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The Waste Land and the Aeneid

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 December 2020

Marjorie Donker
Marjorie Donker*
Affiliation:
Western Washington State College, Bellingham
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Abstract

The Waste Land has important connections with the Aeneid beyond those of a shared mythic configuration. These connections are primarily literary and we receive them as Gilbert Highet describes the allusions of symbolist poets—in hints, nuances, phrases repeated in a dream. So Eliot evokes the concatenation of events in the first six books of the Aeneid, and like Virgil he reformulates the literary monuments of the past as a comment upon the present age. Episodes in the Aeneid that have become part of the literary tradition, that have been reformulated by Dante, Spenser, and Milton, are echoed in Eliot's poem. Images of The Waste Land—the drowned Phoenician sailor, the lady of situations, the man with three staves, the Wheel, the card that is blank, Mrs. Equitone—have conspicuous analogues in the Aeneid. Significantly, Anchises' great sermon in the sixth book of Virgil's poem is not only a recapitulation of Aeneas' own purgatorial experiences as quester but also suggests the movement of The Waste Land as a series of trials by water, wind, and fire. In sum, The Waste Land assumes the central importance of Virgil; Virgil is for Eliot, as he was for Dante, a guide and an inspiration.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 89 , Issue 1 , January 1974 , pp. 164 - 173
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1974

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References

Note 1 in page 172 The Wind Blew from the East (New York and London: Harper, 1942), p. 222. Northrop Frye also discusses the movement of The Waste Land as a descent into hell with reference to Virgilian and Dantean patterns, in T. S. Eliot (Edinburgh and London: Grove, 1963), pp. 64–71.

Note 2 in page 172 T. S. Eliot's Poetry and Plays: A Study in Sources and Meaning (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1956), pp. 69–71. See also W. F. Jackson Knight, Cumaean Gates: A Reference of the Sixth Aeneid to the Initiation Pattern (Oxford: B. Blackwell, 1936). Jessie L. Weston's book, From Ritual to Romance, to which Eliot refers in the notes to The Waste Land, also links the Grail romances to a motif of initiation in a pattern of death and rebirth. As Grover Smith says, “The Grail legend corresponds to the great hero epics, it dramatizes initiation into maturity, and it bespeaks a quest for sexual, cultural, and spiritual healing” (p. 70).

Note 3 in page 172 Eliot's predilection for classical sources is most apparent in his plays. There are recognized similarities between the Oresteia of Aeschylus and The Family Reunion, the Alcestis of Euripides and The Cocktail Party, the Ion of Euripides and The Confidential Clerk, and Oedipus at Colonus and The Elder Statesman.

Note 4 in page 172 “What Is a Classic ?” On Poetry and Poets (New York : Noonday, 1961), pp. 70–71.

Note 5 in page 172 The Classical Tradition (New York and London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1949), p. 517.1 will further protect myself against the charge of being overingenious by reminding my readers now that it is not only as a symbolist poet that Eliot likes to tease his readers. He is fond of verbal ploys that are often gratuitous, if witty, gestures. The Waste Land begins with an epigraph from the Satyricon and a reference to “pueri” and ends with a line from Thomas Kyd. The light-minded are free to use “kid” as a verb as well as a noun. A colleague pointed out to me recently that The Cocktail Party begins with an aunt who is ill and ends with a crucifixion on an anthill. With this in mind, I cannot help but think that the picture of sexual sterility evoked by The Waste Land is in more than one sense responsible for the poem's title. One of the most famous puns in the English language is Shakespeare's play with “waist” in “The expense of spirit in a waste of shame / Is lust in action.”

Note 6 in page 172 All quotations from The Waste Land are from The Complete Poems and Plays (New York: Harcourt, 1952).

Note 7 in page 172 “implevi clamore vias, maestusque Creusam / nequiquam ingeminans iterumque iterumque vocavi. / quaerenti et tectis urbis sine fine furenti / infelix simulacrum atque ipsius umbra Creusae / visa mihi ante oculos et nota maior imago” (ii.769–73). Unless otherwise noted, all quotations from the Aeneid, in English or Latin, are from Virgil, trans. H. Rushton Fairclough, rev. ed.. The Loeb Classical Library, 2 vols. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1965).

Note 8 in page 172 F. O. Matthiessen, The Achievement of T. S. Eliot, 3rd ed. (New York and London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1958), pp. 92–93 and George L. K. Morris, “Marie, Marie, Hold on Tight,” Partisan Review, 21 (1954), 231–33.

Note 9 in page 172 “tutus, quos optas, portus accedet Averni. / unus erit tantum, amissum quern gurgite quaeres; / unum pro multis dabitur caput” (v.813–15).

Note 10 in page 172 “ . . . gurgite vastos / sorbet in abruptum ductus rursusque sub auras / erigit alternos, et sidera verberat unda” (iii.421–23).

Note 11 in page 172 George Williamson notes that in “Death by Water” there may be a reminiscence of the “sea-dogs of Scylla and the whirlpool of Chary bdis; or of Virgil's allusion (Eclogue VI) to Scylla's whirlpool and her sea-hounds that destroyed sailors,” A Reader's Guide to T. S. Eliot: A Poem-by-Poem Analysis (New York: Noonday, 1953), p. 146.

Note 12 in page 172 Those interested in puns may also find Neptune related to the Fish-er King of Grail legend.

Note 13 in page 172 Smith, p. 85, associates the one-eyed merchant with the Cyclops by way of Sweeney, who in “Sweeney Erect” played Polyphemus to the Nausicaa of the epileptic girl. William T. Moynihan, noting parallels between the Odyssey and The Waste Land, also connects the Cyclops with the “one-eyed merchant,” Circe with “the lady of situations,” and a statement by Tiresias in the lower world with “fear death by water.” “The Goal of the Waste Land Quest,” Renascence, 13 (1961), 171–79. The Aeneid, of course, recapitulates much of the Odyssean material. I discuss this further in relation to Virgil's and Eiiot's use of the literary past.

Note 14 in page 172 “Nate dea, nam te maioribus ire per altum / auspiciis manifesta fides (sic fata deum rex / sortitur volvitque vices, is vertitur ordo), / pauca tibi e multis, quo tutior hospital lustres / aequora et Ausonio possis considère portu, / expediam dictis; prohibent nam cetera Parcae / scire Helenum farique vetat Saturnia Iuno” (in.374–80). Eliot's use of the epic epithet, “son of man,” is a reduction of the traditional “tag” for Aeneas, “nate dea,” goddess-born.

Note 15 in page 172 After concluding her prophecy Madame Sosostris sends a message to Mrs. Equitone: “If you see dear Mrs. Equitone, / Tell her I bring the horoscope myself: / One must be so careful these days.” The reference to Mrs. Equitone may be a fleeting glance at the wooden horse goddess, the equine “fatalis machina,” of the Aeneid.

Note 16 in page 172 “accessi, viridemque ab humo convellere silvam / conatus, rami's tegerem ut frondentibus aras, / horrendum et dictu video mirabile monstrum. / nam quae prima solo ruptis radicibus arbos / vellitur, huic atro liquuntur sanguine guttae / et terram tabo maculant” (xi.24–29).

Note 17 in page 172 “ . . . hic confixum ferrea texit / telorum seges et iaculis increvit acutis” (iii.45–46).

Note 18 in page 172 “non secus ac liquida si quando nocte cometae / sanguinei lugubre rubent, aut Sirius ardor / ille, sitim morbosque ferens mortalibus aegris, / nascitur et laevo contristat lumine caelum” (x.272–75).

Note 19 in page 172 “ . . . dependent lychni laquearibus aureis / incensi et noctem flammis funalia vincunt” (i.726–27). (Eliot quotes these lines in his notes.)

Note 20 in page 172 Vergil: Father of the West, trans. A. W. Wheen (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1934), p. 39. Also J. W. Mackail, The Aeneid (Oxford: Clarendon, 1930), pp. xvi-xvii.

Note 21 in page 172 Mythology and the Romantic Tradition in English Poetry (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1937), p. 516, n. 61.

Note 22 in page 172 “ . . . eadem impia Fama furenti / detulit armari classem cursumque parari. / saevit inops animi totamque incensa per urbem / bacchatur, qualis commotis excita sacris / Thyias, ubi audito stimulant trieterica Baccho / orgia nocturnusque vocat clamore Cithaeron” (iv.298–303).

Note 23 in page 173 “ . . . nec Zephyros audis spirare secundos ? / ilia dolos dirumque nefas in pectore versat, / certa mori, varioque irarum fluctuât aestu./ non fugis hinc praeceps, dum praecipitare potestas ? . . . varium et mutabile semper / femina …” (iv.562–70).

Note 24 in page 173 “at regina … caeco carpitur igni” (iv.1–2). “… veteris vestigia flammae” (iv.23). “… est mollis flamma medullas / interea …” (iv.66–67).

Note 25 in page 173 “Mantua bore me; Calabria gave me death, Naples now holds me. I sang of shepherds, farmers, and leaders.” Noted in Haecker, p. 29. Dante's lines are: “Ricorditi di me, che son la Pia; / Siena mi fe', disfecemi Maremma.” 26 “spelunca alta . . . vastoque immanis hiatu, / scrupea, tuta lacu nigro nemorumque tenebris, / quam super haud ullae poterant impune volantes / tendere iter pinnis: talis sese halitus atris / faucibus effundens super ad convexa ferebat / [unde locum Grai dixerunt nomine Aornon]” (vi.237–42).

Note 27 in page 173 “ . . . tenuis sine corpore vitas / . . . volitare cava sub imagine formae” (vi.292–93).

Note 28 in page 173 “infantumque animae fientes . . . ”(vi.427).

Note 29 in page 173 “namque gubernaclurn multa vi forte revolsum, / cui datus haerebam custos cursusque regebam, / praecipitans traxi mecum …” (vi.349–51).

Note 30 in page 173 “ . . . quos durus amor crudeli tabe peredit, /secreti celant calles . . . curae non ipsa in morte relinquunt” (vi.442–44).

Note 31 in page 173 “igneus est ollis vigor et caelestis origo / seminibus, quantum non noxia corpora tardant / terrenique hebetant artus moribundaque membra. / hinc metuunt cupiuntque, dolent gaudentque, neque auras / dispiciunt clausae tenebris et carcere caeco. / quin et supremo cum lumine vita reliquit, / non tamen omne malum miseris nec funditus omnes / corporeae excedunt pestes, penitusque necesse est / multa diu concreta modi's inolescere miris. / ergo exercentur poem's veterumque malorum / supplicia expendunt: aliae panduntur inanes / suspensae ad ventos, aliis sub gurgite vasto /infectum eluitur scelus aut exuritur igni; / quisque suos patimur Manis. exinde per amplum / mittimur Elysium, et pauci laeta arva tenemus, / donee longa dies, perfecto temporis orbe / concretam exemit labem, purumque relinquit / aetherium sensum atque aurai simplicis ignem” (vi.730–47).

Note 32 in page 173 “caeruleus Thybris, caelo gratissimus amnis” (viii.64). 33 “… si quando nocte cometae / sanguinei lugubre rubent, aut Sirius ardor / ille, sitim morbosque ferens mortalibus aegris, / nascitur et laevo contristat lumine caelum” (x. 272–75).

Note 34 in page 173 Brooks Otis, Virgil, A Study in Civilized Poetry (Oxford: Clarendon, 1963), pp. 41–96. I am indebted to this valuable discussion of Virgil's “subjective” and psychological reworking of his Homeric models.