“THE WASTE LAND” AS A POETIC ATTEMPT TO UNIFY COMPETING REALITIES

Abstract

The article attempts to establish the relation between the possibly most contested topic of the modern art
that of the insecurity about the way reality appears to us and its artistic and philosophical explication in the poetry and critical work of T. S. Eliot. Although the motive of the questionable reality that surrounds our mundane life is present in most of his poetry, The Waste Land stands as a pivotal attempt to tackle the confusing sense of the possibility of the unreality of the world that has been bothering modern men ever since. In that respect, The Waste Land by dramatizing the anxiety of the whole civilization effectively offers a transcendental insight into the way the reader should organize his experience of the world. What has started as a result of his nervous breakdown turned out to become the most valuable poem of the age. Reflecting on the influential philosophy of F. H. Bradley, the latest discoveries of the quantum physics and the revolution of the artistic expression before the WWI, the poem brilliantly exposes the dilemmas of the age and provides precious insights into the reality of our association with the world. The poetic work in this respect acts as a tool that amalgamates competing realities in a form of an imposed multi
perspective unity. In the end, in conjunction with the experience of the myth, art allows us to see what others cannot see: a position of clarity, a fourth dimensional look as Bradley puts it. Still the question remains: is the price to know the substance of the world equals the risk of losing your substance as a subject who know?