Out of this stony rubbish: Echoes of Ezekiel in T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land"
by Rapa, Luke J., M.A., GRAND VALLEY STATE UNIVERSITY, 2011, 63 pages; 1490186

Abstract:

This essay explores T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land in light of the poet-prophet connection—a connection which was of particular interest to T.S. Eliot himself. I argue that Eliot was aware of the poet-prophet connection early in his youth and that this awareness influenced and informed The Waste Land. I suggest also that Eliot takes up the themes and images of the biblical prophets, and of Ezekiel in particular, as a means to structure the poem, but more importantly, as one way of "controlling, or ordering, of giving a shape and a significance to the immense panorama of futility and anarchy which is contemporary history" (Eliot, "'Ulysses ,' Order, and Myth," 177). Finally, I propose that Eliot himself, through The Waste Land, stands for readers as a poet-prophet, and thereby offers a way out of the desolation and despair that Eliot found to be so pervasive in the modern world.

 
AdviserBenjamin Lockerd
SchoolGRAND VALLEY STATE UNIVERSITY
SourceMAI/ 49-04, p. , Apr 2011
Source TypeThesis
SubjectsModern literature; Biblical studies; British and Irish literature
Publication Number1490186
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