I was reminded of our conversation last week about poets attempting to find different ways to express the trauma of modernity. Specifically, after reading ​The Waste Land ​I thought about the difference between the avant garde and the more traditional soldier poetry. I bring this up because it seemed to me that Eliot was trying to bridge the gap between these two approaches. By this I mean, there are certainly avant garde elements to the poem, most notably the lack of a traditional rhyme scheme in several instances. However, the poem seems to be also constantly trying to situate itself within the past and the poetic tradition. If we look at section V. I think we can see this interplay most clearly. 

Notably, Eliot focuses on traditional, natural phenomenon here, however they seem to be pretty clear references to the war. The thunder which is the professed focus of the section, could easily be read as a reference to artillery. However, the speaker sees in the sound echoes of classical and biblical trauma, by creating parallels between Babel, Jerusalem and Alexandria (which are all famous for being destroyer, damaged or lost) with Vienna and London. It seems to me that Eliot is essentially trying to look for historical or mythic prescidents for the trauma of the war, while at the same time striving for poetic innovation. It's as if Eliot is trying to connect with past while at the same time struggling to account for tradition's inability to express the specific trauma of his generation.