3 ms·

My sense is that he was trying to understand modern life as a classicist would understand ancient times. Trying to create that heighten state of fragmentary dee

by tmsh 16y ago

My sense is that he was trying to understand modern life as a classicist would understand ancient times. Trying to create that heighten state of fragmentary deep meaning, etc. -- but mapped to the disillusionment he felt in the present. Normally a classicist is involved in the function of: Classicist -> immerses in ancient literature Eliot's 'trick' is that he would attempt higher order functions and map the whole technique to the present: [Classicist -> immerses in ancient literature] -> immerses a Classical understanding of the present, which makes the present seem Classical in importance. Nor is that the only way to go. But I think one of the greatest things that Eliot offers through his poetry is this challenge to become more sharply critical (the same way philologists must rise to the level of their material, after translating, etc.). Hypertextuality helps a lot. But, as I think Tycho sort of hints at here and in other comments, the goal is to engage the whole approach.

Tycho 16y ago
I think you are right. I think the epigraph tells us a lot. It refers to 'the Sybil' a Greek prophetess who wrote Appollo's oracles/prophecies on leaves which then scattered in the wind before followers had a chance to digest their information. If we take these leaves to represent the deeply significant facts/patterns/secrets of a civilization, the classicist has had time to 'gather the leaves' and make sense of it all. In The Waste Land the leaves of modern times are gathered, but no sense has been made, or some are missing. In fact, as the epigraph says, the Sybil 'wants to die.' The process through which deeper meaning/understanding is generated and dispersed cannot sustain itself any longer, because the dispersal, the scattering, is too violent. The epigraph actually being written in ancient Greek with no translation provided is the icing on the cake.

by tmsh 16y ago

Tycho 16y ago

I think you are right. I think the epigraph tells us a lot. It refers to 'the Sybil' a Greek prophetess who wrote Appollo's oracles/prophecies on leaves which then scattered in the wind before followers had a chance to digest their information. If we take these leaves to represent the deeply significant facts/patterns/secrets of a civilization, the classicist has had time to 'gather the leaves' and make sense of it all. In The Waste Land the leaves of modern times are gathered, but no sense has been made, or some are missing. In fact, as the epigraph says, the Sybil 'wants to die.' The process through which deeper meaning/understanding is generated and dispersed cannot sustain itself any longer, because the dispersal, the scattering, is too violent. The epigraph actually being written in ancient Greek with no translation provided is the icing on the cake.