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ly enmeshed in the poem' s central' theme. This theme is... established as dying into new'life, by examination." of the myths and ri tuaIs of' the ancient Near East and the Grail Legends" based oh the works 'of Frazer, and J. L. Weston. Eliot reverses Frazer's sceptical'implications ,for Christianity, and through the Grâil Legends, in which the ary.cient myth,s' wer~ Christian'ized>, he demonstràtes that ~he. pagan',concept of death b'i,lllwater, in a Christian '~context, becpmes baptism into spiritual 1ife. t" By' isolation ot those elem~nts of the plays whiçh concur wi th Eliot' s central purpose in The 't/aste" Land, tfeir inclusion in the peem ~s justifi~d. ~ They do, indeed, consoli,date and strèng,thep the crucial theme of 1 1ea th by wa ~er and rebirth: they are ,in~egral to our 'understanding of, the poem.·' , :" ,

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DEGREE OF

EILEEN

rllAR~

/ I,IcNA1R NEY

~NOVEMB~R~ 1979~ASTER ~F

ARTS,

DEPARl'MENT OF ENGLISH McGILL UNIVEFSITY .... MONTREAL, QUEBEC •

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DEATH BY WATER:

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,THE RELATIONSHIP BE'l'WEEN VEGETATIO~ MYTHOWGY AND SHAKESPEARIAN ALLUSION IN TlIE WASTE LAND

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OF T. S. ELIOT

, , resume 1

Le but de cette thèse est au t

allusions

is pièces de ,théâtre de Shakespeare 1 Anto

and

=:..=~-==

Cleo atra, The Tenlpest, et Hamlet, qu 'on retro~v

dans le

poèm de T, S. Eliot intitulé The Waste Land, -mal fai t que celles-ci ont été ignorée's par 1

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impo' tants, sont inextricablement liées, au du p ème. - Ce thème central tel qU'on peut le défin'r comme· le p ocessus de mourir dans une nouvelle ~ie est ti é des

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études de lf'razer et J, L. Weston sur les mythes et rituels

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du Moyçn Orient antique ainsi que sur' les-légendes du Graal.

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Eliot dévit les implications des ~dé~s sceptique,s de Frazer sur l~ christianisme,

En explorant le;; légendes du Graal

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dans lesquelles les anciens,mythes furent c1;lristianisés,

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il nous démontre que le concept pafên de la mort causée 1

'par l'eau' devient, dans le con text chrétien, le baptème qui mène à 1ia vie sp~ri tuelle. _ ,

En isolant les éléments des pièces de théâtre

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rapprochènt de l'idée pr,incipale qu'on retrouve da,ns , 1 >

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me Waste L~d, d t Eliot, le ofai t qu'ils srient ~ incl~s est alors justifié,

Ces éléme~ts unissent l t fortifient l'idée

centrale de la mort causée par ll'.eau et de la renaissance; ils 'sont essentiels à

la

compréherision du poème.

EI~NoMARY McNAIRNEY NOYEMBER,' 1979 DEPARTMENT' OF ENGL:ISH"

MèGrLL UNIVERSITY MONTREAIl, ~UEBEC

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CONr.l;::.NTS.

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Chapter 2.

Chapter

J.

, Chapter 4.

I.

The Folê of fI1Yth'~la~d Ri tu~l in " Society. /

12.

Eliot' s Application of 'The Golden Bough in The ,

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~n" the legends which Miss v/estan treats there,_ the, land has been bltghted by a curse. The arops- do not grow and· the animaIs cannat reproduce. rhe plight of the land is summed up by, and connected wi th, the, pJ.ighi of the lord of' the' land, the Fisher King who has been rendered 'impotent by maiming- or sicknes's, . The curse can be removed only by the appearance of a knight who wH.l ask ,thè. mean'ings of the ' various symbols which are displaye4 to him in' the c..astle r The shift in .meaning from

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6 physical to spiri tuaI sterili ty is easily made, and wa's, as a matter of 6 fact, mgd~ in certain of the legends.

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'Spanning 'pagan and 'chri,i~ ~ythOIO~Y, these Iegends_ illustra te a continui ty of belief which has existed since 1 time immemorial, but'which, .acco,rding to Eliot's worldlview,. ls on the point of disappearance,~ Eliot does not use one particular version of 'the Grail Quest, nor is there uniform usage of the legends throughout the poem. Instead, he uses them randomly to illustrate a predicament similàr ta the lone . that the myth embodïes. Helen' Gardner says, that he , "goeS back behind any artistic treatment ta the ,bare elements , of the myth, i tself befare i t was rationalized into a story.", 7 In"investigating the Gr~il Legend~, thery, l will measure their influence on Eliot, noting the outllnes of the tales and those elements in them which have had thfJ greatest \' impact on the poern, but avoiding a detailed account'of thB story.~ It i8 important ta consider these legends as a bridge linking the ancien.t fertility myths wi th Christiani ty. , They have\a retrospective aspect toward the fertil~ty myths of the ancient Near East but are also anticipatory of the malaise of: Eliot's modern V/aste Land, and are a perfeet analogue, 1 • or objective co,rrelati ve, for i t.. These accounts of ,the ,Grail Quest'are signif~cant'also because they are of a literary periôd closely preceding Shakespeare. 1 The final aspect of the poem to be considered is contained in,the tnree Shakespearian plays Antony and Cleopatra, Hamlet and The Tempest. How i8 their presence fn the poem to' be explained, and how'is it to be reconciled to the ~ central theme of death and rebirth through water? I intend to prove that al though their in,9-l'usion in the pbem has been 'Cl largely ignored by the major El,iot cri tiés, i t is worthy of , seri oua study, and explanation. Strangely, the re\erences to- these plays in the poem have been given littl~ or n\. notice by A. G. George (Tt S. Eliots His Mind and His Artv, Northrop Frye (T. S. Eliot, 1963), T. R. Rees (The Tegjmigue of T. S. Eliot,I974-), or Helen Gardner (The Art of, T. S .. lj:liot, I949). While' Elizab~th Drew o

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actually rem&rks that the allusions to Ophelia's drowning show "destruction as the result of,frustrated love",e but she does not pursue the probiem ta say, for example, that this is "the' diam~tric opposite of the fertili ty 'cycl~l. Grover Smith compares Ophelia ta the Hyacinth Girl and says that as "the violet girl", she is essentially a symbol of betraYBd innocence. 9 He goes o~ to makè ",passj.ng refereJ?ee to the ironie cantrast between the neurotic ' in "A Game çf • • 1 Chess" and Cleopatra, concludJ.Rg that Ellot's woman has none of Cleopatra' s exuberan"t spri",h tliness'. ro He does. however realize the central importance of The Tempest to The, ~laste Land, finding the crucial contrast bètween Shakespeare' s world and Eliot's:

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l'his is not the world of 'rhe Tempest where nei ther fa ther nor son i8 dro'tmed and where both survive to experience redemption. Alonso through penitence II and Ferdinand through love. In T. oS. kHat: The'Invis' Cl. H. Allens London, I959), p. I)8, Hugh Kenner re ates lia with the Hyacinth Girl, and says that both "speaK with an urgent ~implicity". He also remarks 'that the Shakesp arian heroine gathered flowers before she tumbled into the stream to her death. F. O. rt.at'thiessen. on the other hand, by-passes these allus,.., 1 ions to Ophelia and The Tempestto comment " . on the reference . to Cleopatra in "A Game of C~ess"l

" It May be a reminiseenc'e of the barge on the Nilel the senses May be drowned 'in odours; the c~rved dolphin may swim in the sad light; but aIl those references serve-finally to remind you that th~re, is nq freshening water in this I2 parched Waste Land.

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Cleanth l Brooks mentions aIl three playsl fir~tly he encapsulates,the crucial contrast between Cleopatra and tlBelladonna" of The Waste Land: j

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The queen in Shakespeare's love dram~ is perhaps the extreme exponent· of lov love's sake: the feminine member·o pair who threw away an empire for ove. But the ninfinite variety" of the 1 of the .woman in A Game of Chess" ha been '< ~staled. There is no variety at aIl, and 1J ove simply does not exist. Il

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Speaking of Ophelia's role in the poem, Brooks comment~ on the similaritY,of her position and that of Lil w~o had an abortion in The 'Ilaste Land, rôr opheli~ remarked that, nYaur+g men will do't,if they come :o't(! _~'~cOCk ,the:- are to blame." , He remarks, tao, t~at llke Phlj;:1f'o~el, Opheha' sJ poetry has come fram suffe ring. 14 ./ The Tempest, 'only curso,rily mentioned by Brooks, is the single play to which Stephen Spender refers. Spendè~-T. S. Eliot (London: Fontana, I973), p. 10~--views the line "Those a:r;e pearls that were his eyes"_ i,.n a theoretical way, , • t" saying that they are lines "ot' mys~d.bus import ta E'liat for they signify the mystery of the transformation of experience into poetry". The final cri tic ta be considered here i8 De~ek Traversi. whose reading of the plays in The )'faste Land is made aIl the more valuable by the tact that he is a respected Shakespearian . scholar. In his work on Eliot's poem, Trav~rsi comments on both Antony and Cleopatra and The Tempest. or t~e reference ta Cleopatra at the beginning of "A Game ~f Chess" he remarks,

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On,_the one hand, the overbJ,own magnificence ·of Enobarbus' description suggests a civilization which for aIl its opulence and" . splendour has lost its moral fibre: on the other hand, the play contains side by side with other' and deliberately contrasted impressions~ moments in which triumphant passion s~ems to l f'ind supreme eX,Ill'e'ssian. 15

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It .is in~eresting' to note that this view of Traversi t s is echoed in his work on the Roman Plays, when he su'gg~sts that the description~of Clèopatr~ on the barge passesses \ ane)emeliW" of "ove~-ripeness" and a Itcloying sense of' '" ltpcury".. (See Chapter' Six below). He goes on to comment on

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"",:r;-enewal.(in spring. In this ~ontext Demeter' s search for Persephone, the subje'ct o.i the Eleusinian Mysteries. is the simplest illustration , v (al though in this case the loved one is female). Abducted by'Pluto when she was picking flowers, Persephone was taken to the 'Underworld to be his wife. After a prolon~ed search, Demeter found her and established ~OQntract with Pluto whe.ceby her daughter spent half of the year wi th her--spring and, summer:"-and half wi th him--autumn and win ter. . The Osiris cult 18 the most interesting for further , ~ , 1 exami,nation. pa~ticularly because· of i ts obvious similari ties wi th Christiani ty. A ml,ll ti-faceted dei ty, Osiris ,was variously connected with the Nile's rising, the growth o~ the corn, fertilityand the Underworld, being considered the Lord and Judge of the dead. AlI of these aspects may seern ta be phases of the one cycle of death ~d~r€birth, for " without the ri~ing of ,the Nile, the land would?not be fertile, thf 'dorn would not grow and the popù~ace wouiçl suffer.. 'r'lhen the'inunda~ion rece~ed, the lan~ ceased to be productive, because Osiris had died. But'on the other hand, on the reappearance of the waters nature revived because Osiris had risen 'again. , t It is easily understood how a gûd with such power could be associated with the d~ad and by e~tension of his cereal potency be considered the be~tQwer of immortality to man. In the cycle of nature man sa~ the, phases of his own life,~ just as the corn sprang up again in spring at'ter i ..t:-~é!.d been harvested in aut'j.U!Ul, ,sa he hoped that he would exper. iance a rebirth i~to new and better life after death.

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After disMemberment, the limbs of the victim representing • Osiris 'Ne:,e buried in different .locations ta indicate the dissemination of th~ seeds and the fertility of the land. Originally the king played the role of Osiris, but later an effigy was used ta minimize bloodshed', In the case of the Osiris ritual,' an effigy of the god, made from clay Implanted with corn, would be buried. Its sprouting would be seen as the r'esurrectio~ of the god, an assuranc~ pf th~e ri~ing of' th~ Nile and a rich hàrvest. And sa the corn god produced "the corn from himself', he was the corn which rose from the land ~nd he died at the harvestihg 'When' i t fEhl. . His body ,red the people. Dyi~g that they ,might live, he allowed them to eat his body and sa share in his divinity and immortality, thus re-experiencing the "numen". In The Golden Bough James Fl:"azer comments that a god "who fed the people wi th his own " body in this 'life and who held the promise Qf a blissful eternity in a better. world, naturally reigned supreme in their affections. In Egypt Osiris was supreme." 4 The Christian implications of these lines will be ~Qnsidered later. In aIl the vegetatÏV~ cuIts th~ motive for slay~ng the god \was the same. Frazer explains the phenomenon thuss

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The motive ,for killing the ma~-god is fear lest wi th the enfeeblement of his body with sickne~s ahd old age, his sacred spirit should suff~r a èorrespondi~g decay which might imperil the general course of nature an~ with it 5 the existence of his worshippe~s.

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50 the dying, and revi ving god became .,the linch -pin of their existènce. 'By his revival $ndlresurrectio~ the god demonstrates the omnipotence of the divine power of life of' which he i8 the example, ensuring the return ot: spring and so new lif'e for the land. It i~ evidfnt that these cult~ were barn from man's innate fear of death, at all times asserting the value of life, initially cereal, ul~imately human. The cycle of' harvesting and sowing ia Inseparable :ft'om dea th -and rebi'rth, and\this xhey celebrated in1ritual. Again-Frazer: ,

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The intention of these sacred dramas was .te refresh and strengthen by sympathetic magic the failing anergies of nature, in order that the trees should bear, fruit, that the corn \ _ should ripen and that men and animals6 should reproduce their kind. f '

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_ Of the three, Att-is', Adonis ~nd Osiris, the last ls the most' famous, and this May be attributed to the Egyptian '" climate. The Nil'e- always rose, resul ting in a,b~daht fruits, • while the ..,,;rigris and EuplJ.rates i!J. l\'Iesopotamia were less dependable. Obviously efficacious, then, the ri tes ,of' Osiris would continue for longer and his supremacy would remain unchallenged. Fi-tual1.sts will judge the effica-cy of these Il sacred dramaS- solely by their visible', I!1,a terial resul ts, , but' their effects .encompassed more. Their bonding of society has already been examined, but the moral aspeqt must n~t be ignored. Inherent" in aIl of these ri tuaIs was a desire for order and securi ty, and a. sense of expiation for the wrongs committed in the -past year. The first May be evidenced in,the onus laid on worshippers to perform t~e rites impeccab~y, lest ~he god he insulted and the desired resu~t be thwarted. In the second case sème rituals merged the FoIes of fertility god andfScapegoat, so that in purging the- 9ins of the participants, he rev~ved the land. One of' the ways that the Scapegoat 'was killed was 1 crucifixion, and the role of Christ as Scapegoat will be con-, 1 sidered la ter. It must not be forgotten, of e~urse, that there lay beneath this seemingly utili tarian desire for an ord'ered socie~ a literaI bel~ef in the mythe F~r tRese people the corn rose only because the effigy'of' Osiris had been/buried, or because Adonis had b,een duly commi tted to the '.sea. M:ythology was their explanation of' nature,., 'having the sarne role , as o~ science rationalitation • . ' but lacking its sop~isticated . Faith exists independently of proof. Of' the goddesses Isis i8 the" most bene:ficent. \, The prototype of wii'ely love and f'ideli ~y and bf fecund~~y, in oné version of the myth she searches for Osiris' s dismembered ' / ,p

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body in Byblos. Isis i8 in sharp contra st wlth the Mother . of the Christian :::hurch, I,1ary the, Virgin, al though 'iconography of Isis and her son Ho-rus resemble'S mèdi-eva:J-~icono-' graphy of the Madonna and 'Child. Indeed i t may be' true, as, Frazer suggests, that ancient EgYPt' may have IÎcontributed i ts share ta the gorgeous symboli~m of the Catholic Church. 7 / Despi te this, any resemblance çetwee,n Mary and Isis 1.s purely superf·icial. Mary ,is revered for her virglnij;y, for . her denial of the lif'e-gi ving l'orees whieh Isis represertts and pe;'petuatès. Indeed,. this is ind~cative of main differ, enee. betwe.en Christiani ty and' the an~~ent religions, for the-" former is apparently focussed on sterility, as regards the reprod'ûeti ve process of nature, sinee the bir.th of the god oeeurs in the dead season and his deatrr in spring . . The closeS't adherents of Christ, prie'sts and nuns, are not : involved in the celebration of humart life ,whieh'coneerned ~the followers' of Atl:;Ts;~\ Adonis and Osiris 1 but instead remain celibate., " Christ~s restirrection i5 a spiritual rather 'than , a pftysieal rebirth. In f~et. the moyement from Ancient Near Eastern religion to \Christ~ani ty may be, seen as the transition from the physipal ta the spiritual, from'the tang- '0 ible ta the'intangible. Simï.larities do exist~ hcwever, as Frazer points out. \ Christ'iani ty adopted sorne lof the old pagan festivals; 'i . l ' . Christmas being a marked e:~azrPle,. and substi tuted i ts own rites. Easter rites illustrate tbis, too, as'we see in ~ The Golden Baugh,. There w'e learn that in 'sicily at~ Easfer time w.omen sow plants whie,h are later 'p.laced in s~pulchres along ~i th Jmages of t~ dead Ch::ist--just as gardens of the dead Adonis were placed on that god's grave. Frazer calls ; this a '~mere continuation" of the worship' of the god Adonis " , under a different name and goes on, 1

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\fuen we reflect~how the ehureh has SkilfUlly contrived to plant the y\ ,seeds of the new' fai th on the old o. • . ~tock of pa15anisril v,e May surmise \. thât 'the-~Eastér èèlebration ôf :the ~ dead anâ riser1 Christ was 'grafted""- , upon a similar celebration of the - '

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, 'dead and risen Adonis, 'Nhich as we have SEten was celebrated in °Sy'ria 8 at the same season J

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-.lhat, then, is the rela tionship of t'hese myths al).d ri tuaIs 1 ta Christiani ty,? The Attis, Adonis and Osiris cuIts all cele, brated the '[ife,of man, secure in the knowledge that the god would be revi ved ln -.Spring wi th the new year. Osiris, as we have seen, is th~e most eàsily eq~ated wi th Christ: he" was the corn itself, so that they aIl, ~ his broken body. By dqing so, they believed' tha t they would sl).are in nis immort- ..... • r ali ty. The resemblance tO) Christian Communion i8 undeniable. 1 " Frazer tells u~ that it is, very possible that Osiris was originally a monarch who, having undergone an apotheosis, gradually surpassed âll the 6ther dèities. Certainly as two gods who li v~d on earth, Christ and Osiris are similar in the fervour of personal devotion which is gi ven them l "In the faith of the Egyptians the cruel death and blessed resurrect, , ion of qsiris occupied the s~me place as the death and resurrection of Christ hold' in the fai th of the Christians." 9 " Like ,\Christ, Osiris's _death and resutrection were viewed as t'NO aspects of the one acotion: both died that they would rise again. Further, both guaranteed the eternal life of their followers. ~ , Finally, i t may. Ibe interesting to note the place of Christ in the Scapegoat tradition. Christ was the'perfect sacrifice to Gad: he 'epi tomizes tl).e ideal of the clan, a~ Raglan defines the hero, (The Hero, p. 150) • He died tha tour sins would be forgi:ven and the wra th of God averted. Assuring , , , the resurrection of the soul, if not ultimately the bo~y, he is easily inveigled into \the cycle of the earlier dei ties. ~1n Frazer's Gol'den Bough, the point implicitly stressed ls 'thàt Christianity derives from these primitive fertilitYI cuIts whose pivot was the dying and' reviving gode Further to this theme, . .it may be interesting to remark on ·Frazer t s contehtion tha t Ghrist was killed as part of the al1l1ué:!-l festival c6mmemorati.ng Mordecai' s struggle wi th Haman for the crown. The man who played Haman was cruclfied, the one who played Mordecai was setiree.. Christ played HamalJ. .'

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Frazer also states that this festival had its roots in vegetative rite"s. ',lith customary scepticism, ,ho\'fever, he says that this could le~d to Christ's being "reduced ta the level of a multitude of other victims of barbarous superstition--no more than a moral teacher,whnffi the fortunatel accident of executian ~nv~s,ted wi th the crovm of a god." 10 Frazer istrying t-Ç)\ prave that Christianity.s uniqueness is , di~solved in its derivation from the,ancient vegetative' cults/: on the other hand, l'apl certain that an argument could be offered saying that i t is indeed enrichecl' by such roots. Since time immemoTiai,' then, man has experlenced the innate need to explain and cantrol the vastness which ~ur­ rounds him,' and by expia tian' of his sins ta secure his posi tian in the environment. As long 'as man has this need we will have myth, ri tuaI and religion. In The Waste Land, 'therefore, i is Eliot' s contention tha t man ls denying this innate ne~d, causing the decay af his humani ty, his spirit and his environment. 'Ne will see th'e resul ts of this neglect , 1 in a subsequent chapter,'

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2li FOOTNOTES.

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-East 2.

My th and 'Ri tual .in the, Ancient Near Thame s and- Hudson, 19.58), p. )07.

E. O. James,

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(London 1 "

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The Culture of the Teutons, in Raglan, The Hero (Londons Watts, 1949), p. 152. \ Grol1bech,

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My th and Ri tual in the Ancient Neat, _

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E; O. James, East, p. 29I.

4.

James G. Frazer, , The Golden Bough (New Yorka MacMillan, I907 - I915), Volume IV, p. 281. 1

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.5.

James. G. Frazer.

6.

James G. Frazer, Volume IV, p. 320.

1.

The Golden Bough, Volume IV, v • j

'I.2!9. •• Volume IV, p. 286.

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Ibid. , Volume IV, pp. 156 - 7.

9.

Ibid., Volume IV, p. 195.

10.

Ibid. , Volume IX, p. 422.

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22

CHAPTER THREE

ELIOT' S' kPPLICATION OF THE GOLDEN BOUGH IN THE \VASTE LAND.

In his'essay on Ulysses (1923), Eliot says that "Nlyth ~s a way of controliing, of orde~ing, of giving s~ape ana signifi canee ta the immense panorama of futili ty and anarcr{Y which is modern history". Eirst of aIl this exemplifies the world view of Eliot: ch,aos, inneed of ordering. Lacking a mytholOgy and a guiding principle, i t is~merely a juxtaposition of disparate elements, making the SUffi the lifeles~, cr.eedless desert of the Waste Land. My th ~s man's attempt to gain sorne control of this seemingly chao tic vastness which encompasses him. Like poetry, myth. is symbolic and metaphorical: one way of envisioning and comprehendiflg the universe. And sa Eliot imposes order, through myth, on the disorder o~ his age, offering it ,as a possible escape from , the dissolution jof the~'laste Land. In The Waste Land, 'Eliot employs a mythological frame, , work, based on the Attis, Adonis and Osiris rites, to illustrate the land's desiccation. By sa doing, he indicates that modern man has lost the desire for rebirth, ei ther the personal regenerat.ion of the spirit., or the revi tali~ati?n of the' land which mirrors i t. For this reason, "April is the cruellest month", assailing the death-in-life wi th refreshing'spring raine From the stirred land cornes the lilac, but i ts colour serves only as a reminder of the, dead vegetation g~'d. For as Frazer points out, any purple f'lower is a symbol " of' the god,\sp~inging up as it does from his spill~d blood. l Attists return from the dead was heralded by the appearance of lilac-coloured 'blossoms àt the very beginning of spring. Indeed, in this context, ~here are references in the poem to "lilacs", "hyacinths" and violets (a ~epea ted colour d~scription of the air). Hyacinths are of special importance sinee. Hyacinth, the prema turely slain friend of Apollo, was (, mourned . by the dei ty and so vegetation growth ceased. By \ . extension, the rêPlinder of the vegetat-ion god is a1'so a \ r'eminder of Christ, the man-god who was born of a huinan mother in the dead season of winter, and was crucifi~d in 1

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the season of birth, spring. And so, ,Christ reverses the ' cycle of the fertili ty dei ti~s who were reborn wi th the sowing of the corn. Yet, Christ is still ta rise in this first section of the poem; not to the comfort of. the inhabi tants of the \"laste Land, and. whe-"l he do es rise" he is not recognized--IPt!ho is the third who w,?tlks always beside yeu,?" (~'las te Land 1 ,1. J 59) • As.pr?of that Elio~ associated the fertility god with Christ we 1 need look no ~arther than the notes to The Waste Land, and it is my contention that, with an emphasis different from Frazer's scepticism, Eliot attempts ta affirm 'the valùe of Christianity by the "ap~licatiàn of th"ese myths. Reacting to the unfavourable criticism of his equation of Christ and tl?-e vegetation jSods in ,The 'Golden Bough, Frazer remarked that· he'\r-'~ntedJto "point out explicitly t~at m:y theory assumes the historrcal reali ty of Jesus of Nazareth as a grea t re].igious and tnora~ teacher who founded Christiani ty and was crucifiep at Jerusalem under Ponti us Pil~te.,,2 This explanation in, no way alters the charges of scepticism brought against Frazer by his fellow anthropologists, who , called him the tlarch-athèist" whose prime aim was 'to "dis-credit revealed religion". By Frazer's own admission, then, the reallty, n~t th~ divinity, of Christ,is his main conçern. To substantiate my contention..:that Eliot uses the sarne al rnyths not to dissolve Christiani ty' s uniqueness, but to 'assert its ultimate validity, l will refer to his ~ery exact note on the Tarot Oards, for there he gives an indirect " stat,ement of his ~thoughts on religion at that time: ,

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The Hanged Man, a .member of' the tradi tionâl pack fits my purpose in two, ways: because he is associa ted in my mind wi th the Hanged 'Gad of' Frazer, and be'cause l associate him with. t~e.hooded figure in the passage 'of J the Disciples,to Emma~s in Part v. There ls a certain reverence here in Eliot' s veiled allusion to Christ as the It~ooded figure", f."..çr an a theist or a devout ) . bel~ever would .have no qualms about ment~on1ng, the name of Jesus Christ. Eliot"s reticence, on the other hand, would

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seern ta Jug~est an uncertainty, a fear of cornrnitmerit charact, eristic of the prospective convert to Christianity. Eliot 1 was paptized into the Anglican Church in 1927. The connec~ions he made be~ween the Hanged God' and Christ are referred to in a: personal way by the poet: the phrase "is associated in rny mind 'Ni th the Hanged Gad ", is - in contrast wi th, the' more matter-of-fact tone of "The man 'Ni th three stavês l associa te qui te arbi trarily wi th the Fisl:ler King hirnself." By contrast, this randorn assocation's irnpersonality highlights the personal nature of the'preceding note. Implicit in these notes, t~en, is the reverence of~a man who is only beginning te ~precia te the value of Chri stiani ty, both for himself and for contempo!r'ary society, which has -~ forgotten i ts god. Nor i8 Christ' s :Position ,weakened-,:by this connection 'with the fertility religions, but its history , , .1 and universali ty is enriched. It is strengthened by i t. ' In selecting the symbols and in thei~ application in the poem t E1io~t, has crea ted an ambi va,lence. In thi s way The ~laste/. tand is permeated with a doubt-filled ins~cutity whicii the, ~ncie~t c~ltures, as evidencèd in The Golden Bough, banished with their mYthology. Through-myth and ritual 'they felt that they could eradica te the unfamiliar and the 1.msettling. The dead god who can rectif'y this si tua tion for the Waste Land is Jesus 'Christ, as is une~uivocally stated in,the notes ta the , , 'poem, but the people are afraid of the results of his c~ci­ fixion and also of his resurrection which, i f i t cornes for th~, will rouse them from their,comfrtable and accustomed torpor. In this respect they are in sharp contrast with the adherents 'of the ancient fertil'i ty cuIts whose certainty of the resurrection of the, god made them eager for spring. The modern inhabitants of the dead land are like the citizens of Canterbury -in Eliot's Murder in 'the Ckthedral (I935) who say repea iledly ,..

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Fertilityand fecundity were the main concerns of the ancient religions of Attis, Adonis and Osiris. . The pre6ed, ing examination of the roles of the male and female dei ties ,illustrated that the goddess was the constant source of perpe'tual, vi tali ty, while the -potency of the god vias cyclic. But this fertili ty. and fecundi ty i8 missing in the, women of Eliot' s ',laste Land, in ,the rich neurotie, the 'Noman in the pub who has had an abortion, and in the typist "home at teatime" • They aU prosti tute thé life forces. In, fact, ,as T. R. Rees--The Technique 'of T. S. Eliot (The H~gue, Mouton, 1:974), p. 226--comments; by,"\"lhat the Thunder Said" it is the masculine ethic which predomina tes , 'embodied in the voiee of the speaker, allusions to Christ, the Apostles and the Questing Knight. Di'ssocia ted from love and sex, the • feminine theme in .:the fifth part of the poem is manifestèd in sinister t'qrms:' "A woman dr~w hf3,r long black hair out t~ght (And t'iddted whisper music oln t;hose strings."(1.377-78), and in. the wailing women mourning Christ's q,eath on the cross" "murmur of maternaI lamentation" (1. 367). The latter ls reminiscent ot' the mourning fo~ Attis, Adonis and Osiris, where the women bea t their breasts in an orgy of grief and '" wept' the cessJtion of the divine reproductive powers. l ' It i8 remar~ably significant that Eliot should compare the woman in "A Game of Chess" wi th Cleopatra. who epïtomizes richness anâ fertili ty. The women throùghou.,t the poem are ~ in , fact, uniformly remar~able for their lifelessness and their thwarting of the forces of vitality: the richneurotic bereft of aIl life, a couple who abuses the regenerative process~8 :. . .... . by indiscriminaie breeding and abortiop. But in th~ midst of' aIl ,stands Philomel, raped but st~ll ~aintainin~ the' intrinsa.c' beauty ot' ~nnocence.. In ''''The Fire Sermon" the \ ' reader fs ,conf'ronted by Pfos~i tution and the -~pist' SI nau~ea ting nOl;lchal~nce. Prosti tuti on in The Waste Land i s".,., in distinct èontrast wi th the sacréd prosti tutes in the . temples of the Ancient Near Ea.stern dei ties, which was ye1' another indièa tion of the fertili ty and richness ~9f ,their 1religion. 1

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Thê cereal cuIts had the symbolism of the cornIl Os.iriS 1 was the corn which was harvested in autumn, was resown in spring. 'and rose again in' the warm sun. Christiani ty, too, allows symboli-sm for Qhristl the cross, the fish, the Good ... .. f \ S,hepherd, and the yine. Choos~nr none of these. accepted symbols in The ~'laste Land, Eliot portrays Christ in nonChristian symbolism, instead of the specificaUYI Christian imag~ry, for example, of Journey of the Illagi, which was written after his conversion to Anglicanism. In this way, Eliot may be said' to show the validi ty of aIl mythology, and indeed he validates - Christiani ty by stressing -i ts links '. with pag~n,fertility myths, proving tha\it satisfies a need man has exp~rierrced since the beginning of, time. ~ Frazer used the. sarne myth~ qui te differently in The Golden Bough tÇl undermine Christiani"t;y by stressing .i ts 'origins in' the fertili ty cul ts • In Frazer and The Golden Bough (L"ondon: Gollancz, I970), 1 p. 2I, R. A. Downie quotes the reaction of other'anthropologists to Frazer's theories. E. E.,Evm~-Pr~tchard,maintained that th~ purpose of The Golden Bough\was to\ "discredi t revealed religion~', while I. C. Jarvie speaks of Frazer him1 • ",self as the "a~ch-athelst"" Also quoted is Andrew Lang, a Scottiflh anthropologist of the old school, whose book Magic • and Religion (I90I) was a prolonged attack,of Frazer's equation of Christ and--thV~~ tion dei ties:

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The new, scheol of mythology does work vegetable element in mythology hard; near,ly as 'the solar element used to be worked . • • the vegetable school, the' Covent Gardèn school, of' mythologists mixes up real human beings wi th vegetation. Jesus Christ derives his divin~ i ty, or sorne of i t, from a long array of criminals who were hanged partly as gods of vegetation.

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Evidently, then, contempor:~ry scholars of religion and anthropology. were troubled ,by the sceptical i~plications for Christiani ty Inherent in Frazer's wQrks. Contrarily, Eliot turns Frazer' s purpose against i tself to assert tht ','

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,strength of Christiani ty by the validation of every myth1 ology, .. In The 'Naste Land refernces to these ancient ri tuaIs and tpeir "re-enactment" in contemporary society abound. They are, however, demeaned and belittled in the modern enactmBnt, not parodied, as cri tics have often said, for the element of' ridicule "in parody makes this an insufficient 1 and misleading exp~ana·tion. There are enough instances of genuine religious awe in the poem to prove tha t Eliot would . in no way ridicule the beliefs of the ancient p,eoples. 1 The reference to the "red .rock" of Isaiah is a prime example\ of' this: 1

\ \ Only Ther~ is shadow tinde.c this' red rock, (Corne in under the shadow of this red rock), And l will show you somethirig different from ei ther Your shadow at morning striding behind you Or your shadow at evening ri~ing to meet you; l will show you fear in a handful of' dust. /!J"-

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The red ,rock is a true shel ter from the unrelenting dryness and desiccation of the Waste Land, a sign of the truth of life- which is death, "fear in a handful of dust". In' Isaiah the rock is, analogo'us wi th the blessings of the kingdom of' Christ: "A man shaH be as 'a hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rïvers of wa ter i~. ~ drt place, as, the shadow of a grea t rock in a weary land." (Isaiah xxxii, 2) , , / Just as the red rock is outstanding as' a sign ,of Christ· s blessings in this dead land, so the Church of ,Magnus l'tlartyr ri~es wi th ineffable and awesome beauty from the morass of sexual corruption in "The Fire sermon"} Amidst the sordid scenes of.Mrs. Porter and Sweeney, Phi~omel, Mr. Eugenides 'and the typist, the "pleasant whining of the mandoline" and . ' . tht "clatter and chatter" of',the fishmen of Billingsgate Market consti tutie an ~asis of hop~ fo,r those who r9cognize that it ïs' a sign of Christ's presence in the world: "the walls / Of' rl1~g1fus Martyr hold 1 Inexp~icabl~ splendour 'of " Ionian white and '·gold." (1. 263 - 65). 1

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There is religious awe, too, in 'the scene ih the 'Hyacinth Garden, in "Nhich the speaker 'experiences something approach"- ing, ~terni ty\ "I was nei ther' / Living, or dead, 'and l knew nothing, / Looking into the' hear,t of light, the silence." (1. 39 - 4I). This as an object exarnple oi' the' epiphanic vision, as defined by Northrop Fry~, who tells us that the point of epiphany "may be pre sented in erotic terms as a place of sexual fulfilment, where there is no apocalyptic vision but simply the sense of arr:i:ving at the summi t of experience in nature." 4 But the ap?calyptic aspect of the Hyacinth Garden is also evid'i:mt in the revelation of eterni ty to the speaker. T1)e most ~xplici t reference to Christiani tyl in the poem i in "What the Thunder Said" wh€re there is a full description of' Christ's Passion beginning wi th the Agony in the Garde~of Ge'thsemane. ~

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After the torchlight red on sweâty faces After lIthe frosty si'lence in, the gardens After the agony in stony places The shouting and the crying Prison and palace and reverbera tion Of thunder of sprfng over di stant mountains He who was living is now dead Vie who were living are 'now dying ;ii th a li ttle patience .

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The sequence of events from Holy Thursday to the Resurrection ;'ecoÙnted; the, PassJ.~n of' Christ scourged, in the jmarket _ plac.~-- ... the agany in' stony places"; the "shouting" for Barabas to be freed' instead pf Christ; the "crying" of the women of Jerusalem and the "Palace" of Pontius Pila te whose prisoner Christ was. Pilate, who was torn between the knowledge of' Christ' s innocence and the fear of- retTibution if he did hot have him crùcifi~d. The thunder i8 not only anticip'': atory of' that W'hicho will bring relie:t.-.to the Waste Land, but\'

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ia al,so equivalept ~o the darkness Iwhich accompanied Christ's death 01'\ the cross, and which is mentioned in the Gospels of Matthew and 1.1ark. 1

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29 And so, the o11e "who 'lias living and is now dead" is not ,.only the vegetation god v:hose death \Vas seen as the caUse oÏ the' "waste land" aï autu.r.nn and winter by the1ancient civilizations, but he i5 also Cl;trist whase death and resurrection redeemed man from the v/aste land of permanent expulsion from the Garden oÏ Eden. At this point" Christ i3 p,ead but is not yet risen', and the population oÏ', the ;'{aste Land, unaware aï resurréction as"a divine promise, hope for death as a release ,nat ri ver ih society: now i t i8 no' more than a refuse ,disposaI syste~, us~lly conta~ning "empty b.ott1es, sandwich paper~,/ Silk handkerchiefs, card,board boxes, \ ; cigarette ends,/ Or other testimony Gf summer riigh ts", (1"17'779). -,li th grea t splendour and richness Eliot de~cri bes --> Elizabethand Leicester's boating party on the Thames: 0

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eXPt-ai-ns that it was a festival of love~\s. The -bonfires burhé~{ in an atmosphere of pm-ification ànd,- of bapt~sm. Real love ah61 rebirth, bàptism into new life f are therefore 1inked.~ In The Literary Impact of ~e Golden Bdugh, John 'B. Vickery! remarks on the colloçation of fire and water in this ,,

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ceremony, and"notes the ,similarity between thisland the structure'" oi 'l'he- Waste Land. 8 In the poem the boating party is followed by thé ~ires of Buddha and Saint Augustine, the fires of purgation'and purification, and by the resurgenee of water in Phlebas' s "Dtèath by dater". Fro~ be~ng a seat of the deities, a place of worship in the fe~tility cuIts, the agent of rebirth in the celebration of baptism, and contri butory to th~ honour paid ta 'married ,/ "love in Spenser' S Pro thalami on, the ri ver i s now the laca ti on of urba:n prostitut,;ion,', Even the"river deities themselves, the Phine / Thames r.~aidens, are not exempt from viola tian: , aIl are robbed o:e. their virgini ty'. "By Richmond l raised my knees / Supine on the floor, of a narrow canoe", and "After , 1 the event -" • . • He promised a new start". AlI these lamE,mts are pUnctuated by the dirge wNeialala leia / 'jvallalâ leialala", (10 290ff) • But we have to look outside The Wascte >J, ~ ta Four Quartets for Eliot's consummate statement on the river, for "The Dry Salvages" is the poet's articulatièn of the domin~nce of Water: 1 \

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l do rtot know muoh about gods; but l think that the river

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Patient te' sorne degree, at first recognized as a frontier; Useful t untrustworthy, as a, convey'or of commerce; Then only a problem confrontirig the builder of bridges. The problem once solved, the brown god i8 almo8t forgotten By the dwellers in cities--~~er, however, implacable, , Keeping his seasons and .. rages, destroyer, reminder 'Of'what men choose te 'forget. Unhonoured, 'unpropi tiated By worshippers of the machine, but waiting, watching a~d wai ting. -' , His rhythm was present in the, nursery bedroom, In the1rank ailanthus of the April dooryard, In th~ smell of'grapes on the autumn table, And the evening circla in the winter gaslight. The river is within us, the sea is all:about ~s. (Dry Salvages, 1. l - 15) 1

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only has the~ontent of these myths undergone a , , change in Eliot' s poem, sa tha t h bùrial of the dead vegetation god, ~th'e role of the ver, of ,the seer, and of the ' . , sex act i tself are aIl metamorphosed in The 'fiaste Land ta become meaningless but even the very shape and fO,rm of myth ls al tered. As Lord Raglan said, evyry myth h'as i ts , ,hero, the • perfect personi,ftca tion of the tri be. In The Hero • 1 (London: ifatts, I949), p.- 146, he goes on ta make this point: ~ot

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find tha t the hero . • • cannot injure the monster wi thout the magic weapons; and that no-one else but the hero can use thè magic weapons to injure the monster. Against the hero wi th the magic weapons the mônster is powerless: he falls at the'first blow. That is beçause thé hero is a,ritual personage, using ri,tual weapons ta deli ver a ri tuaI blow.

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But in the poem this struggle is internalized: the monster i8 not an exter~l one, nor is the enemy a visible one. In this way, the "monster" becomes lack of fai th, and the "magic weapons" become religion itselfM-or at leaêt sorne , system of belief. And so, who is the, hero ,of The '.faste Land? ifuo has the necessary faith ta counteract the torpor of the life forces? There seems ta be no-one who ful{ils the description of I~the perf~ct per~nification of the tri be" 1 not the questing knight of'the Grail Leg~dr' for n~ither / , Gawain nor Perceval gains c~mplet~ succes& in redeeming the land of' "tdgre~ from i ta curse of death. Not the Fishèr King, for it is his wound which is the cause of the land's desiccation, and not until he is healed can the Waste Land b,e restored ta Iverdure. At the end of the poem, however, there" is surficient evidence that the Fish~r King has aChleved ' sorne kind ot: restorative act, for he i~ encountered "upon the shore /, F~ing, wi th the arid plain .behind me / Shall l at l~ast set my ~wn lands, in arder?" (1. 424 - 6). ~re there is the irnplicati,on of salvation for ~he king, and if _ he is saved/it cannat be long until the land follows, for that ia the nature of the rnyth, that the land la dependent ~

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\\ on the well-being of the k~ng or dei ty. Egypt was wholly , ~ dependent on the rising of the Nile--Osiris-,-and the land of Logres v-Iould net be restored until the Knight> asked the crucial questions about the Grail, thut;: curing the wounded Fisher King. In the ~:a-1lte Land 1 however, , there is no subsuming myth. ology, -no mea-ningful mosaic can be made from the "heap of broken images". By losing their. religÎ'ous 'Consciousness, the inhabitants of the land have destrbyed the cohesiveness and order of their society, and -so have.lost: their mVn). will ~o {ive. Not only their lan~, but also their spirits are l , desiccated, lowering the status of man from that a little belew . the angels, . ta "the lowest of the dead" (1. 245). Only 'Nhen they heed the voiee of the thunder, and escape fr~m their self-imposed and self-engrossed prisons, encapsulat.ed in the lines "And) each man fixed his eyes before his feet", will the whee~ turn again toward new life. Fraze~ neatly delinea tes the sam-e narrow-mindedness in The Golden Bough: /

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lt1 This deepenin5 sense of religion, this more perfect submission ta the divi2e ~will in aIl things affects only tl}o e of higher intelligence who have bre dth of view enough to comprehend the vastness of the uni verse and the l i ttleness of man • .tSmall minds c~~ot grasp great ideas, to their narraw èompr!èension and to' their purblind vis:lon no~;dng seems really great ,and important but themselves. Such minds rarely rise to religion at all. 9 1

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This encapsula toes the malaise of the 'Ilaste Land; a selfcentred society which has forgotten the quest for life inherent in the àhcient myths of rebirth and later in the Grail Legemds. . Modern man.1has lost sight of the motivating can....". 1 cerns of. his ancestors, ~s Jessie L. ',veston de seri bes them c lia determined. effort to attain on the lpwer plane to a detini te personal knowledge of' the secret of life." Hl

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, poem" too. Fire in the poem is b9th the fire of sterile lust, and -the cleansing flames of Purgatory. This sterile intercourse is, as we have seen, the càus,e and the symptom of the ;'faste Land~s malaise. It'is th~ prostitution of the ancient,life forces, but yet is repeated like sorne ritual observance in the modern world, as Eliot sees i t. _ In this way, the "Fire' , . Sermon", ,preached by Budàha ag~inst the pres of all-consuming lust, becornes in Saint~Augustine the pleansing fire of Purgatory and sa e,xpiation for sin: "Ta Carth~ge then.I l.came, burning (1: ]07). Indeed, i t is in "The Pire Sermon", parti three of Th§, Waste Land, that this soulless sexual liaison i8 most clearly delinea~ed, ta -thé extent that prosti tuti'on, ra,pe arn:t" sexual indifference are aIl mrrged into one _travesty ot' the life-gi ving power1s. :Na;.ter is also crucial in the poem. Death by water, as illustrated by Phlebas, . .is the only hcpe for redernption in modern society. Death by water also encompasses the "sea-change" of The Tempest-"Those ~re pearl's that were his eyes" (1. 124J.--a metamorphosis of death into life, and includes by Christian-extension baptism int'o new life. Finally" allusions- to sexual intercourse permeate the poem. But in The Waste Lan d "the mystery of lQve and regen- eration ha.s been smothered by prurient lust. A complete metanoia i8 Il necessary in the sphere' of personal rela-tionships:a retreat from the purely' selfish attitude which modern wan exemplifies throughout the' poem. Giving, sympat~y and control, a furrender o:f self resul ting from -the catharsis l o:f'fire and water, will facilitate the regeneration which the f Waste Land craves. "

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Ëliot, then, has used the myth 9 he found in Frazer's Golden Bou?h to validate my'tho).ogy and religious belief; he has done so by contrasting the richne'ss and securi ty of the 'past civi11zations wi th the contempotary scorning of religion and respect for life. The result of this contempt for love and ~ife has resul ted in the deadeh'ing of the land and 1.. ts inhabi tants. Lillian Peder n~tlY summarize's' the l influence ad The Golden Bough ,'s conten on Eliot:

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It was The Golden Bough that directly, 1 or through intermediate so~ces, suggested the possib~lity'bf transforming ancient and primitive rites into a poetic language which coulrj express contemporarYIZ feelings and attitudes. Not only d'oes Eliot use the conte,nt of The Golden Bough in his poem" but the style and form of Frazer' s work had a grea t influence on the shape of The l-/aste Land. As a springboard and as a title for his work, Frazer took the Golden Bough, a mistletoe blossom in the'gro~e of Diana at Nemi, the ough which all.owed Aeneas and the prophetess Sybil to visi t t e Underworld to see again hi"? father Anchises. There he ilS Y'eborn, his goaJ,~ re-established, aid his quest articulated. But he forest..!Tf N'emi and the ri tua:L combat of th~ priest of Di na, although of seminal importa~~e in the book, play only a small part in the actual work, being merely a point°'..-of depariture, an example 1 of !Ile ~eneral thern"e: Àt the end of the work, by returning ta the sacred grove, Frazer's cyclical 'structure . rrors the shape of' the year, and so i ts forro: echoes its ject mattèr. , " way, Eliot uses the myth of the Grail as one method of pere ving the modern world, and so makes the "\'laste Land" his t~tle. Direct reference tb ,the Grail Legends is as sc~rce in the tex of %he Waste Land as mention of' the ) Golden Boug~ in Fr. er's book~ but in) bath cases the allusion is valide Each auth r, byrepeating the gener~l themes , , Qffipliiies the crucial of the work. 'Relying on cross-refer~ similari ty betw~en seemence), Frazer can in various areas, and ingly dis~ociated l

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can compare themall with the central myth of the Golden Iaough at Ne:ni. So Eliot, wi th his "heap cf' broken images" 1(1. 23) and "fragments shored against ,my ruins'" (1. 4JP), c~n allude ta a series of' incidents in the nistory of man and show tha t the human condition i8 permanently' similar. By" this method he can "ù.nderJcore the contemporanei ty of ,aIl time".I3 Like Frazer', Eliot'~ comparative method affdrds the ,11' r formulation and \mification of seemingly disparate scenes 1 an àmygdaloid f'ormèd from th~ fus,ion° of Cleopa tra, a. neurotic; a London ~ub, ancient Egypt~ modren urban society; the Thames, the Nile; Tiresias, Attis, Adonis, Osiris, Phlebas and r.Ir. Eugenides; Sybil and Madame rSosostris. Fused under the , 1 pressure of Eliot' s mental lSreakcIown, each of these apparently unconnected scenes amplifies the other, and a whole is formed by the relation of each to the central theme of' rhe -..laste Land: the qllest {or rebirth in a deadened land. This method, together ','li th Eliot' s assumption of personae, the Fisher King, Tiresias, and Ferdinand Prince of Naples, consti tutes an o'blique presentation of his world view. The poet shows that in experiencing the w,v'aste Land", modern man is enduring what his ancestors have known since ,time immemorial. Theirs, however, was a physical landscape: modern man' s is internal--spiri tuai Ideprivation. ,~he ancieht people had a system of belief which allo~ed for the rectification ,yf their land "s seasonal aridi ty and frui tlessness, and this is -recounted in The Gold~n Bouth. In EI~ot' s ',raste, Land,·despite the wealth of myth and ritual at their disposaI, the people e~igt in a godless, creedless, self-centred and demoralizing desert.· Ta aIl' in'tents and purposes they are 1 dead, and ~ubconsciously crave the re birth of tl'}.e ancient f'ertility my~hs, a death by water which is' also baptism into new life. Claarly, then, The Golden Bough had a great and profound influence on Eliot, since from it he. derived, with \/eston's From Ritual to Pcmance, the framework for The Waste Land. Northrop Frye's surnmation of the seminal importance of' Frazer's book on :1i tera...ture is--a -fi-ttJ,l?~Iu.sion to this chapterl t

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FOOTNOTES.

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I.

Jessie L~ Weston. The s,uest 'of The Holy Grail (New york: Haskell House,, rpt. 1965), p. I39. .

2.

Northrop Frye, Anatomyof Criticism (Princeto.nJ Princeton University Press,.I97I'), p.' 99.

J.

Jessie L. We, ston, From Ritual to Romance (1920, rpt. New York, Peter Smith, 194I), p. 20.

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Jessiè L. Weston, 1

From Ri tuaI ta Romance, p. 105. 1

D. D. Owen, "From Grail to Holy Grail 'J.; Romania, 89. (1968), pp. JI - 5J •

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-Ibid.

7.

From Ritual to Romance, p. IIJ. i

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Northrop Frye,

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A. "Walton Litz"

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Anatomy of Cri ticism, p. rBB.

Ellot in his Time (Princeton. i Princéton Uni versi ty. Press. 1972), p. JO.

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.54 CHAPTER PUE ELIOT' 8 USE OP THE GRAIL LEGEl'IDS IN THE WAST!

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So how did the land DeCOlle . .ste in.i:tiall.y? In the Elucidation, pre:rlxed to soae versions of the legends. we learn that King Amagons' rape of one ot the Grail Maidens caused the desoiation of Loçes.

The 1and was dead and desert

80 that they lost the voices of the wells l

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And so, rape, the abuse ot sexual potence, essenti,ally a violation of the mysteries 'of lff. whieh the Grail- represents, has devastated the land. This is clearly in The Waste Land by the rape ot Philomel ':d1 splayed· above the mantelpieoe o-r the rich neurotic in -A Game of Chess" 1

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Aboye the antique Ilantel -was displayed--' AS though a window gave upon the sylvan scene 'l'he -change __ of Philomel. by the barbarous king So rudely forced J yet there the nightinga1e l'i11ed all the desert wi th inviolable voiee And still she crie
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The signl1"lcance of the tanse ohange here ~ ,"cried" and "pursues". is und~r1ined by the subsequent sexual encounters in the poem, " where .the -1ndit:t'erence of the 'couple equates the act with rape. The celebration ot this e;vent,,~ 1.1' i t were the innocent cbUP1ing of· Adam and Eve. "aylvan s~ene" 1 intima tes the basic dieruption of values ln the Waste Land. Rape, the cause of the land' s des1cca tian, 18. oontinually l-e-enacted an~ con-l' solidated in the lIodern Waete Land. ao thera seems to be no 1._dla te cure for the Fisher King. 1 What are the physlcal at'tribute. ot E1.10t's Waste Land? l'irst let' us 8xam~e Praler' a scenario of EsYPt betore the inunda tion.,

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Egypt acorched by the sun, b-lasted. by the wind tha t has' blown t'roll tJ\e sahara tor many claye, 'seems a aere continuation ot' the desert. '!'he trees are choked wlth • / " thick ,layer of' grey dust. A few meagre pa tehea ot vegetable a, wa tend wi th dit'.tieul ty, struggle for existence in the immediate neighbourho:od o:t the villages. Some appearance of' verdure lingers beside the canals and in the hollows :trom which the JIloisture has not wholly:" evapora ted. The plaiD. appears t9 pant ln 1:"8 pi ti1.ss sunshine. bare, dusty, ash-colourad. cracked and se. .ed as :tar as the eye can sea w1 th a 2 ne:twork o-r tissures.

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This is very similar ta E1iot' s description ot the decayed , land of' hilJ poem. It is a r.daad mountain mouth o-r carious teeth that cannot spi t" J "a decayed hole in the mountains". ' Barren. de..slccated, i t betokens death. Thare is no relief. ben the mock ri tua1 incanta 'fion provides no remedy 1

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. If there were WB ter And-no rock It there, were rock And 81210 water And water A spring A ~pool amont the rocks • • • (1. ,346 ";'. the fUture.

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Read not·my blemishes.in the world's' r.port.

, ' l have not kept Illy. square. but tha.t to cOlle Shall aIl be done by th· rule. ,\ (II. lil. 4 - 8)

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Once mar~ied to -holy, cold- Octavia, however, he concedes to his overwhe~g des~re for, Cleopatrf' and tor the second tim'! he deserts lfis duty. 'rhls actt..fs also a personal in~ul.t ta Octavia's bl"othar, caesar. It ia pleasure. rather than duty, whiçh/'now cal.ls Antony. -1' w,ill to Egypt, / And thoUgh l malte th!s marriage tor my paace, / l ' th' East MY pleasure i lies·. (II. lli. 40 - 2). 'This underlines the contrast between Rome and Egypt. Derek Travers!.,".in Shyespeàre. :rh! 1 B01!Wl Plays (Lortdon. Hoilis i Carter, 1968), p. 84, sees the,', contrast' between the "sensuous l~ of EiàPt and the seyera prac'ti"cal geniu8 of, Rome" • It ia my belief that Antony- 8 dilHlllUl la causecl. in part, by his att••pt to bring th~s practièall ty t~ be~r on the passion he teels in BBYPt. Such passion ,ls irrationa~. reason 1s incongruous wi th EQpt and 10 he cannat solve hi. dile_a. Utsr his deteat at ActiUII. Antony can find no pleasur', in Egypt, and so distance. ~lt trom Cleopatra &gain. calling 11er a -trlpla-turned whore- in al _1 more bat! tting her detractora. than her lover. On ihe news of her ·"death .. ~~ however, immediatelY aiter'·thl1 'outburst. hè lSi totally dlatraugh-t.

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66 hav1.ng lost C1eopatra, he is deadened.

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l will o'ertake thee, Cleopatra, and Weep for my pardon. So it must be, for riow AJ,l 1ength 1s torture 1 sinee th~ toroh ia out', Lie down and -stray no tarther. Now all labour Mars what it does, yea, very torce·~ëntangles Itse1f with strength. (IV. ~ v •. 44 - 49)

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Antony' is obsessed wl th the concept ot honour and nobili ty, blaming himself' for 'Enobarbus' desertion to the enemy. It i·s as if he f'eels his own abandonment of his duty has intected others. -my~ortunes have corrupted'honest men-, (IV. v. 16). THis ob~ession is with h ti11 h1s death, for the nob111ty he so~ht during hils 111'e tains thro~h death. Suicide' ,is the noble death for the conquered, Antony dies a true ~oman a t the hands ot:a Roman, himself. Indeed, al though he aies -'for the l,?ve ot Claopatra, i t i8 the ~ob1ene8s of that death which engI-OS8itS him at his 1ast breath, showing that the gui 1 t ot his dis1oya1ty to Rome toundl resolution on1y in hono~able / death. The miserable ohange now at my end nor sorrow"at, but please yo'Ur thought,8 In te,eding thelll with those illY former !t'ortunes, Wherein l livedt the greatest 'prince 0' th' world" 'rhe nOblest, and do now-not basely die, Hot cowardly put otf Illy helmet ta ' My ooU1')tryman, a Roman,- by a -Roman Valiantly vanquished. Now IllY' spirit is going •. l can no JIlore. . ~nt

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Despite Ibis initial' resolve to leave Cleopatra, , then, he dies ~or 'her. T~oughout the play he has aifeotions, loyalties anà responsibl11ties which are contradlctory and Which can be , rec~nc:11ed only in death. Was AJ:ltol1l" s cle'terminatlon to , leava EQtpt genuine. or was he. :tr1Ck~nB h!msell'? D~rek Traversi bell ....... that when Antony says -These strong Eo.P~ian ~ettars l Ilus"t break-, he has nd real reaolve to, sacrilice 1

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his love to his p~blic respo~sibilitiès. Roman Plays. p. 85. '!'ravers! says,

In Shakespeare. The

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wlth Antony's etf~rt to free himself trom his captivity, to move away :trom Alexandria and in the direction of ,the public responsibili t1es which aw:ai t him at Rome. - This ettort will be balanced in the la ter part ' ot the play by a compensating reaction. a contrary swing o~ the pendulum which will reve.l Antony's determinatlon as essentially baseles8. 1'alse. 8

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In 1117 opi,u0n. Antony's constant oscillation between Egypt ana Rome i~ ~he mœmd~estation ot his tom conscience, in the SUle--,ay that Hamlet' s vacil~ation is symptomatlc ot his, , wavering resolve; 'rhis nexus between Rome and' EQpt maintains a tension ~n his love attair'wlth Cleopatra. aaking it a ,passion bath barn ot and ~ victim ta its circumstances. As G. Wilson Knight saya, The Imperial Theme, p. 20I. -The love~ vision rises tram this magni:f'icent dream 01' imperial Roman splendour.· This contlict _y be internal~zed sa that 4ntony' 8: war ia not only wi th Roae but i8 als~ the struggle between Boldier and lover. Mar~1an. as an eunuch, is hot inveigled in the workings o~ ei ther war 'or love and 80 J.s capable ot objeotive observation. He realizes th...nature.:at,·the ,conflict and saya, ·Yet Î have tierce at:f'e~tion. and think / what Venus did with Mars·, (1. -'v. 11 •. 18). Because Antony is t0rt:l beween the no poles. h~ i~ the inev~table victim, no matter wbat the outcome. ot the atrugg+e. The two el.enta are tused only once" in the play, when ,Cleopatra buckles on his soldier's araour, and trOll -the araour.r?o~ hia-heart- becomes his squire. He in tur.n be.tows a ·soldier·s kiss- on her. In this lnstance, lt la , ai it hi~ role as a so1dier is sanctioned b.1 bis love tor Cleopatra. As he leava. Cleopatra to go ,to Rcae in the ear1y part ot the play, he utter. a phrase whlch shows that they are in separable and that his ra le as a verrior i8 dependent . \ on his'love. tor the Bgyptian que.n • l

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Our separation sa abides and ~lies That thou re'aiding here goea J'et w1 th me. And 1 henc~ tleeting here reaaih with thee~ Any: , ( 1. 1 v. 102 - .5)

Derek Travers!, The Roman PlaYs~ p. 98, outlines the struggXe ln th1s way,"Antony can only survive as _a warrior by treeing , \ " himself rrom the bonds of, loves but 80 to t~ee hiaself would r be to do violence not only to Cleopatra • • • but to his own being. .That ls why -h-agedY 'is 'already aSsU;red." , This contllet, theretore, so1dier warring with lqver, motlvates and enl1~en8 Antony. i.t ia his guidlng' force. Wi thout Cleopatra he would be no warrior. It is an uniquely strong love, then, thât so engults and , engrosses the Roman hero, a love described in the ~lay in terme ot_ boundlessness and complete disresard tor,public opin1on~, Ahtony aays o~ their relationship, -We stand up peerless·, Cleopatra's vie. ia more extra.e, and tull of supernatural reterenee.

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Etemi ty ftS in lipa and eyea. Bliss in our brows' bent, none our parts 80 poor But was a race ot heaven. (1. 111. JS - 7) 1

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As we kava aeen tram their separation speech, -thou residing herètpuyet with ae", they'are as one. Such a laYe, however, see.s dooaed trom the outset, aa Traversi' sald, and throughout the play love and",death Ue inextricably bound. Enobarbus' speech on sexual ergaam as deAth, for exemple, has a truth tar beyonc1 his Ixpectations. ·Cleopatra ;;_~'. d.ies lnstailtly ••.• l:do think there ls Ilettle ln, death, whlch e~lts so.e, loving set upon her, she,has ,uch celerity in d"ing-, CI. ii .. '141tt. ). Death doe. heco.e Cleopatra, tor i t " be.tow~ on her a, beauty. an~ aore iIlportantly a dlgn1 ty ,. Whlcbt àhe did n~t· se.\1 to pos.ess ln lite.. But .ven de.th co.e .. to her in a .ensual fty . . .king her a woan the end, -The 1Jtrokeot death 1.. a8 a lover's plnch 1 Whlchhur1:s and ls \

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desired R, (V. ii. 295 - 6~. Traversi sees this aB the culmination o~ her sensualit.Y1 -the) exa~tation o~ sensuality through and beyond its element 91 self-contessed indulgence-, while. G. Wilson Knight. in Thij Imperial Tbem•• p.'JO), echoes ~h~s view in seeing Cleo~atra a~ the epi tome ot aensuali ty, the quaên ot love. RCleopatra is aIl womankind, the~eiore all romantic vision, the orisin ft iove, the origin ot lite.And although this description MaY owe more to Knight's poetic~ ~then to Shakespeare's, it e~rtai~ly does"not overs~te the .x~nt of Cl~opatra' s te.1nin~ ty\ as 1 hope to prove later in 1:hls chapter. In' its dignity and poignancy, CleopatraÎs death ~ • • grants final and unquestionable justitication to Antony's sac~ltlce to lov•• 'Por Anto~. too, death ls the consumaate Act ot love, but his suicide ia far-reaching in consequencè since he ia the . third part of the world. being a trilavir o~ the Roman Empire,. l> , In' ~ia own eyes hé dies" w~ th digni ty and nobili tya ln' Cleopatr.' s view he has und~rgone a complete apotheosla.

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His face na in the heav!ns. _and therein stuck A-sun and moon, which kept their course and llghted The li ttle, 'O'. th' earth.

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His legs bestrid the ocean. his reared &rit \ er.stad the worlda' his voiee was propertied As all the tuned spheres, and 'tha~ to friends, But whan he ••ant ta quai1 and shake the orb, -' He was ra ttling as thunder. (V. 1i. 19U.) ~

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This fusion o~ ~ and ibanatol in the,pla~ is readi1y il1ustrated wh.n Cleopatra 1s r.porte~ d~~d.' As Antony call~ on his squire Eros to be present at his deat~. he also supplicat•• er~S' lov~. to sànction his suicide. (

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SaaJ. then, and al1 is dona. Erosl--I~coae, 87 queen.--Erosl--Stly for ••• Wh.ra soula do oouch on flow,ra. '11 band in band, And with o~' aprlght1y port au;e' the ghosts .gaze a D1do and her A_n.as .hall' want troops. ' ) And al1 the haWlt b. ours.-~COlle, Bros. Eros: , (IV. xiv: 49 - ~)

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only the presence ot love will justlfY his death, and only death coJ.tld be the 1'1 ttl~ coftSUIIIIlation ot titélr a:ttections., Pinal and eternal ùnion with Claopatra can be obtainedthrough death, and::. 80 Antony- will accept his tate lovingly. , deslring death as a bridegrooa desires his bride. -But 1 will be / A bridegrooa Ln my.~death. and run into't / ,As to a lover's bed-. (IV. xiv. 99 - 101). Death then lands a tinal anef unquestionable dlgn1ty to th~lr l~ve. ~8t la Antony's ah~e. the' gullt ot his desertion ot duty, 80 that evin'their enam 'ea admi t tha t never waa there, a- pair 80 ramoua. ' \ In conclusion, then, how,do G. Wilson Knight and Derek r Traversi su.œarize the action ot the play? Both see it as a atory ot a love and its environment, a love,whlch ultlmately , l "~scends the ~tural and enters 'the realms ot the~dlvine. Knlght ,'states in The Imperial Theme, 'p. 200. '

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Our view la directed not • • • to the earth alone, but rather to the 1m1versal elements ot earth and water, air and tlre, and music, and beyond the" to the al1tr.anscending visionary humanism which endowa ~ with supematural glory. 'The vision ia .minentl~ a lite-vision and a love-vision.

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Traversl's vie.; though les8 overtly poetic, contains the _ ' same 'emphasis( on the love at't'air' s acquisition 01' digni ty as the play prdgreases. He,-too,' sees it as a tale 6f'an immortal , love, an immortality as much a part o"r the envlronment as or the tervour o"r Az:1tony and Cleop&.tra. This PQint Is made in Shakesp'area The Roman PlaYs, p. 203, t

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!he aotions ot Antony and 'Cleopatra have' lleen built on ~auncy·~JU"th·,.~upon -Ntlus' slbl-, and so upon the impermanence which the nature ot ~ these .elements aplies, but. Just as earth, and al.Î.IIle can be quickened , into lite, brie!ly and elusi velY indeed, but non. the leaa truly~ by the action upon thém or rire and ..ir, ao the'very el'lIlènta ot waste and vanity which nurture thia tragedy have beco_., , by the lt1lll. i if, reaches i ta necesHrJ' conclusion , conati tuent ingredients in the' creation ot an In11ti tutlori o"r IJ1U1lortal1

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the role of AntonY and Cl.oDatra ln ~e-Waste Land. ottering a reading of the play in su~port ot ' MY contention that all the Shakesp.arian allusions in the poem haV4! a direot link ~1 'th the cycle lof reblrth that coneerns Eliot. It should be noted that 1 do not suggest that thls Interpretation of the; p,iay,. or that ot The T!lp.st and M,.let whlc! rollo.. , ls conclusive in ,every cont.ext, b,at certa1nly,,1 th!n the. contines of the poe. i t has validl ty • It ls in the tirst 11nes of Part Two ot Thè W•• te Land. -. Game ot' Chess-, that Cleopatra ia tirst Invoked, -The Chair she sat in. like a b~ished throne, / Glowed'on the , . " marble-, (1. 71 - 78). This 18 a direct reterence to 1 Ena, bar~us' description ot the tirst tl.e Antony met the Egyptl.n 1 que en , sign1:tlcantly on th.e Nlle at Cydnus_

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, The barge ahe sat in, like a burnished throne, Burned on th. wat.r_ the po op WIlS beaten gold, Purpl. the 8&ils~ and sa pertuae4 that Tbe winde .ere lov.sick wi th thell. (II. Il. 197tt) \ Hllhlllhted bere le the union ot wa ter and tire. tor Just as the action ot th. 8W'l on Ifilua' sll.e produc.s Ut., '.0 _." Antony'a vision ot Cleopatra on the river .xclt.d a ~.tlng love • . Pire' ~ water, as have s ••n, are t.portant el•••~ts ,ln %h. W.st. ,Land. too. 'Pire la'both th. ~ir. o~ lust and the pur1t'ying 1'1..~. ot Pul"satory. water la the lnstrull.nt ot d•• th aa w.ll •• bapt1_ whlch 1n1t1at•• n.w 11':t•• ' Iri th. op1n1o~ ot Der.k !ra~ersl, th. pr.c.d1nc\d.scrlptlon ot ClèOpatra la to9 .ttltlclal.. po•••••ing an .l_.n~ ot ·ov.rrlpen••• ·, '·.rt1~iè1.1 opul.nc.-. and a ·cloyinc ••na. o~ 1 . ,

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12 luxury-. He continues, in Shakespeare. ,Tbe Roman Plps, p. IlS. l -Her entire ~rson presents i tselt aa an elabor. tion w;t"o\Îght ~ess by nature than by oonscious arti:tlce Enobarbus dO~8 de scribe her as outdoing a portra! t ot Venus where the pict- . ure owes lD~re to -tancy- than to na~e. It ,this t'rameworle la unnatural, then the artitioe 121 echoed and amp~itied by the beginn'1ng ot -À Game-~:r Chess-:' where the 'oppressive atllosphei-e sti:rles the responses ot the neurottc and her partner. Just· as the, love at Apton)' and Cl.eopatra ia strengthen.d by the adverai ty ot war which Interrupta thetr unreliev8d iuxury, S 0 the' couple in '!'hel Wast. Land lIl~at break' out trom aeir prlsbn. Traversi. p. 116, states that Antony and Cleo~tra aût be ,taken trom thls. :f'ramework o:f artifice, -by' d•• th or disas~er, "

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Antony's death. too, is the sOUTee, of great tertile 1magery. ,. As waS' ,illustrated earlier., he undergoes an apotheosis in) . 1. ' C1.opatr...• a 'eyea, so he has not died but merely en-tered a "rlcher' torm of lIte. Af his death Cleopatra gives a speech 1!ull, ot re:tirences' to, nature. showing the vitalI ty ,of his l11'e 1 ·'Dr ,his bounty. / There waa no winter',in,·t, an autumn· twas, / That- grl. the 'more by reaping.- (V. i1. 86tt) ,Theira ~s a ,trui'tt'ul love, set in \f- universe wh:ich G. Wi1s~n Knight.-p. 232. cal1. -pieturesque arid f~~ttul·, and aubl1JDated - by·theû-'deatha. In The WAlté J'M. however', .it la l,., \ ,1 tbe 1ack oj othis seltles': lov.e, the very 1ôYe typltled by ,1 .' Antony' s ...cr~tlce of his position ln Rome, WIlich has c~u8ed, 1, th. ~t~i.llty the' e~iro~t. And thi. cause il re-tnacted. throuahout the poea. 1jJoth perpetuating th, land' ~ 'deadnesà 1 ' and b.l~ c.onaolldated by 1,t. POl' theae .eUiah relationahips ,they cannat bt , cauaed.the land'. 4.~. but in their turn, ' ~pro"d 'un,.11 the land rep1na iertill ty. .' l}ft Antony'. opinion. too, 'de~ n~. ~~lt'. It la eterna1 reun10n wlth hi. wit. Cleopatra. t.sut. l will be / A br1desrooa' ", , in"Jt7.~dea." and ruÎlinto·t / As ta "&'lov:êr'. :bed-.' '(IV.' nV.99t)., beatlL w1~ i t ~ ~~l.r' ,Ut- in 'thé' ~pl"lon 01' 'the two. . . \ ..: Pbr- C~.~patJ:'a:. the .flp~ i.a Dot polaoDinl het- W~ ratl'aer ahe .\tck~;..lt, n.-.1,. ne" 111'e. lt, 1. . . . . babY ,At her

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In con~lu8ion, in Antony anQ Cleopatra'T. S. Eliot saw the delinea-tl,on or, a. se1:!18s8 ~OVI beulen a ml1i tary hero an9 a goddes8 on earth 1 a Itrui t~ul love ln tertile surroundings. This rel;tionship transcénded .the bounds, ot the merel)' human,

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and beeue. a supernatural love, thrivlng even in th. tace of , l ~~ death. By ref'erring, ta i t in the text ~t Th. !,t$. land, he , establishes an ironie oontrast betw~.n" such rlohness and th. thwàrting ot tM 1it'-'hfi it.s which he conaidered mie.1 ot Ilbdern rela~ionships •. Par trOll transcend1ngl,.tlle huu.n, the liaisona he ci tes barely ri~. above the bestial in a barr.n ' land~' ft., pair,~o 'f_ous, CV. il. 3S9). in Egypt are now the lQwest of th, d.ad, (Waste Land.' 1. 246). #04!;

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THE TEMPEBT AND THE WAS'l'E , LAND. \

The Tape.u has th. most ,Ol;'ViQU8 links wioth Eliot~a lb!. Waste Land,' fior It involves a new start', toX" th. characters 1 an .xp!a t~on ot their past sina and an undertaking by most of theJà to conaolidate their, kJ;l0wle4ge wi th a tuture tre. trOll poil'tical." corruption and power abuse, two seltlsh sins wl\Lch' tatlÏted their past'. ,'At the 'end 01' the play, however, this political. dlsorder,and usurping 01' degree are resolved 'and nature la al.lowed to run her cours~ again. Qu.stions of power" aTe Integral· to the, play, both t~e 'legitimate a~pect of power-authori ty, ,both poli tic.l' and. parental--and the power rè~ a over his slave. , " Traversi and Wilson Knight baye ditt.r1ng vlews ~bout' the play. " In the tonaer'a op,1nion, the central'theme 01' :.rh! Tmest la the inevi t!lbi11~ty 01' 'ra te," and the tact all 8ins . ~re punished. o 'In §hMeaptare'l The Llaat 'Phaae (Calitornla. Stantord unive~sity Preas, I965),' p. 249, he' says that -Ariel brings out \the, full meaning of the play when he ,a~ys, t I and f ~ ...~~ellows are minister~ 01' Fate'.- For hila the ,play 18 a\\, ( \ d.l.ineation ~~ ,-the r~.li:ty ?~ de~tiny". [Wilson Kni.ht, on \ " the other hand,iin' "', 'Shak.speu:ian TemPeat ,(London. Oxford· , \ " 'tJnj,\Peralty Pr.ss, 19)2), p. 263.se,8 1t as the oulmination of· Sh&keapeare'lI art, a play o-L anti theai. a.Qd r'lIolut1on. "

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is Sbake~~are'8 instinctive nativ"gan1us mapped into a univ.ral patt.rn. not n.g~eot1ngt 'J'but ,enCl081118 and tranacen41ns. all his 'p&at th.... ot 108s and restoratlon. t . .p.st and .us~c. 10*s and d~sp.raion in teap.st. revlval 'and r'ltol"ation in the llland ot .w.1c. \ . \..

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Knight'a r.J;lltna fil in aany r~ap.ct. aWlar 1;0 th, 'reading l wl~l propos. ~n Ut. .~oond a.cUon Ws oha{)t.r, in tha t 1t th. Il_enta o'E r.vl val and -T'ataration Wh1ch , , ' are cen~l to· ,.110t· 8 purpo.e in, W'l1e leM,.

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Authority inevltably Involves inequaltly and 8udord1nation~ but 1 t Is' legi timate' pow~hr wht'ch there ~ar~ reasonable . f grounda. s fo's authority over ,Caliban, and ·Arte:l,.·~or example. its just led and' therefore reasonable. Ariel ons \ ' a debt of grati1tude to Prospero, for the old man freed hill from'the spell of the witch. Sycorax. the ~eviou8 lIiatress of the lsl.and and Caliban' s mother. As, a 1'ree spiri t of nature, Ariel's tQrture waa to. be imprlsOfted Inside a tree', and it waa trOll that gaol that Prospero l:iberatad hila. Having fread, the' splri t, Prospero makes hill pay' for his freedom by, becollÛng ~is servant on the Island, and when thé debt is :ruily paid, he wl11 be allowed to return to those elements of air an~ .water'from which he came. '. The relationshlp between mas ter and sarvant here, howevar, . ' ls affectionate, for Prospero ,realizes that he could not main. tain his aovereignty oyer the Island it' i t ~e"re not for Ariel' 15 skill. In spi~e ~f this love f~r\his,caPtiv~. Prospero's awareness of the nead for order pre vents the spIrit's freedom "b~'1'ore his time be out". Ariel remlnds him ot -the' 1'ai th1'ul \ serv~ce he has "gi ven 1 0

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Remember, l have done thee worthy serviqe. Told thee no 11es, made thee no mlataJ;cings, served , 'Wl thout or 'grudge or grumblings. Thou did promise.) To' ba te me -8 full year. . (the Tempest. l. ii. 246-50)

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When the time does COlBe to j'ree' Ariel. PI:~8pero ls reluctant and, call1ng ha "IllY ~inty' Ariei~~~.\ ad1:Îli ta "1 shall mi~s thee" , (V. j . 94).o But on the Island reward-- for tai thtul service and tor repentance i8 always, reèogn1zed. When' i t comes. Ar!al',. iiberation ia total. descri.bed in :thil way-by Reubln A.. Iro•••r • in Pi.ld, 21 Li,ht (.Lo,don~ Oxford Unlverri. Press, .I9SI~", " \

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His. relèa~e is Q'IIbolically expressed in thè t~ song. He ~:rlles into perpetua! 8U11111ler. an1111ke -tq. air, beeo.es merged w~th the ,ellmenis. , , '

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Where the bee sucks, there suck l, In a cowslip t s bell l lie 1 There l couch when owls do cry. Oit the bat' 8 baak I do fly A~ter summer merrily. Merrily, merrily shall l live' now Under the blossom that hangs on the bo~h. (v. 1. 88 - 93) 1

éaliban' S slavery is'more real, more demanding. but like r ' Arlel's'Iit Is 'based not 0l!- force, but pn the greater intellec;t ot 'Prospero. lnitlally,. however. caliban excites our pity for,wa sympathise W1th hlà bellet thatlthe Island 18 his by right 'of bir~h. and has been taken ~om'him by Prospero, who ., used ~e '~on8';ter to acquire I,soverelgnty ot the place. 1

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Wh~n thou cam' st tirst. , l, Thou 8trok'8~ me and'made muah ot me, would'~t.give me W&ter with barries !n't,. • • • • • • • . . '• ~ • And tberi:l ·lowd the. • And.showed thee all the qualities 0' th' Isle, The t.resh springs, brin. Pits, barren plaoe ànd fertIle. eursed bit, l that, dld sol ' 1

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is soon reveal.a tha t the reason tor the change in Cali ban' 8 tre.tllant i8 his attempted rape of Mi~cla, a sIn ot gross ingratitude to Prospero and a perversion 01' J:lattU;"e. His, slav- . et'y Is justi:tiable given the pree.pts ot Prospero' s rul.e, and a. the old ~ sQa, "Th.~.tor. wast thou' , DeseJ;vedJ.y contined fnto thl. rock, who, had • st "Deaé1'Ved laore than prison." (I. Il ~ 360). \ -',' / , ' ,. l ',( l ' 1 ,'lot li. in· tact, to' caliban- 8 ,advantag. that he ha. a reasonabl., "ster aoknow1e4c•• hi\, \ft••ct tor th. se,~' a hel~ in: .aJti.ng'th. tir., 1'.tching the wood. ancl "a.rY~, ~n ottice. ~t t -'Uà". Aa Der.k fraYerai in Sl!ù',pevt,. TJ). - , ,La.t Pha", p. 228. ~!h. kind Q~ lit. that. ~o pero has est" l, 'ab118h ••-.1n. 'hia .re~..t ••••••• in, :tact.", 'th. jll'tlatia.ion;' ot •, - ' l '-: ' .. ,''': ' '-,' " ." 1",

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Here there ia hope of rebirth, ju~t as the adherents of the ancient religions awaited the sprouting of flowers, or some vegetation, :t'rom the buried éffigies and corpses of their gods. ContrarilYt this resurrection ~3 dreaded in The Waste Land. And sa we s-ee' that Ophelia "s role in lhe Waste Land la ~hat of a model. onœ who h.s recognized and acted upon the precepts of nèw life. It ls hez: death which preclpitates Hamlef's revenge of his father's death, waking him trom the inertia by which he was previously characterized, a death-inlife. Indeed, -llke the inhabitants of the Waste Land, Hamlet would probablY pre fer to die but is afraid ta\ commit himself ., ta th~ act of suicide for fear of the consequences of death, . from terror of the unknown and the after-life .• Using this revenge play, then, Eliot isolated the references ta death, by water, prlmar~ associated ~ith Ophelia, , and: sa emphaslzed the need for rebirth in his Waste' Land. , \ Opheria la everything that the women ln the poem are not, innocent,' loving, unaelfish and aware of the ne~d for escape from the desolation which has envel~ped her life sinee her 'father's death and Hamlet's denial of affection. The similarities between Ophelia and Eliot's Hyacinth'Girl are also clear, as are the links with the vegetation rituals implicit in her "flower spéech". It is my belief that Eliot saw in the character of Ophelia, arid the state dt Denmark itself, an equivalence for the decay in the quallty ~ modern life, and for the necessary persona! at'tributes ta cure that malaise. In the Shakespearian heroine's virtue and the beauty of her death by' water, ~e see the pattern which the Inhabitants ot the Waste Land must follow in arder ta be bàptised, into the new life in Christ. 0'

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To conclude the tindings of the last' three chapters, then, , i t ia clear tha t aIl ot th"9 plays studied contain . reference's to the cycle.of reviyal which ls Eliot's prime conoern in The Waste Land. Each of the piays ia relevant to the myths (. of the ~cient Near East o~;lined irt 'the sec~nd chapter o-:t-the ~resent study, and·so theil inèlusion in the poem May be seen as an emphasis of the crucial ~emes of dea th and rebirth and of the de~dening effect of sterile relationships. By alluding to the Shakespeariân plays, Antony and ÇleQ~ patra, Hamlet and The Tempest, T. ~. Eliot firet underlines ,', the efficacy of death ~by water, both in terDts i ts retroepective aspect toward the ancfent fertility rites and its relevance to the ~odern Waste Land. Just as the corpse of' Adonis entrusted ~o a watery grave ensured new life for his follower~; just as the buri'ed Osiris would rise again wi th the Nile and herald fertility for plant and human life in Egypt, so by d~ing on the cross, Christ ensured resurrection for his people. In Eliotts opinion, Christi~nity i6 strengthened by its derivation from the ancient cuIts, and so _will • the Waste Land be strengthened by adherence to the tenets of Christianity, or any religious assertion of the importancë of rebirth into a new life of love and innocence. To consol~ idate the central theme,of his poem, Eliot alludes to three Shakespearian plays which are connected,' as he sees them, with this quest for rebirth. In Antony and Cleopatra thts mO,tif ls apparent in the character of the Egyptian queen. Cleopatra, as queen~ ls Isis on earlh,. the constant symbol of fertility in Egypt. Isis was instrumental in the Nile's rising, for as Osiris' wife she revived him--who was the Nile itself--after, she intervened against Seth who attempted to usurp his brother. This seizure of a brotl1~t,' s position is. B:s we have seen, a - -' factor ln both Hamlet and The Tempest. And so Cleopatra is a constant of fertility and fecundity, the symbol of her land·s fruitfulnesB, ai4 in the play her love for Antony 1s rieh and I1fe-givlng. She met him on the river, and when they die \ 1:1 she says she' will return to the river, and l;Jegin an eternal ,

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uni on wi th him •.' ( In The Tempest'all of the characte~ expérience a new star~, a metanoiaOo precipi ta'ted by the ;ea-change which causes innocence, love and reconciliation to substitute for the pre~ vioua sins and selfishness of the characters. Ophelia, thought' to 'b'E! mad, realize's the healing and regenerati ve powers of water.' The circumstances surrounding her death and the words " she uses are simil~r to the condition of, the Waste Land, has ,been previously e stabl'i shed • In these three'play§ there is a model to which the Waste Land must aspire. Death by water, in pagan ttmes'an' insurancê of life in the next year, becomes in a Christian context the quest for eternal life inr Christ through baptism. It is this aspect of water which Eliotis' modern society craves. Love, too, is total-l-y ali~n=to=theT-seenari-o Elia e depicts! The Waste Land portrays, a country without love, where lust and des ire have supplanted the innocence ànd selflessness of love. Without the regenerative ~le~ents inherent ~n this true affection,, the desiccation w~ll never he alleviated~ The , three Shakespearian plàys he chooses affirm th'e value of selfless love which trans~end,s the bouJid~ 't>f deÇlth., to beco~e eternal. Antony and Cleopatra.have a rich'and fertile love, an all-cbnsuming passion whi9h is their mptivation, for which ·they are ~illing to die, and which mirrors the frui tfulness of 'their environment. By contra,st, the oo.uplings of The Waste Land enrich neither the partners nor the environment. but rather deaden it. Prospet'o in The Tempest warns against the sin of .sexual , intercourse be!ore mar~iage. Unnatural and breeding hatred, it will cause "disdain" and strew their marriage bed with ~weeds" lnstead of flowers. Ferdinand and Miranda heed his , ' J : advice and so enter into a love which reconciles , , the divided. parties, resolves the upheaval of the storm and pr~mises "calm seas and auspicious,gales" for the future. In Hamlet, too, sexual corruption is accredited with cau$ing the "rot" which has in1ected Denmark. Hamlet thinks that the d~cay of the land and the quali ty of hl.s own lire is directly attributable to Gertrude's intercourse with Claudius, whose Immediate _

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following of hts fa ther' s dea th troubled him even befor'e. he , heard'the Ghost's . accusations. Innocent love la personi~ied in Ophelia. Her faithful but unrequited affection for Hamlet serves a's a point of contrast wi th the prostitution and abortJ. ", ion whidh surrounds her presence in The Waste Land. On the ~ther hand, the chaos resulting from sexual corruption, clearly . delineate.d by, Pro,spero and Hamlet, is a precise equiv~:llence for the stat, 'of the modern 'Waste Land. The spiritual renewal achieved by the characters in The Tempest ià prec~sély the change which will redeem the decay 'and waste endemic to modern society. The ~brave new world n is founded on :fôrgive~esa, ~xpiation of sins, and love, aIl of the' quali ties which Eliqt sees as essentia1 for· ~he Waste Land if it is·to revive. ' • The 'plays ,which Eliot chooses to further the central theme, ~of his poem ,are conneeted with the ancient myths of , . the Near . East in their assertion of li~e and fertili ty. , Reeogni'zing this slmilarity, the poet employed them to highlight his ceritra~ purpose in The Waste Lan4, isolating those elements of·each which wère, ,in his opinion, pertine~t to his world view in the poem. Like the other li terary allusions in 'the poem, they serve as an ironie contrast! showing a s,imilar situation of decay, or'spiritual death, In each ~f the plays the chaos is resolved, and 130 they become a model for xhe inhabitants of the modern ,Waste ~nd. ~

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101 CHAPTER NINE (

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. The role of the three component parts of The Waste Land has been considered separatelyt the fertility cuIts of the ancient Near East as described in Frazer' s Golden Bough. the Grall Legends as they are interpreted in Jessie L. Westo~s " From Ritual to Romance (both of these works_Eliot acknowledges . 1 in the notes to his poem)'1 and finally :the three Shakespearian play~ which amplify by association the crucial theme of the poem--rtow established as the need for rebirth achieved through a:ea:th 'by wate'r. The tertili ty religions provided the initial '~oncëpt of the seasonal cycle of th~dying and reviving gode 'The literary ~lieatio.ns of thia myth are illustrated ln the . , Grail Legends of the Middle Ages. 'in whose quest for the restoration of life in a, dead land ~lipt saw the analogue for the predicament of contemporary society. This predicament Is further depicted ln the three Shakespearian plays. Anton~ and Cleopatra. Ha~let, and The Tempèst, where the aneient fertilitY of Egypt and the, beauty of innocent love are highlighted. As " has been established in previous chapters, Eliot ia not parodying the rituals and' beliefs of the ancient eivilizations by vilifieation in ~odern society, rather he la t. wi th the weal th of religious heri tage a t an remaina in a creedless. godless and therefore life~ess world Ironie eontrast is the prime funetion of these literary allusions; This chapter aims ta construct a.. meaningful mossie from the "heap of broken images" and "fragm.e'nts"' of the poem. The componentsQof Eliot's~am~gdaloid have Qeen separated and an~­ lyzed. Now they must 'be replaced to form. a ~hesive unit in ~ their rightfu\ positions~ still possessing)all the attributes of their individual natures, but endowing-the wholè wi th an enriohed and unique identity. ,

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. Speaking these words is Eliot, or Tires~as~-"WhatJTiresias sees ia the substance of the poem", ~otes to The Waste Land-or perhaps the Fisher King. The poem's voices, are no~ a1ways identifieds Eliot does not simp1ify the reader's task by 'j doing "the police in d!.fferent \1'OiO'e5". Taken li terally, these 'lines desoribe the Waste Land its~lf. permanently barren, nothing will grow in i t wi thout belief in the regenerative prooesses. More than the physical 1andscape of Logrea or of Egypt , . before the' f'looding of the Ni1e 1 Elio't' s 1andsoape is also a seene of internal~ spiritual deprivation. The spiritual 1aok preoedes the wasting of the environment just,as the Fisher King's wounding preceded the predicament of logres. And so, life itself in the Waste Land ia "stony rubbish", barren, and without a belief in the afterlife, futile and a burden. Shel ter from this des1cca tion, in the physical sense, Is the red rock of 1sai~hich will indeed afford protection from the pitiless sun. In the-apirijual sense, this,haven is Christ's Kingdom., the Churchs "And a-Diih----sha-lLbe aS,an hiding place from the wind aa the shadow ,of a great rock in a weary land." (1aaïah, xxxii, 2). During the barrenness of the "dead season", the adherents of the Attis, Adonis and Osiris'cults prayed for the return of their god, confident in h~S abili ty ta release the land and renew life., In the Grail Legenda, Logres awaited the arrivaI of the knight who would aslt the vital question about the Grail, Christ.' s Grail, and so restore 'the land'. Modern man, too, shou1d turn to his god for a solution to this archetypal predicament, but he is tao se1fengrossed. This s-Uf-engrossed aspect of mo~ern man, as Eliot sees him, , ls encapsulated in his obsession with his own shadowl ,

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(Come in under the shadow of this red rock), And l will 'show you something ,different from eith~r Your shadow at morning strlding behind you Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you, l will show you fear in a handful ~f dust.

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By en~ing God, man has denied h~S' own nature ,and for ,he ~as created in God's likeness. And so, by ing aIl the time on his own shadow, with his head bent, he ls no lon~er(homo ereptus who should walk uprlght to pralse God, for man i) only "a, li ttle below the, angels"~ Head downward, here, and in "And each man fixed his eyes 'b"efore his feet" , , " 1 (1. 65), man ls contradicting~is own defi~tion.* 1 Besides the distin~tion bf being able to walk wit~his head up, man i~ separated trom the animaIs in that he does not copulate in publi'c, . .?~t in .The ,Waste Land this la not 'a reliable means of differentation. The Fisher King Is sUbjected to the 'sight of'"white bodies naked ~~ the low damp ground" (1.'r94), whiçh serve as a constant remln4er of the sexual corruption which ruined Logres, through Amagons' rape of a Grail Maiden, and of the re-enactment of this sin in the care~ess, loveless couplingsQof modern-man,.as depieted ln the poem. To shake man'from this introverted, seIf±sh and unsympath---- - etic state, fear is Introduced. This is fear "in a handful of dust" , referring to Sybil's longing te die, but also ~ting 1 as a jolt to those who woulq forget the message of Christ's Church. During lent, the period immediately preceding the man-god's death and resurrectlon, the message preached is one of death to the physical.and material so that the spirit May rise.again. "Remember. man, that thou art dust, and linto dust thou shalt retum," From this "stony rùbbish" rises a vision of a garden, a life-asserting visio~ amidst the death and decay,of the pre1

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* An Existentialist might argue that modern man as depicted in The'Waste Land exists berore he has defined himself, and sa exemplifies the cpndition of nausee.

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ceding description of the April landscape. Possessing the same dreamlike beaut,y as the garden of "Burnt Norton", this section of the boem is based on an earlier ~ork by Eliot, La Figlla Qui p1ange. The Hy~einth Ga~den is the seene of . unfulfilled lov~; of the Speaker's inabilit,y to cope with the emotions summoned by'a beautiful girl. 1

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In the face of such beauty. the Speaker is transporte'd. some vision approaching eternity-t

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l was nei ther knew nothing, of light, the silence. (1. 39 - 4I)

This, too, bears a strong resembl ce to the garden in "Burnt Norton". ~here the "heart of light is experienced, (~. 37). The scene in the Hyacinth Garde is of great significan!e in the poem, compressing as i t do s Many "strains of allusion. The Hyacinth Girl herse If is eseribed.in terms of fertilit.Y, "your ~ll and your ha~r t"; and this is a reminder of Hyacin~~, I~l, vegetation god, deit of the vegetation that blooms in the~spring. His dèath la mourned by Apollo, and flowera grow from his spilt bIood--these flowers are, of course, hyacinths. the HYacinth Garden, then, is a seene of potential fertiIit,y, but it-ia unfulfilled. Reminiscent of Ophelia, the Hyacinth Girl portrays the same innocence as the Shakespearlan heroine. Before she died, \ Ophelia hung garlands on a tree, th~n with her arms full of flowers. shetqmbled into the water where her hair and garments spread out on the surface.. Lo,ving Hamlet innocently and to the detriment of her own well-being, Ophelia wept for him in \ his feigned madness, until he killed her father and eaused her

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