THE INFLUENCE OF T.S. ELIOT ON POST-WAR LITERATURE

Abstract

1. T.S. Eliot’s influence on literature during the 1930’s is enormous. Born in St. Louis, Missouri (USA) he became a naturalized British resident. Spending   eight years in business began his career as an Editor of ‘Criterion’ in 1923. The present research article is based on his famous poem “The Wasteland.”  Eliot’s use of irregularities of rhyme scheme, vividly contrasting images, skillful use of rhythmic variations and the restrained power of   his style distinguished him as a gifted, original artist. “The Wasteland” Eliot’s prophetic poem has taken a strange, frightening truth in post-war London. It is a poem that describes barbarism of war, the wrecked world, and the poet puts forth a question about the possibility of redemption within the spiritual wasteland of 1922, Europe.  Eliot hopes of holding fragments against ruins and finding roots that clutch by assembling a large number of texts and also brings together opposed religious doctrines. The poem ‘The Wasteland’ made a tremendous impact on the post-war generation, and is considered one of the most important documents of its age.  The poem presents modern London as an arid waste land.  The symbolic use of drought and flood, representing death and rebirth is referred to throughout.  The poem progresses by abrupt transitions through five movements - ‘The Burial of the Dead’, ‘A Game of Chess’, ‘The Fire Sermon’, ‘Death by Water’, ‘What the Thunder said’. The poet’s preferential use of ‘your’, ‘us’ and ‘our’ by suppressing the first-person singular indicates his desire to escape. It is the poet’s belief that in doing so he can efface his individuality and its correlative responsibility.  The main subtext of ‘The   Wasteland’    poses question whether to change the mind or to change the world. The poem moves from personal events, the personal city of the protagonist and his inner world of horrors to the impersonal and visionary, the desert of trial and release.