Of all the modernist literature, as countless melancholy literature students have realized, T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland is one of the most difficult to piece together. How to crack the password of its influence and multiplied footnotes? Is some part of the poem autobiographical, depicting the poet's mental breakdown and unstable marriage? Why does the first few lines of the poem assert that April, a season full of spring and the beautiful hopes of new life, is "the cruelest month"? Is it really one of the greatest works of language? Or is it just "a rhythmic complaint", as the poet once declared?
Elliott People's Visual Infographic
In April, readers will have the opportunity to rethink these questions and may even find some answers. To mark the 100th birthday of The Wasteland, London hosted a six-day festival with 22 churches packed with responses to Eliot's poem and its later influences. The theme of this festival is "Fragments".
Séan Doran, co-curator of the Shards section, said: "There are a lot of different elements in Wasteland, a lot of different ways of reacting. For me, it was a dream job. ”
If you only want boring textual analysis, the "fragments" section won't meet your expectations—there's no direct interpretation of the poem "Wasteland." Instead, Dolan and his colleague director Liam Browne arranged a gathering for artistic reimagining, many of which were musical, as in poetry, blending the least vulgar pop culture with the most elegant art. One of the events focused on Stravinsky's piano piece of The Rite of Spring, which Eliot had heard a year before its publication and had a profound impact on him. Another track is Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time, written in Nazi prisoner-of-war camps — in the darkest of circumstances, with an unstable conviction. The concert ended with a tribute to Wilton's concert hall star, Marie Lloyd, whom Eliot enthusiastically— perhaps discordantly — hailed her as a "genius," writing her obituary a week before the wasteland was first published.
The festival is divided into five evening events that encourage visitors to drift between the different events. For example, on the way to a sea hut concert or a gospel concert, a new line is taken from the poem of Erland Cooper, an Orkney-born composer. Mezzo-soprano Ruby Philogene also sang songs by Wagner, one of the many artists quoted or mentioned in Eliot's poems.
Mezzo-soprano singer Ruby Philogine sings Wagner in the "Fragments" section Source: The Guardian
"We have some recommended routes," Dolan explains, "but you can stray as far as you can and accept different locations." Or just sit back and listen to Gavin Bryars' Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet for 50 minutes and soak up. ”
Would Elliott approve of this arrangement? Hearing this, Dolan smiled: "I hope he will say that we have built something real on the basis of this poem." We've got it back to where it was. ”
The event begins with Jeanette Winterson's "Secular Sermon" delivered in the ancient nave of Suswick Cathedral, which will explore The Badlands' examination of faith and belief. Elliott was an avid student of a 17th-century missionary like Lancelot Andrewes, who was buried just a few meters from where Winterson spoke. Winterson argues that The Wasteland shows Elliot's efforts to find a form for his Christian faith, which eventually led to his conversion to Anglicanism in 1927—his friend Virginia Woolf felt he wasn't serious on this point, yet he was.
The Wasteland explores some of the deepest issues. "In this unpredictable world, it's a slow point," Winterson said. It encourages you to take a deep breath and take your hand away from the panic button. If you're willing to spend a little more time on it, you'll find that it has a true meditative quality. ”
When she first came into the wilderness as a student, Winterson was listening to Alec Guinness's famous albums from the mid-1970s, which were witty and surprisingly lyrical that refreshed her memories. "Every time, there's going to be something deeper, something unexpected," she thought, "it's like a movie, almost visual." Whenever you think you know where you are, it moves somewhere else. ”
So how does Winterson view Elliot's unquestioned anti-Semitism? "That's true, and I'm not going to make excuses for it," she replied, "but I don't like to cancel culture." ”
The "Fragments" section is scattered among the historic city churches, 15 of which were designed by Christopher Wren. It highlights something in The Badlands that is not often appreciated: it is one of the greatest poems of all time about London. Southwark Cathedral is just a stone's throw away from London Bridge, and London Bridge is the site of one of the more pessimistic meditations on death in this poem ("Under the yellow fog of winter dawn, a crowd of mermaids flowed across London Bridge, so many people that I did not expect death to destroy so many people.") ”）。 As a clerk at Lloyd's Bank, Elliot worked on King William Street north of the bridge; he would walk through the gloomy buildings of St. Mary's Woolnos Church and hear the "dead silence" of each weekday clock as described in the poem.
The Church of St. Mary Urnos mentioned in The Wasteland Source: The Guardian
In later chapters, visitors enter a closing time that sounds like a London pub ("See you, Bill.") See you, Lu. See you, Mei. See you soon. Good bye. Ming'er see, Ming'er sees. One of the most evocative episodes takes the reader east along Strand Avenue to a diving bar on Lower Thames Street, where mandolins are played and "the fishmonger is resting at noon."
Dolan said: "There are many places mentioned in this poem, especially in London. We tried to target it to a specific location. ”
Some of these different sights and sounds will be refracted into a new acoustic work, designed by French sound artist and composer Pierre-Yves Macé, and housed in the church of Sainte-Marie Lepo on Rue Des-Chipsées. It loops, extracting various sounds and characters from the text, creating a world of sound for the most noisy poem.
"Gradually, we had 10 voices, including native Speakers of French, Italian and German," Mace explains, "and then I turned the words into music." ”
Although The Wasteland is considered a cornerstone of English literature, it is much more than that. Mace said: "In my opinion, the poem is entirely European in style. ”
But the participants in the "Fragments" festival are not only Europeans, but the British-Indian pianist Rekesh Chauhan will perform at the festival's closing ceremony. This arrangement was inspired by the last sentence of the poem, "Shantih Shantih Shantih"—a Sanskrit phrase taken from ancient Hindu scriptures that was translated by Eliot as "the peace of conveying understanding"—and Chuhan would use the classic Indian robe to provide a meditation of calm and rest.
Elliot studied Sanskrit and was fascinated by the connections between different belief systems. Chuhan argues that although the poem is full of anxiety and turmoil, it shows a sense of transcendence over life.
Chu Han said: "'Wasteland' is dark, but there are also a lot of things about regeneration, renewal, spring, and I really hope it will come out. ”
Perhaps this is the lesson one has learned from The Wasteland over the past century: Written in the shadow of world wars and devastating global epidemics, it raises the question of whether fragments of the old order can be reunited, or, in order to move on, we need to start all over again.
Somewhat incredibly, Dolan found, is that these themes are back to square one in 2022. "100 years later, we are once again facing COVID-19, world wars, the fragility of life, and even climate change. This poem is very relevant to the current situation. ”
But beyond that, he argues, Wasteland offers a way to navigate a world of tension and uncertainty. "All you need to do is listen to its power and spirituality. Everything was there and waiting. He said.