151-530: Women Beware Women is a Jacobean tragedy written by Thomas Middleton , and first published in 1657 . The date of authorship of the play is deeply uncertain. Scholars have estimated its origin anywhere from 1612 to 1627; 1623–24 has been plausibly suggested. The play was entered into the Stationers' Register on 9 September 1653 by the bookseller Humphrey Moseley , along with two other Middleton plays, More Dissemblers Besides Women and No Wit, No Help Like
302-466: A "ridiculous holocaust". With growing critical attention over the years, however, the estimation of Women Beware Women has intensified; the play is now judged to be among Middleton's greatest works. " Women Beware Women displays Middleton's maturest understanding of the relation of power to desire, and of political culture to civil society." The play was never revived in the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries, but productions became relatively common after
453-469: A Woman's . In 1657 Moseley published Women Beware Women together with More Dissemblers in an octavo volume titled Two New Plays . Both the Register entry and the first edition's title page assign Women Beware Women to Middleton—an attribution which has never been seriously questioned and which is accepted by the scholarly consensus. No performances of the play in its own era are known. The octavo text of
604-471: A description of spring as something to be dreaded, with the comforting static nature of winter giving way to the forcible activity of spring. Eliot moves to the more specific location of Central Europe around the period of the First World War , and adopts a prophetic tone describing a sterile desert. Quotations from the operatic love story Tristan und Isolde bookend a memory of the "hyacinth girl", with
755-746: A freelance basis for The Athenaeum and The Times Literary Supplement in 1919, which built his reputation as a respected critic and journalist. While living in London Eliot became acquainted with literary figures, most notably Pound in 1914, who would help publish Eliot's work and edit The Waste Land . Eliot also met Aldous Huxley and Katherine Mansfield , as well as members of the Bloomsbury Group , in London in 1916, although he did not meet Leonard and Virginia Woolf until two years later. Eliot's first collection, Prufrock and Other Observations ,
906-511: A gap in literary tradition, allowing a seemingly fresh start for all forms of literature after the Restoration. During the Interregnum, the royalist forces attached to the court of Charles I went into exile with the twenty-year-old Charles II . The nobility who travelled with Charles II were therefore lodged for over a decade in the midst of the continent's literary scene. John Milton , one of
1057-443: A lament for Western civilization". The Waste Land was also informed by developments in the visual arts. Its style and content reflect the methods of Cubism and Futurism to take apart and reassemble their subjects in different forms, and the interest of Surrealism in the unconscious mind and its influence on culture—similar themes to what interested Eliot about The Golden Bough . Scholar Jacob Korg identifies similarities with
1208-522: A matter-of-fact manner, and appear to be trapped in loveless superficial relationships. The end of the section sees Eliot interleave the words of the barman calling last orders ("Hurry up please its [ sic ] time") and the last words of Ophelia in Hamlet before her suicide by drowning, signifying the inevitability of ageing and death. A reference to Edmund Spenser 's poem Prothalamion , which describes an elegant aristocratic summer wedding by
1359-519: A meaningless routine. This section centres around women and seduction, with the title a reference to the Jacobean play Women Beware Women in which the character Bianca is seduced while her mother-in-law is distracted by a game of chess. Its first scene describes an elaborately decorated room recalling Classical lovers such as Mark Antony and Cleopatra or Dido and Aeneas . The narrative moves to more disturbing references, such as to Philomela who
1510-513: A metaphor for the challenge faced by the committed Christian [...]". Classical antiquity was not forgotten in Anglo-Saxon England, and several Old English poems are adaptations of late classical philosophical texts. The longest is King Alfred 's (849–899) 9th-century translation of Boethius ' Consolation of Philosophy . After the Norman conquest of England in 1066, the written form of
1661-408: A metre). Lines are often fragmented, and verses are generally of unequal length, although there are instances of regularity—for example, the first two verses of "The Fire Sermon" are formed like Petrarchan sonnets . During the editing process, Pound would highlight lines that were "too penty" (i.e. too close to iambic pentameter ), prompting them to be changed to less regular rhythms. Eliot disliked
SECTION 10
#17328517496641812-592: A mixed response, with some critics finding it wilfully obscure while others praised its originality. Subsequent years saw the poem become established as a central work in the modernist canon, and it proved to become one of the most influential works of the century. While at Harvard College Eliot met Emily Hale , the daughter of a minister at Harvard Divinity School , through family friends. He declared his love for her before leaving to live in Europe in 1914, but he did not believe his feelings to be reciprocated. Her influence
1963-457: A negative influence on American literature, writing that it had "set [him] back twenty years". Gilbert Seldes , who first published the poem in the US, and Pound, its editor, both defended it, as did Conrad Aiken , who described it in a 1923 review as "one of the most moving and original poems of our time", although he found the form incoherent. Seldes commissioned a review from Edmund Wilson , which
2114-511: A new and significant poetic technique". Similarly, the structure of the poem, or lack thereof, continued to generate debate, as did interpretations of the themes themselves. I. A. Richards praised Eliot on these points in his 1926 book Principles of Literary Criticism , describing his imagery technique as "a 'music of ideas ' ", and in the 1930s Richards' commentary was taken further by F. R. Leavis , F. O. Matthiessen and Cleanth Brooks , who believed that, despite its apparent disjointedness,
2265-680: A part of the university's annual Microfest Project, with Direction-Adaptation by Emma Kilbey, Musical Direction/Arrangements by Matt Mellor, and Choreography by Wendy White. A new adaptation was performed at the Sam Wanamaker Theatre in London from February to April 2020. Jacobean literature English literature is literature written in the English language from the English-speaking world . The English language has developed over more than 1,400 years. The earliest forms of English,
2416-597: A personal friend of Chaucer, Gower is remembered primarily for three major works: the Mirroir de l'Omme , Vox Clamantis , and Confessio Amantis , three long poems written in Anglo-Norman , Latin and Middle English respectively, which are united by common moral and political themes. Significant religious works were also created in the 14th century, including those of Julian of Norwich (c. 1342 – c. 1416) and Richard Rolle . Julian's Revelations of Divine Love (about 1393)
2567-461: A preference for Jules Laforgue (who was himself a Whitman translator and admirer). Nevertheless, scholars have noted strong similarities in the two poets' use of free verse. The first lines of The Waste Land , which are an inversion of Chaucer's opening to The Canterbury Tales , strongly resemble Whitman's imagery at the beginning of " When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd ": As well as
2718-519: A secular view of the world and a general sense of progress and perfectibility. Led by the philosophers who were inspired by the discoveries of the previous century by people like Isaac Newton and the writings of Descartes , John Locke and Francis Bacon . They sought to discover and to act upon universally valid principles governing humanity, nature, and society. They variously attacked spiritual and scientific authority, dogmatism, intolerance, censorship, and economic and social restraints. They considered
2869-617: A set of Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the fifth century, are called Old English . Beowulf is the most famous work in Old English. Despite being set in Scandinavia , it has achieved national epic status in England. However, following the Norman conquest of England in 1066, the written form of the Anglo-Saxon language became less common. Under
3020-441: A shift towards a more secular base for European theatre. Morality plays are a type of allegory in which the protagonist is met by personifications of various moral attributes who try to prompt him to choose a godly life over one of evil. The plays were most popular in Europe during the 15th and 16th centuries. The Somonyng of Everyman ( The Summoning of Everyman ) (c. 1509–1519), usually referred to simply as Everyman ,
3171-401: A similar success." In the autumn of 1921 Eliot and Vivienne travelled to the coastal resort of Margate . Eliot had been recommended rest following a diagnosis of some form of nervous disorder , and had been granted three months' leave from the bank where he was employed, so the trip was intended as a period of convalescence. Eliot worked on what would become The Waste Land while sitting in
SECTION 20
#17328517496643322-429: A small section of Joseph Conrad 's Heart of Darkness describing the death of the character Kurtz . Pound suggested it be changed as he felt Conrad was not "weighty" enough, although it is unclear if he was referring to the author or the quotation itself. Following the epigraph is a dedication (added in a 1925 republication) that reads "For Ezra Pound: il miglior fabbro " ("the better craftsman"). This dedication
3473-589: A variety of genres, including histories (such as Richard III and Henry IV ), tragedies (such as Hamlet , Othello , and Macbeth ) comedies (such as Midsummer Night's Dream , As You Like It , and Twelfth Night ) and the late romances , or tragicomedies. Shakespeare's career continues in the Jacobean period. Other important figures in Elizabethan theatre include Christopher Marlowe , and Ben Jonson , Thomas Dekker , John Fletcher and Francis Beaumont . In
3624-694: A vast and dissonant range of cultures and literatures. It employs many allusions to the Western canon : Ovid 's Metamorphoses , the legend of the Fisher King , Dante 's Divine Comedy , Chaucer 's Canterbury Tales , and even a contemporary popular song, "That Shakespearian Rag". The poem is divided into five sections. The first, "The Burial of the Dead", introduces the diverse themes of disillusionment and despair. The second, "A Game of Chess", employs alternating narrations in which vignettes of several characters display
3775-478: A warning to pursue a meaningful life. The poem returns to the arid desert scene visited in Part I. Rain has not arrived, despite the promise from thunder and the approaching spring. A description of a journey across the desert is interspersed with references to the death and resurrection of Jesus, implying that the journey has a spiritual element. The journey ends at a chapel, but it is ruined. Rain finally arrives with
3926-456: A whisper at some image, at some vision, – he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath– "'The horror! the horror!'" Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness Eliot's original choice of epigraph. The poem is preceded by a Latin and Ancient Greek epigraph (without translation) from chapter 48 of the Satyricon of Petronius : Eliot originally intended the epigraph to be
4077-496: Is a late 15th-century English morality play. Like John Bunyan 's allegory Pilgrim's Progress (1678), Everyman examines the question of Christian salvation through the use of allegorical characters. The English Renaissance as a part of the Northern Renaissance was a cultural and artistic movement in England dating from the late 15th to the 17th century. It is associated with the pan-European Renaissance that
4228-530: Is also one of the earliest recorded examples of sustained poetry in a Germanic language . The poem, The Dream of the Rood , was inscribed upon the Ruthwell Cross . Two Old English poems from the late 10th century are The Wanderer and The Seafarer . Both have a religious theme, and Marsden describes The Seafarer as "an exhortatory and didactic poem, in which the miseries of winter seafaring are used as
4379-623: Is also possible that both writers independently derived the chess device from the same source. T. S. Eliot , a student of Jacobean drama, refers to the Women Beware Women chess game in The Waste Land , Part II, line 137. Little is known of the play's performances and reception in Middleton's time; Nathaniel Richards , who wrote a preface to the 1653 edition, stated that he had seen it, but no other records of performance survive. According to
4530-410: Is among history's most influential and impassioned defenses of free speech and freedom of the press . The largest and most important poetic form of the era was satire. In general, publication of satire was done anonymously, as there were great dangers in being associated with a satire. John Dryden (1631–1700) was an influential English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who dominated
4681-549: Is based on Marie Larisch , and the "hyacinth girl" represents Emily Hale , with whom Eliot had fallen in love several years previously. "A Game of Chess" features a representation of Vivienne; and its conversations are taken from those overheard by the couple while in a local pub. Scholars have identified more contemporary artistic influences on Eliot, contrary to the poet's own focus on older and foreign-language influences. Eliot had read early drafts of parts of Ulysses and corresponded with Joyce about them, and its influence
Women Beware Women - Misplaced Pages Continue
4832-452: Is believed to be the first published book written by a woman in the English language. A major work from the 15th century is Le Morte d'Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory , which was printed by Caxton in 1485. This is a compilation of some French and English Arthurian romances, and was among the earliest books printed in England. It was popular and influential in the later revival of interest in
4983-517: Is felt in The Waste Land , and he would renew his correspondence with her in 1927. Eliot married his first wife Vivienne Haigh-Wood in 1915, having been introduced to her earlier that year by Scofield Thayer . She had a history of mental illness, and it is not clear to what extent Eliot knew about this before the wedding. The marriage had a shaky start: Eliot appears to have had certain neuroses concerning sex and sexuality, perhaps indicated by
5134-431: Is one of the better-known Arthurian stories of an established type known as the "beheading game". Developing from Welsh, Irish and English tradition, Sir Gawain highlights the importance of honour and chivalry. Preserved in the same manuscript with Sir Gawayne were three other poems, now generally accepted as the work of the same author, including an intricate elegiac poem, Pearl . The English dialect of these poems from
5285-455: Is only at this point that the reason for the section title is clear, " The Fire Sermon " being a teaching delivered by the Buddha. This is the shortest section of the poem, describing the aftermath of the drowning of Phoenician sailor Phlebas, an event forewarned by Madame Sosostris. His corpse is still trapped in a whirlpool that serves as a metaphor for the cycle of life and death, and serves as
5436-521: Is remembered chiefly for his famous translation in 1616 of Homer 's Iliad and Odyssey into English verse. This was the first ever complete translations of either poem into the English language. The translation had a profound influence on English literature and inspired John Keats 's famous sonnet "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer" (1816). Shakespeare popularized the English sonnet , which made significant changes to Petrarch 's model. A collection of 154 by sonnets , dealing with themes such as
5587-468: Is seen in the symbolist use of cross-references and stylistic variety in The Waste Land , as well as the mythic parallels between the characters of Ulysses and those of the Odyssey , writing that this "mythical method" had "the importance of a scientific discovery". Eliot would later express the opinion that, compared to The Waste Land , Ulysses was a superior example of such literary developments, and
5738-683: Is taken from Charles Dickens ' novel Our Mutual Friend , in which the widow Betty Higden says of her adopted foundling son Sloppy: "You mightn't think it, but Sloppy is a beautiful reader of a newspaper. He do the Police in different voices." In the end, the title Eliot chose was The Waste Land . In his first note to the poem he attributes the title to Jessie Weston 's book on the Grail legend, From Ritual to Romance (1920). Did he live his life again in every detail of desire, temptation, and surrender during that supreme moment of complete knowledge? He cried in
5889-679: Is the York cycle of 48 pageants. They were performed in the city of York , from the middle of the 14th century until 1569. Besides the Middle English drama, there are three surviving plays in Cornish known as the Ordinalia . Having grown out of the religiously based mystery plays of the Middle Ages, the morality play is a genre of medieval and early Tudor theatrical entertainment, which represented
6040-534: Is tormented because he is in love with his niece Isabella, who is due to marry the Ward (a foolish and immature heir). Livia tells the younger woman that she is illegitimate (and therefore not related by blood to Hippolito), and Isabella and Hippolito then start an affair. Busy putting together illegitimate relationships, Livia discovers that she is also able to love again and as a result, she becomes Leantio's mistress. However, as affairs and relationships are exposed, one of
6191-526: Is usually regarded as beginning in Italy in the late 14th century. Like most of northern Europe, England saw little of these developments until more than a century later – Renaissance style and ideas were slow in penetrating England. Many scholars see the beginnings of the English Renaissance during the reign of Henry VIII and the Elizabethan era in the second half of the 16th century is usually regarded as
Women Beware Women - Misplaced Pages Continue
6342-426: Is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the world's greatest dramatists. His plays have been translated into every primary living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. In the nineteenth century, Sir Walter Scott's historical romances inspired a generation of European painters, composers, and writers. The English language spread throughout
6493-448: The Anglo-Saxon language became less common. Under the influence of the new aristocracy, French became the standard language of courts, parliament, and polite society. As the invaders integrated, their language and literature mingled with that of the natives, and the Norman dialects of the ruling classes became Anglo-Norman . From then until the 12th century, Anglo-Saxon underwent a gradual transition into Middle English . Political power
6644-691: The Exeter Book of the late 10th century, gives a list of kings of tribes ordered according to their popularity and impact on history, with Attila King of the Huns coming first, followed by Eormanric of the Ostrogoths . It may also be the oldest extant work that tells the Battle of the Goths and Huns , which is also told in such later Scandinavian works as Hervarar's saga and Gesta Danorum . Lotte Hedeager argues that
6795-640: The Midlands is markedly different from that of the London -based Chaucer and, though influenced by French in the scenes at court in Sir Gawain , there are in the poems also many dialect words, often of Scandinavian origin, that belonged to northwest England. Middle English lasted until the 1470s, when the Chancery Standard , a London-based form of English, became widespread and the printing press started to standardise
6946-463: The River Thames , contrasts with the decaying and polluted modern state of the setting. Similarly the beautiful nymphs of the past have been replaced by prostitutes, and the washing of their feet in soda water is ironically contrasted with the washing of feet performed by choir boys in some tellings of the Fisher King legend. This is followed by a brief description of a dirty London and Mr Eugenides,
7097-464: The Royal Court Theatre in 1986, in which the first two-thirds of Middleton's play were preserved but the ending was entirely revamped; among other changes, Sordido rapes Bianca before her wedding. Barker stated that he was rejecting Middleton's Jacobean Puritanism, writing in his programme note that "Middleton says lust leads to the grave. I say desire alters perception ... Middleton knew the body
7248-618: The Saxons and other Germanic tribes in England ( Jutes and the Angles ) c. 450, after the withdrawal of the Romans , and "ending soon after the Norman Conquest" in 1066. These works include genres such as epic poetry , hagiography , sermons , Bible translations, legal works, chronicles and riddles. In all there are about 400 surviving manuscripts from the period. Widsith , which appears in
7399-475: The Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I . Another major figure, Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586), was an English poet, whose works include Astrophel and Stella , The Defence of Poetry , and The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia . Poems intended to be set to music as songs, such as those by Thomas Campion (1567–1620), became popular as printed literature was disseminated more widely in households. John Donne (1572–1631)
7550-453: The regicide of Charles I were partially suppressed. Consequently, violent writings were forced underground, and many of those who had served in the Interregnum attenuated their positions in the Restoration. John Bunyan stands out beyond other religious authors of the period. Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress is an allegory of personal salvation and a guide to the Christian life. During
7701-535: The "birth" of the poem, Pound wrote a bawdy poem of 48 lines entitled " Sage Homme " in which he identified Eliot as the mother of the poem but compared himself to the midwife. The first lines are: These are the poems of Eliot By the Uranian Muse begot; A Man their Mother was, A Muse their Sire. How did the printed Infancies result From Nuptials thus doubly difficult? If you must needs enquire Know diligent Reader That on each Occasion Ezra performed
SECTION 50
#17328517496647852-479: The 17th century a second generation of metaphysical poets were writing, including Richard Crashaw (1613–1649), Andrew Marvell (1621–1678), Thomas Traherne (1636 or 1637–1674) and Henry Vaughan (1622–1695). The Cavalier poets were another important group of 17th-century poets, who came from the classes that supported King Charles I during the English Civil War (1642–1651). (King Charles reigned from 1625 and
8003-427: The 18th century were equally influenced by both Dryden and Pope. Prose in the Restoration period is dominated by Christian religious writing, but the Restoration also saw the beginnings of two genres that would dominate later periods, fiction and journalism. Religious writing often strayed into political and economic writing, just as political and economic writing implied or directly addressed religion. The Restoration
8154-903: The 1950s. The most recent major production was at the Olivier stage of the Royal National Theatre , London; it was directed by Marianne Elliott and starred Harriet Walter as Livia and Vanessa Kirby as Isabella. This production was met with very favourable reviews. The play was adapted for television for an episode of Granada Television 's Play of the Week in 1965. The production was directed by Gordon Flemyng and starred Gene Anderson as Livia, Godfrey Quigley as Guardino, Michael Barrington as Fabricio, Karin Fernald as Isabella, Laurence Payne as Hippolito, Diana Rigg as Bianca, and William Gaunt as Leantio. A modern adaptation by Howard Barker at
8305-577: The 9th century, that chronicles the history of the Anglo-Saxons . The poem Battle of Maldon also deals with history. This is a work of uncertain date, celebrating the Battle of Maldon of 991, at which the Anglo-Saxons failed to prevent a Viking invasion. Oral tradition was very strong in early English culture and most literary works were written to be performed. Epic poems were very popular, and some, including Beowulf , have survived to
8456-605: The Arthurian legends. In the Middle Ages , drama in the vernacular languages of Europe may have emerged from enactments of the liturgy . Mystery plays were presented in the porches of cathedrals or by strolling players on feast days . Miracle and mystery plays, along with morality plays (or "interludes"), later evolved into more elaborate forms of drama, such as was seen on the Elizabethan stages. Another form of medieval theatre
8607-630: The Caesarean Operation. Negotiations over the publication of The Waste Land started in January 1922 and lasted until the late summer. Horace Liveright , of the New York publishing firm of Boni & Liveright , had a number of meetings with Pound while in Paris, and at a dinner on 3 January 1922, with Pound, Eliot and James Joyce , he made offers for The Waste Land , Ulysses , and works by Pound. Eliot
8758-549: The Christian Bible and Book of Common Prayer , the Hindu Brihadaranyaka Upanishad , and the Buddha's Fire Sermon ; and of cultural and anthropological studies such as James Frazer 's The Golden Bough and Jessie Weston's From Ritual to Romance . As well as drawing from myth and fiction, Eliot included people he knew as figures in the poem. "The Burial of the Dead" contains the character Marie, who
8909-520: The Database of Early English Playbooks, the King's Men was the first company to put on the production. For modern critics, Women Beware Women has regularly been paired with The Changeling as constituting Middleton's two noteworthy late achievements in the genre of tragedy—though Women Beware Women has usually been judged the lesser of the two works. The bloody masque that concludes the play has been called
9060-495: The Duke, her first husband's death and her marriage to the Duke, is adapted by Middleton for his play. The subplot of Hippolito and Isabella in Middleton's play is strongly similar to the plot of a French novel that was published in 1597 but not translated into English until 1627 , the year of Middleton's death. Scholars are divided as to whether Middleton was familiar with the novel in manuscript form prior to its 1627 printing, or whether
9211-536: The Eliots' marriage, although at her request a specific line was removed – "The ivory men make company between us" – perhaps because she found the depiction of their unhappy marriage too painful. In 1960, thirteen years after Vivienne's death, Eliot inserted the line from memory into a fair copy made for sale to aid the London Library . In a late December 1921 letter to Eliot to celebrate
SECTION 60
#17328517496649362-454: The Great , and Cynewulf . Cædmon is the earliest English poet whose name is known, and his only known surviving work Cædmon's Hymn probably dates from the late 7th century. The poem is one of the earliest attested examples of Old English and is, with the runic Ruthwell Cross and Franks Casket inscriptions, one of three candidates for the earliest attested example of Old English poetry. It
9513-527: The Nayland Rock shelter on Margate Sands, producing "some 50 lines", and the area is referenced directly in "The Fire Sermon" ("On Margate Sands / I can connect / Nothing with nothing.") The couple travelled to Paris in November, where Eliot showed an early version of the poem to Pound. Pound had become acquainted with Eliot seven years previously, and had helped get some of Eliot's previous work published. Eliot
9664-436: The November issue of The Dial . Among its famous phrases are "April is the cruellest month", "I will show you fear in a handful of dust", and "These fragments I have shored against my ruins". The Waste Land does not follow a single narrative or feature a consistent style or structure. The poem shifts between voices of satire and prophecy, and features abrupt and unannounced changes of narrator, location, and time, conjuring
9815-530: The Restoration period, the most common manner of getting news would have been a broadsheet publication. A single, large sheet of paper might have a written, usually partisan, account of an event. It is impossible to satisfactorily date the beginning of the novel in English. However, long fiction and fictional biographies began to distinguish themselves from other forms in England during the Restoration period. An existing tradition of Romance fiction in France and Spain
9966-597: The Round Table . It was also the first historiography written in English since the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle . Middle English Bible translations , notably Wycliffe's Bible , helped to establish English as a literary language. Wycliffe's Bible is the name now given to a group of Bible translations into Middle English that were made under the direction of, or at the instigation of, John Wycliffe . They appeared between about 1382 and 1395. These Bible translations were
10117-554: The World (1700), and John Vanbrugh 's The Relapse (1696) and The Provoked Wife (1697) were "softer" and more middle-class in ethos, very different from the aristocratic extravaganza twenty years earlier, and aimed at a wider audience. During the 18th century literature reflected the worldview of the Age of Enlightenment (or Age of Reason): a rational and scientific approach to religious, social, political, and economic issues that promoted
10268-637: The beginnings of the Industrial Revolution . The Waste Land The Waste Land is a poem by T. S. Eliot , widely regarded as one of the most important English-language poems of the 20th century and a central work of modernist poetry . Published in 1922, the 434-line poem first appeared in the United Kingdom in the October issue of Eliot's magazine The Criterion and in the United States in
10419-405: The bloodiest Jacobean tragedies is created. Hippolito learns of his sister's affair with Leantio, and kills Leantio. The grieving Livia reveals to Isabella that she had lied earlier: Isabella is related by blood to Hippolito. A masque is held to celebrate the Duke's impending marriage to the widowed Bianca, but it descends into bloodshed. Hippolito is killed by poisoned arrows (shot by cupids in
10570-496: The chief inspiration and cause of the Lollard movement, a pre- Reformation movement that rejected many of the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church . Another literary genre, that of Romances , appears in English from the 13th century, with King Horn and Havelock the Dane , based on Anglo-Norman originals such as the Romance of Horn (c. 1170), but it was in the 14th century that major writers in English first appeared. These were William Langland , Geoffrey Chaucer and
10721-408: The collage techniques of Braque and Picasso , wherein the artists' increasingly non-representational works would include a small piece of "realistic" detail. In the same sense, The Waste Land directly includes "reality", such as the pub conversation and the phrase "London Bridge is falling down", alongside its "imagined" content, to achieve a similar effect. Interpretations of The Waste Land in
10872-495: The comic and the macabre coexist with the solemn words of religious instruction, one language is supplanted by another, until in the final lines of the poem the fragments are collected together." The Waste Land is notable for its seemingly disjointed structure, employing a wide variety of voices which are presented sometimes in monologue, dialogue, or with more than two characters speaking. The poem jumps from one voice or image to another without clearly delineating these shifts for
11023-481: The cost to The Dial by $ 315). Eliot suggested that the "possibility of the book's getting the prize" might allow Boni & Liveright to use the publicity increase their initial sales. The poem was first published in the UK in the first issue (16 October 1922) of Eliot's magazine The Criterion and in the US in the November issue of The Dial (actually published around 20 October). Eliot had initially suggested spreading
11174-429: The direction which would be followed by later playwrights. The Spanish Tragedy is an Elizabethan tragedy written by Thomas Kyd between 1582 and 1592, which was popular and influential in its time, and established a new genre in English literature theatre, the revenge play . William Shakespeare (1564–1616) stands out in this period as a poet and playwright as yet unsurpassed. Shakespeare wrote plays in
11325-439: The early 17th century Shakespeare wrote the so-called " problem plays ", as well as a number of his best known tragedies , including Macbeth and King Lear . In his final period, Shakespeare turned to romance or tragicomedy and completed three more major plays, including The Tempest . Less bleak than the tragedies, these four plays are graver in tone than the comedies of the 1590s, but they end with reconciliation and
11476-615: The early 17th century was the King James Bible . This, one of the most massive translation projects in the history of English up to this time, was started in 1604 and completed in 1611. This represents the culmination of a tradition of Bible translation into English that began with the work of William Tyndale , and it became the standard Bible of the Church of England . The Metaphysical poets John Donne (1572–1631) and George Herbert (1593–1633) were still alive after 1625, and later in
11627-545: The early 1950s Mrs Anderson's daughter Mary Conroy found the documents in storage. In 1958 she sold them privately to the New York Public Library . It was not until April 1968, three years after Eliot's death, that the existence and whereabouts of the manuscript drafts were made known to Valerie Eliot , his second wife. In 1971 a facsimile of the original drafts was published, containing Pound's annotations, edited and annotated by Valerie Eliot. The initial reviews of
11778-449: The early Restoration period are the unsentimental or "hard" comedies of John Dryden , William Wycherley , and George Etherege , which reflect the atmosphere at Court, and celebrate an aristocratic macho lifestyle of unremitting sexual intrigue and conquest. After a sharp drop in both quality and quantity in the 1680s, the mid-1690s saw a brief second flowering of the drama, especially comedy. Comedies like William Congreve 's The Way of
11929-571: The epigraph (Pound rejected both of these ideas). Biographer Peter Ackroyd considers Pound's focus to have been on "the underlying rhythm of the poem ... Pound heard the music, and cut away what was for him the extraneous material which was attached to it." By removing much of Eliot's material, Pound allowed for readers to more freely interpret it as a less structured and didactic work, and his edits are generally considered to have been beneficial. Vivienne also reviewed drafts of The Waste Land . The section "A Game of Chess" partly depicts scenes from
12080-421: The even more free style of The Waste Land , adhering to Pound's dictum that verse should "[depart] in no way from speech save by a heightened intensity (i.e. simplicity)". Critic Harold Bloom goes on to identify further similarities between the two poems, with Eliot's "third who always walks beside you" as Whitman's "knowledge of death", and the poems themselves as "an elegy for the poet's own genius, rather than
12231-406: The first few decades after its publication had been closely linked to Romance , due to Eliot's prominent acknowledgement of Jessie Weston's 1920 book From Ritual to Romance in his notes. Eliot's 1956 disavowal of this line of enquiry with his comment that they invited "bogus scholarship", however, prompted reinterpretations of the poem—less as a work which incorporates previous Romantic ideals and
12382-491: The forgiveness of potentially tragic errors. After Shakespeare's death, the poet and dramatist Ben Jonson (1572–1637) was the leading literary figure of the Jacobean era . Jonson's aesthetics hark back to the Middle Ages and his characters embody the theory of humours , which was based on contemporary medical theory. Jonson's comedies include Volpone (1605 or 1606) and Bartholomew Fair (1614). Others who followed Jonson's style include Beaumont and Fletcher , who wrote
12533-463: The fundamental emptiness of their lives. "The Fire Sermon" offers a philosophical meditation in relation to self-denial and sexual dissatisfaction; "Death by Water" is a brief description of a drowned merchant; and "What the Thunder Said" is a culmination of the poem's previously exposited themes explored through a description of a desert journey. Upon its initial publication The Waste Land received
12684-485: The gift of prophecy. Unlike the previous allusions to times past, Tiresias indicates that love has always been this dispassionate and squalid. The poem moves back to the Thames, again using allusions to the past to highlight its current state of decay and sterility, but the section ends on a possibly hopeful note with the words of St Augustine and the Buddha, both of whom lived lives of extravagance before adopting asceticism. It
12835-407: The great literary critics of past time". So, Eliot's epigraph praises Pound's critical and poetic skills by the mouth of Dante. Eliot "wished his poem to go through English poetic styles as Joyce had gone through English prose styles", styles in turn derived from ancient sources. Daniel represents an important crossroads in the map of poetry in The Waste Land from the ancient to modern, sitting at
12986-407: The greatest English poets, wrote at this time of religious flux and political upheaval. Milton is best known for his epic poem Paradise Lost (1667). Milton's poetry and prose reflect deep personal convictions, a passion for freedom and self-determination, and the urgent issues and political turbulence of his day. His celebrated Areopagitica , written in condemnation of pre-publication censorship,
13137-489: The height of the English Renaissance. The influence of the Italian Renaissance can also be found in the poetry of Thomas Wyatt (1503–1542), one of the earliest English Renaissance poets. He was responsible for many innovations in English poetry, and alongside Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1516/1517–1547) introduced the sonnet from Italy into England in the early 16th century. After William Caxton introduced
13288-457: The influence of the new aristocracy, French became the standard language of courts, parliament, and polite society. The English spoken after the Normans came is known as Middle English . This form of English lasted until the 1470s, when the Chancery Standard (late Middle English), a London -based form of English, became widespread. Geoffrey Chaucer (1343–1400), author of The Canterbury Tales ,
13439-496: The juncture between antiquity and modernity. "In the forms of Arnaut Daniel's canzoni I find a corresponding excellence, seeing that they satisfy not only the modern ear, gluttonous of rhyme, but also the ear trained to Roman and Hellenic music, to which rhyme seemed and seems a vulgarity". The section title comes from the Anglican burial service in the Book of Common Prayer . It opens with
13590-414: The language. Chaucer is best known today for The Canterbury Tales . This is a collection of stories written in Middle English (mostly in verse although some are in prose ), that are presented as part of a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel together from Southwark to the shrine of St Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral . Chaucer is a significant figure in the development of
13741-453: The last great poet of the English Renaissance" and published a number of works before 1660, including L'Allegro (1631), Il Penseroso (1634), the masque Comus (1638) and Lycidas (1638). However, his major epic works, including Paradise Lost (1667) were published in the Restoration period. Restoration literature includes both Paradise Lost and the Earl of Rochester 's Sodom ,
13892-439: The legitimacy of the vernacular , Middle English, at a time when the dominant literary languages in England were still French and Latin. At this time, literature in England was being written in various languages, including Latin, Norman-French, and English: the multilingual nature of the audience for literature in the 14th century is illustrated by the example of John Gower (c. 1330–1408). A contemporary of William Langland and
14043-422: The literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the period came to be known in literary circles as the "Age of Dryden". He established the heroic couplet as a standard form of English poetry. Dryden's greatest achievements were in satiric verse in works like the mock-heroic MacFlecknoe (1682). Alexander Pope (1688–1744) was heavily influenced by Dryden, and often borrowed from him; other writers in
14194-450: The manuscript draft of The Waste Land in London, Eliot visited him in the country. While walking through a graveyard, they discussed Thomas Gray 's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard . Aldington writes: "I was surprised to find that Eliot admired something so popular, and then went on to say that if a contemporary poet, conscious of his limitations as Gray evidently was, would concentrate all his gifts on one such poem he might achieve
14345-434: The many " highbrow " references and quotations from poets such as Baudelaire , Dante, Ovid , and Homer , he included several references to " lowbrow " genres, such as an allusion to the 1912 popular song "That Shakespearian Rag" by Gene Buck , Herman Ruby and Dave Stamper . The poem contrasts such elements throughout: "Ornate vocabulary gives way to colloquial dialogue, lyrical moments are interrupted by sordid intrusions,
14496-515: The masque) and dies after throwing himself on his sword; and Isabella and Livia murder each other. Bianca tries to murder the Duke's brother, but accidentally poisons the Duke himself. After realising her mistake, she finishes the poisoned drink and dies. Middleton based the plot of his play on actual events. Bianca Cappello was first the mistress and then the second wife and Duchess of Francesco I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany . The story of Bianca's elopement with her first husband, her affair with
14647-402: The motif of lilacs growing in the spring, Whitman treats the inevitable return of spring as "an occasion for mourning the death that allows for rebirth", a similar perspective being put forward by Eliot and completely contrary to Chaucer, who celebrates the "sweet showers" of April bringing forth spring flowers. Scholar Pericles Lewis further argues that Whitman's speech-like rhythms anticipate
14798-473: The narrator trapped in a static existence between life and death, unable to profess his love. The scene then moves to the fortune-teller Madame Sosostris, who is described in ironically down-to-earth terms, and the Tarot cards she draws foretell events in the rest of the poem. The final part of "The Burial of the Dead" is a description of London as Dante's hell, with inhabitants trapped in a death-like state following
14949-461: The novel has been described as "the most important model for the poem". Unlike its use in Ulysses , however, Eliot saw the mythical method as a way to write poetry without relying on conventional narration—he uses his mythical sources for their ritualistic structures, rather than as a counterpoint to the poem's "story". Eliot was resistant to ascribing any influence to Walt Whitman , instead expressing
15100-410: The one-eyed Smyrna merchant foreseen by Madame Sosostris. The narrative then moves to a description of a loveless tryst between a typist and a "young man carbuncular", both acting mechanically, their automatic motions underscored by Eliot's use of rhyme. They are observed by the figure of Tiresias, a character taken from classical myth who lived as a woman for seven years and then was blinded and given
15251-526: The passage of time, love, beauty and mortality, were first published in a 1609 quarto. Besides Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, the major poets of the early 17th century included the Metaphysical poets : John Donne (1572–1631), George Herbert (1593–1633), Henry Vaughan , Andrew Marvell , and Richard Crashaw . Their style was characterized by wit and metaphysical conceits, that is far-fetched or unusual similes or metaphors. The most important prose work of
15402-430: The play is prefaced by a commendatory poem by Nathaniel Richards , author of The Tragedy of Messalina (published 1640). Thomas Dekker 's play Match Me in London (written c. 1612, but printed in 1631) has a plot that is strongly similar to Women Beware , though with a happy ending rather than a tragic conclusion. Women Beware Women tells the story of Bianca, a woman who escapes from her rich home to elope with
15553-463: The poem contains an underlying unity of form—for Leavis represented by the figure of Tiresias, and for Matthiessen and Brooks by the Grail mythology. This view became dominant for the next three decades. Eliot originally considered entitling the poem He Do the Police in Different Voices , and in the original manuscripts the first two sections of the poem appear under this title. This phrase
15704-479: The poem is followed by several pages of notes by Eliot, purporting to explain his own metaphors, references, and allusions. These were included in order to lengthen the work so that it could be published as a book, as well as to pre-empt accusations of plagiarism which his earlier work had been charged with. Pound later observed that the notes served to pique the interest of reviewers and academic critics. However they are considered to be of limited use for interpreting
15855-460: The poem over four issues of The Dial , having doubts about its coherence as a single piece, and had considered publishing it across two issues of The Criterion in order to improve sales, but Pound objected. In December the Boni & Liveright book edition was published in the US, with an initial run of 1,000 copies and, very soon afterwards, a second edition, also of 1,000 copies. The first book edition
16006-503: The poem to Thayer for publication shortly after returning from Lausanne in January. Even though The Dial offered $ 150 (approx. £30–35) for the poem, 25% more than its standard rate, Eliot was offended that a year's work would be valued so low, especially since he knew that George Moore had been paid £100 for a short story. The deal with The Dial almost fell through (other magazines considered were The Little Review and Vanity Fair ), but with Quinn's efforts eventually an agreement
16157-614: The poem were mixed. Some critics disparaged its disjointed structure, and suggested that its extensive use of quotations gave it a sense of unoriginality. F. L. Lucas wrote a particularly negative review in the New Statesman , stating that "Eliot has shown that he can at moments write real blank verse; but that is all"; The Guardian published a review calling it "waste paper", and the London Mercury considered it incomprehensible. William Carlos Williams considered it to have had
16308-427: The poem, and Eliot's own interpretations changed over the succeeding decades. Eliot later expressed some regret at including the notes at all, saying in 1956 that they had prompted "the remarkable exposition of bogus scholarship". "A Game of Chess", lines 117–130 The style of the poem is marked by the many intertextual allusions and quotations that Eliot included, and their juxtaposition . In addition to
16459-412: The poor Leantio. Fearful and insecure, Leantio requires that his mother lock Bianca up while he is away. While she is locked up, the Duke of Florence spots Bianca in a window and attempts to woo her with the help of Livia, a widow. He ultimately rapes Bianca. Bianca becomes deeply cynical, falls out of love with Leantio because of his poverty, and becomes the mistress of the Duke. Hippolito (Livia's brother)
16610-607: The popular comedy, The Knight of the Burning Pestle (probably 1607–1608), a satire of the rising middle class. Another popular style of theatre during Jacobean times was the revenge play , which was popularized in the Elizabethan era by Thomas Kyd (1558–1594), and then further developed later by John Webster (c. 1580 – c. 1632), The White Devil (1612) and The Duchess of Malfi (1613). Other revenge tragedies include The Changeling written by Thomas Middleton and William Rowley . George Chapman (c. 1559 – c. 1634)
16761-720: The present day. Beowulf is the most famous work in Old English, and has achieved national epic status in England, despite being set in Scandinavia. The only surviving manuscript is the Nowell Codex , the precise date of which is debated, but most estimates place it close to the year 1000. Beowulf is the conventional title, and its composition is dated between the 8th and the early 11th century. Nearly all Anglo-Saxon authors are anonymous: twelve are known by name from medieval sources, but only four of those are known by their vernacular works with any certainty: Cædmon , Bede , Alfred
16912-619: The present, numerous writers from Great Britain , both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland , the US, and former British colonies have received the Nobel Prize for works in English more than in any language. Old English literature , or Anglo-Saxon literature, encompasses the surviving literature written in Old English in Anglo-Saxon England , in the period after the settlement of
17063-432: The printing press in England in 1476, vernacular literature flourished. The Reformation inspired the production of vernacular liturgy which led to the Book of Common Prayer (1549), a lasting influence on literary language. Edmund Spenser (c. 1552–1599) was one of the most important poets of the Elizabethan period, author of The Faerie Queene (1590 and 1596), an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating
17214-671: The reader, creating the paradoxical effect of a poem which contains deeply personal subject matter being simultaneously an impersonal collage. As Eliot explained in his 1919 essay " Tradition and the Individual Talent ", he saw the ideal poet as a conduit who creates a piece of art that reflects culture and society, as well as their own perspective and experiences, in an impersonal and craftsmanlike way. The poem plays with traditional forms of metre and rhyme, often implying blank verse without strictly committing to it (especially through quotations of works that are themselves written in such
17365-420: The representation of Bible stories in churches as tableaux with accompanying antiphonal song. They developed from the 10th to the 16th century, reaching the height of their popularity in the 15th century before being rendered obsolete by the rise of professional theatre. There are four complete or nearly complete extant English biblical collections of plays from the late medieval period. The most complete
17516-440: The same compliment through what Pound describes as "the device of praising Daniel by the mouth of Guinicelli". It is further explained in the 1910 The Spirit of Romance that Dante is setting "the laudation in the mouth of his greatest Italian predecessor, Guido Guinicelli of Bologna". Pound observed that "Dante's poetry so overshadows his work in prose that we are apt to forget that he is numbered with Aristotle and Longinus among
17667-408: The sea shore, having travelled across the desert. He considers taking some form of action in his final question "Shall I at least set my lands in order?" but does not resolve to do anything. The poem ends with fragmentary quotations perhaps suggesting the possibility of new life, and finally the line " Shantih shantih shantih " ("Peace peace peace"), the formal ending to an Upanishad . The text of
17818-558: The sexual comedy of The Country Wife and the moral wisdom of Pilgrim's Progress . It saw Locke's Two Treatises on Government , the founding of the Royal Society , the experiments and the holy meditations of Robert Boyle , the hysterical attacks on theatres from Jeremy Collier , the pioneering of literary criticism from Dryden, and the first newspapers. The official break in literary culture caused by censorship and radically moralist standards under Cromwell's Puritan regime created
17969-499: The short term. Eliot and Pound proceeded to edit the poem further, continuing after Eliot returned to London. The editing process removed a large amount of content. Eliot allowed Pound a high degree of control over the shape and contents of the final version, deferring to his judgement on matters such as using Eliot's previous poem " Gerontion " as a prelude, or using an excerpt from the death of Kurtz in Conrad 's Heart of Darkness as
18120-471: The so-called Pearl Poet , whose most famous work is Sir Gawain and the Green Knight . Langland's Piers Plowman (written c. 1360–87) or Visio Willelmi de Petro Plowman ( William's Vision of Piers Plowman ) is a Middle English allegorical narrative poem , written in unrhymed alliterative verse . Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a late 14th-century Middle English alliterative romance . It
18271-460: The state the proper and rational instrument of progress. The extreme rationalism and skepticism of the age led naturally to deism and also played a part in bringing the later reaction of romanticism . The Encyclopédie of Denis Diderot epitomized the spirit of the age. The term Augustan literature derives from authors of the 1720s and 1730s themselves, who responded to a term that George I of Great Britain preferred for himself. While George I meant
18422-413: The succeeding years both experienced periods of depression, with Eliot being constantly exhausted and Vivienne experiencing migraines. 1921 saw Eliot be diagnosed with a nervous disorder and prescribed three months of rest, a period that precipitated the writing of The Waste Land . Eliot had worked as a schoolteacher from 1915 to 1916, resigning to make a living from lecturing and literary reviews. He
18573-697: The term " free verse ", however, believing it impossible to write verse that is truly "free". Sources which Eliot quotes or alludes to include the works of classical figures Sophocles , Petronius , Virgil , and Ovid; 14th-century writers Dante and Geoffrey Chaucer ; Elizabethan and Jacobean writers Edmund Spenser , Thomas Kyd , William Shakespeare , Thomas Middleton , and John Webster ; 19th-century figures Gérard de Nerval , Paul Verlaine , Charles Baudelaire , Alfred Tennyson , and Richard Wagner ; and more contemporary writers Aldous Huxley , Hermann Hesse , Frank Chapman and F. H. Bradley . Additionally Eliot makes extensive use of religious writings, including
18724-454: The text that became The Waste Land for several years preceding its first publication in 1922. In 1919 he referred to "a long poem I have had on my mind for a long time" in a letter to his mother. In a May 1921 letter to New York lawyer and art patron John Quinn , Eliot wrote that he had "a long poem in mind and partly on paper which I am wishful to finish". Richard Aldington , in his memoirs, relates that "a year or so" before Eliot read him
18875-534: The thunder, and its noise is linked with text from the Hindu Brihadaranyaka Upanishad , joining Eastern religion with Western. The thunder implores the narrator to "give", but the associated imagery suggests he may already be dead; to "sympathise", but he contends that every person is trapped in their own self-centred prison; and to "control", which is explored with the metaphor of a sailor co-operating with wind and water. The narrator ends up fishing at
19026-433: The title to reflect his might, they instead saw in it a reflection of Ancient Rome 's transition from rough and ready literature to highly political and highly polished literature. It is an age of exuberance and scandal, of enormous energy and inventiveness and outrage, that reflected an era when English, Welsh, Scottish, and Irish people found themselves in the midst of an expanding economy, lowering barriers to education, and
19177-458: The translator of the book was influenced by Middleton's play. The device of the chess game exploited by Middleton in Women Beware Women has an obvious commonality with his own A Game at Chess —but the same chess-game device also appears in John Fletcher's play The Spanish Curate , which was acted in 1622. Here again, scholars are divided as to which play preceded and influenced which. It
19328-451: The women featured in his poetry, and there is speculation that the two were not sexually compatible. In late 1915 Vivienne began to suffer from "nerves" or "acute neuralgia", an illness which undoubtedly bore a mental component. Their friend Bertrand Russell took her to the seaside town of Torquay to recuperate; Eliot took Russell's place after a week, and the couple walked the shore, which Eliot found tranquil. Once back in London, Vivienne
19479-401: The work is far older, however, and that it likely dates back to the late 6th or early 7th century, citing the author's knowledge of historical details and accuracy as proof of its authenticity. She does note, however, that some authors, such as John Niles , have argued the work was invented in the 10th century. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is a collection of annals in Old English , from
19630-592: The world with the development of the British Empire between the late 16th and early 18th centuries. At its height, it was the largest empire in history . By 1913, the British Empire held sway over 412 million people, 23% of the world population at the time, During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, these colonies and the US started to produce their significant literary traditions in English. Cumulatively, from 1907 to
19781-556: The writing of Ormulum ( c. 1150 – c. 1180 ), the blending of both Old English and Anglo-Norman elements in English are highlighted for the first time, marking the beginning of the Middle English period. Afterwards, Layamon in Brut adapted the Norman-French of Wace to produce the first English-language work to present the legends of King Arthur and the Knights of
19932-523: Was a significant figure developing the legitimacy of vernacular Middle English at a time when the dominant literary languages in England were still French and Latin. The invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in 1439 also helped to standardise the language, as did the King James Bible (1611), and the Great Vowel Shift . Poet and playwright William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
20083-529: Was also the time when John Locke wrote many of his philosophical works. His two Treatises on Government, which later inspired the thinkers in the American Revolution . The Restoration moderated most of the more strident sectarian writing, but radicalism persisted after the Restoration. Puritan authors such as John Milton were forced to retire from public life or adapt, and those authors who had preached against monarchy and who had participated directly in
20234-431: Was another important figure in Elizabethan poetry (see Jacobean poetry below). Among the earliest Elizabethan plays are Gorboduc (1561) by Sackville and Norton , and Thomas Kyd 's (1558–1594) The Spanish Tragedy (1592). Gorboduc is notable especially as the first verse drama in English to employ blank verse , and for the way it developed elements, from the earlier morality plays and Senecan tragedy , in
20385-632: Was executed in 1649). The best known of the Cavalier poets are Robert Herrick , Richard Lovelace , Thomas Carew and Sir John Suckling . They "were not a formal group, but all were influenced by" Ben Jonson. Most of the Cavalier poets were courtiers, with notable exceptions. For example, Robert Herrick was not a courtier, but his style marks him as a Cavalier poet. Cavalier works make use of allegory and classical allusions, and are influenced by Roman authors Horace, Cicero and Ovid . John Milton (1608–1674) "was
20536-416: Was left bored and unoccupied while Eliot worked fourteen or fifteen hours a day, and in 1918 had a brief affair with Russell; it is not known if Eliot was aware of this. Eliot himself, under strain from his heavy workload, concern about his father's health, and the stress of the ongoing war, was also suffering from poor health, to the extent that his doctor had ordered him not to write prose for six months. In
20687-528: Was no longer in English hands, so that the West Saxon literary language had no more influence than any other dialect and Middle English literature was written in many dialects that corresponded to the region, history, culture, and background of individual writers. In this period religious literature continued to enjoy popularity and Hagiographies were written, adapted and translated: for example, The Life of Saint Audrey , Eadmer 's (c. 1060 – c. 1126). During
20838-465: Was obliged, however, to take a job at Lloyds Bank in March 1917, earning a salary of £270 in 1918 for a role interpreting the balance sheets of foreign banks. He would work at the bank for the next nine years. He began to work as an assistant editor of literary magazine The Egoist on the side, his salary of £9 per quarter partly financed by John Quinn , Ezra Pound 's patron. Eliot also began to write on
20989-401: Was originally handwritten by Eliot in the 1922 Boni & Liveright edition of the poem presented to Pound; it was included in later editions. Eliot is quoting both Canto XXVI of Dante 's Purgatorio and Pound's The Spirit of Romance (1910), which contains a chapter with the title "Il Miglior Fabbro" and which quotes that section of Purgatorio . Dante pays the troubadour Arnaut Daniel
21140-461: Was popular in England. One of the most significant figures in the rise of the novel in the Restoration period is Aphra Behn , author of Oroonoko (1688), who was not only the first professional female novelist, but she may be among the first professional novelists of either sex in England. As soon as the previous Puritan regime's ban on public stage representations was lifted, drama recreated itself quickly and abundantly. The most famous plays of
21291-491: Was positive, and other admirers included E. M. Forster and Cyril Connolly . Contemporary poets and young writers responded to the poem's modern style and content, a mini-phenomenon later described as "a cult of 'The Waste Landers ' ". Subsequent reviews and criticism debated the value of some of Eliot's innovations. His notes and quotations were one source of disagreement: they were considered either "distracting or confusing if not pedantic and unpoetic", or "the very basis of
21442-413: Was published in 1917 thanks to the efforts of Pound. Publishers were not confident in its success, and it was published by Harriet Shaw Weaver of The Egoist only with funding provided by Pound's wife Dorothy , although Eliot was unaware of this arrangement. It generated very little interest until after the publication of The Waste Land , and did not sell its initial run of 500 copies until 1922. Poems
21593-484: Was published in 1919 by the Woolfs' Hogarth Press , again having been turned down by several other publishers. By 1920 Eliot had established himself as a reputed critic, and the publication of Ara Vos Prec and the US publication of Poems generated notable press coverage. His 1920 collection of essays, The Sacred Wood , met with mixed reviews, and Eliot felt it should have been revised further. Eliot probably worked on
21744-457: Was raped and turned into a nightingale, and the poem depicts her as still suffering at the hands of an uncaring world. This moves to a conversation between an anxious woman and the thoughts of her husband, who does not reply—his thoughts are preoccupied with loss and death. The second part of the section is set in an East End pub and features a conversation between working-class Cockney women. They discuss childbearing, infidelity and abortion in
21895-415: Was reached where, in addition to the $ 150, Eliot would be awarded The Dial ' s second annual prize for outstanding service to letters, which carried an award of $ 2,000. In New York, in late summer, Boni & Liveright made an agreement with The Dial allowing the magazine to be the first to publish the poem in the US, on the condition that they purchase 350 copies of the book at discount (increasing
22046-627: Was the mummers' plays , a form of early street theatre associated with the Morris dance , concentrating on themes such as Saint George and the Dragon and Robin Hood . These were folk tales re-telling old stories, and the actors travelled from town to town performing these for their audiences in return for money and hospitality. Mystery plays and miracle plays are among the earliest formally developed plays in medieval Europe . Medieval mystery plays focused on
22197-474: Was the first publication to print Eliot's accompanying notes, which he had added to pad the piece out and thereby address Liveright's concerns about its length. In September 1923, the Hogarth Press , a private press run by Eliot's friends Leonard and Virginia Woolf , published the first UK book edition of The Waste Land in a run of approximately 460 copies. Eliot, whose 1922 annual salary at Lloyds Bank
22348-499: Was the source of politics. He did not know it was also the source of hope." A radio adaptation was broadcast on 30 March 2003 on BBC Radio 3 starring Beth Chalmers as Bianca, John McAndrew as Leantio, Bill Wallis as Guardiano and Sara McGayghe as Isabella. A musical adaptation was workshopped with student on the University of Chichester Musical Theatre Triple Threat course in May 2017 as
22499-613: Was to receive a royalty of 15% for a book version of the poem planned for autumn publication, although Liveright was concerned that the work was too short. Eliot was still under contract with his previous publisher Alfred Knopf , which gave Knopf the rights to Eliot's next two books, but in April Eliot managed to secure a release from that agreement. Eliot also sought a deal with magazines. He had become friends with Scofield Thayer , editor of literary magazine The Dial , while at Milton Academy and Harvard College , and Eliot had offered
22650-450: Was travelling on to Lausanne for treatment by Dr Roger Vittoz, who had been recommended to him by Ottoline Morrell ; Vivienne was to stay at a sanatorium just outside Paris. While under Vittoz's care, Eliot completed the first draft of The Waste Land . Eliot returned from Switzerland to Paris in early January 1922 with the 19-page draft version of the poem; his treatment with Dr Vittoz proved to have been very successful, at least in
22801-446: Was £500 ($ 2,215), made approximately £630 ($ 2,800) with The Dial , Boni & Liveright, and Hogarth Press publications. Eliot sent the original manuscript drafts of the poem as a gift to John Quinn, believing it to be worthwhile to preserve the effects of Pound's editing; they arrived in New York in January 1923. Upon Quinn's death in 1924 they were inherited by his sister Julia Anderson, and for many years they were believed lost. In
#663336