin on Mon, 10/15/2018 - 22:18

In T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land", there are several allusions to Shakepeare's play, "The Tempest". Having studied "The Tempest" last semester, I immeadiately noticed some of the lines, and when I checked the footnotes, I realized that there was more than just one reference to the play within the lines of "The Waste Land." In line 48 of "The Waste Land", the poem alludes to a song Ariel sings to Prince Ferdinand about his father's potential death. In line 191, it states "Musing upon the kiong my brother's wreck," which refers to Prince Ferdinand sitting on the bank of the island in "The Tempest". These allusions focus on the common theme of hopelessness that drifts throughout poems like "The Waste Land" that were produced during the same time period as WWI. As Prince Ferdinand sits on the bank of an island, realizing his father may have died in a shipwreck, he has lost all hope. "The Waste Land" reflects on that same lack of hope, and uses instances of hopelessness from other centuries to emphasize the mental effects that the Great War had on its victims in the 20th century. 

 

Comments

Ethan Veenker

Mon, 10/15/2018 - 23:17

Yo, shout-out for being more attentive to the allusions than the editors! As someone who's never read "The Tempest," I'm curious to what extent the allusions informed your understanding of the poem. I understand that it helps hit the hopelessness nail a bit harder, but is there maybe something else going on as well? The poem seems to allude to a lot of drama, particularly tragedy, and particularly the most famously depressing parts of said tragedies. That's just my surface-level interpretation, though; is Eliot just using "The Tempest" to further inform the reader, "Hey, I'm writing about sad things," or are there other comparisons and ideas at play? Just curious!

Claire Olson

Tue, 10/16/2018 - 02:40

I noticed some of these allusions to The Tempest as, and I wondered if it was possible that the title of part two, "A Game of Chess" could potentially be referencing the chess game that Ferdinand and Miranda play at the end of the play. If so, what do you think the significance of the title might be? Or perhaps, if not a direct allusion to The Tempest, perhaps Eliot just liked the multilayered value of the title, as of course, chess is inherently associated with war, and this is a poem about the aftermath of WWI.