Literary Work- The Waste Land

The Waste Land, written in 1922, is a 434-line modernist poem by T. S. Eliot. Despite it being a little bit hard to understand, the poem has become a familiar work of modern literature. It has confused many because of its abrupt and unannounced changes of speaker, location, and time. Some of its famous phrases are "April is the cruellest month," which is its very first line. Others are "I will show you fear in a handful of dust," and "Shantih shantih shantih," which is the last line.

T. S. Eliot is estimated to have worked on this poem for several years before having it published. Drafts of the poem that have been found show that there was almost double what it is now. Its famous first line was not actually written until the top of the second page. It is also said that Eliot let another poet, Ezra Pound, make cuts and changes to the poem resulting in a shorter product.

-Clancy Darcy