The Annotated Waste Land with Eliot's Contemporary Prose [Hardcover]

T. S. Eliot (Author), Lawrence Rainey (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 11, 2005 | ISBN-10: 0300097433 | ISBN-13: 978-0300097436

One of the twentieth century’s most powerful—and controversial—works, The Waste Land was published in the desolate wake of the First World War. This definitive edition of T. S. Eliot’s masterpiece presents a new and authoritative version of the poem, along with all the essays Eliot wrote as he was composing The Waste Land, seven of them never before published in book form. The volume is enriched with period photographs and a London map of locations mentioned in the poem.
Featured in the book are Lawrence Rainey’s groundbreaking account of how The Waste Land came to be composed; a history of the reactions of admirers and critics; and full annotations to the poem and Eliot’s essays. The edition transforms our understanding of one of the greatest modernist writers and the magnificent poem that became a landmark in literary history.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Eliot's own notes to his masterpiece were described by Eliot himself, as Rainey here relates, as padding that took on a life of its own as the controversies surrounding the poem took off in the '20s. That's just one of the tidbits in this terrific edition of a modernist work that retains its power to shock, as well as a high degree of allusive difficulty. Rainey's essay and notes describe the poem's genesis and printing history, and carefully-without damaging the poem's many ambiguities-elucidates most if not all of its textual knots. The setting of the poem itself follows that of Eliot's preferred edition. One still misses the now out-of-print manuscript version of the poem (complete with Pound's interventions), but for the student or for anyone who wants to get the maximum amount of information out of a foundational modernist work, this is the best available edition.
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Review

“This book will take its place as the standard edition of one of the most important documents of twentieth-century literature in English.”—Ronald Bush, Drue Heinz Professor of American Literature, Oxford University

"The Annotated Waste Land is a nearly indispensable tool for scholars and students alike. With clear, balanced, and well-written scholarship, Lawrence Rainey soothes, with knowledge, our anxiety about approaching Eliot’s famously difficult poem and allows us much easier access to the poem’s greatness. I raced through the book, cover to cover, with pleasure and profit, and I will, I’m sure, return to it frequently."—Andrew Hudgins, author of After the Lost War

"Rainey’s edition combines impressive scholarship with a readable and expert presentation of the poem and its background. Students will find it invaluable—and so will their teachers."—David Chinitz, author of T. S. Eliot and the Cultural Divide

(David Chinitz )

“This book will take its place as the standard edition of one of the most important documents of twentieth-century literature in English.”—Ronald Bush, Drue Heinz Professor of American Literature, Oxford University

(Ronald Bush )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (April 11, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300097433
• ISBN-13: 978-0300097436
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,007,905 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Thomas Stearns Eliot was born in 1888 in St. Louis, Missouri, and became a British subject in 1927. The acclaimed poet of The Waste Land, Four Quartets, and Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, among numerous other poems, prose, and works of drama, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948. T.S. Eliot died in 1965 in London, England, and is buried in Westminster Abbey.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Then spoke the thunder..., September 5, 2005

By 

Stephen F. Davids (Elk Grove, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Annotated Waste Land with Eliot's Contemporary Prose (Hardcover)

Having recently read Alfred Appel's very erudite and comprehensive annotations to "Lolita," I have to admit that Prof. Rainey's effort here is something of a mixed bag. On the plus side, he avoids the temptation to "explain" the poem to us, since this poem of voices cries out for individual interpretation. He provides extensive excerpts and quotes from the works to which Eliot alludes. Unlike Appel, however, there is scarcely any analysis of how the allusions fit into the plan and structure of the poem. Some of the claimed allusions make one scratch one's head in bewilderment and imagine Eliot grinning from the great beyond at the confusion he has caused. On the other hand, Prof. Rainey misses obvious allusions, such as the recurring "Unreal City," which echoes the short fiction of Gerard de Nerval, whose "El Desdichado" is quoted by Eliot at line 429. (Prof. Rainey appears thrown off by Eliot's own citation to Beaudelaire; Eliot deftly pulled off a simulatneous allusion to both French authors, and there is really not any discussion here of how Eliot was influenced by the French symbolists.) Also, Prof. Rainey fails to annotate other lines that appear to be allusive, or if not are deserving of commentary just for one's overall study of the poem. His introduction captures only the tiniest bit of Eliot's craft and continuing relevance, and instead spends page after page on painstaking and eventally quite uninteresting exposition on the publication history of the poem. Coming to this poem again 28 years after reading it in college, I found it still retains both its intellectual and emotional power, which is likely what makes it such an enduring masterpiece. Its exploration of melancholy is unmatched.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Poem=Great; Annotation=Weak, September 13, 2008

By 

Randall L. Wilson "Randy Wilson" (San Francisco) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Annotated Waste Land with Eliot's Contemporary Prose: Second Edition (Paperback)

I'm dividing my review into two parts. The first addresses the poem and the second the annotations. My stars are for the poem. If I could give stars for the annotation, I would give no more than two.

My thoughts and comments about Waste Land are evolving. I've read the poem several times and have even copied it in my own scribble word for word. Do I love it? No. Do I understand it? Not so much. But I believe that it is a blueprint to modernism. That Eliot along with Joyce produced modernist guides that unfortunately weren't used to produce great successive work. Modernism became more about being new in a gimmicky way rather than in the profoundly reverential and insightful way that Joyce and Eliot suggested. Reverential; why is that important to modernism? Because it grounds the breaking of barriers, the leaps of faith and taste beyond mainstream norms within the very expansive and rich human artistic tradition. That way this treasure trove of wonders builds on itself, encompasses more of what make our artistic endeavors endure. If modernism is all about smashing the traditions then where does it go after all the smashing? I think we know the answer as our own times show a lack of cultural energy and direction. What both Joyce and Elliot did was create masterworks that referred, incorporated and expanded upon artistic legacies and exploded them. This tension between tradition and heresy is what makes their work so important. That and the fact that they brought both of those elements together to create works of astonishing imaginative power. Were their creations simply too much for their generations and future ones to comprehend? Did they dazzle and numb when they should have emboldened and prodded? Perhaps but I think that they still stand as the beacons of the modernist tradition that will live on and perhaps point the way to an invigorated and astonishing artistic tradition to come.

My feelings about Mr. Rainey's annotations are strongly negative. For example, where Eliot points to Baudelaire's poem regarding the last line in the "Burial of the Dead" Mr. Rainey provides the text of the entire poem (in both the original French and the translated English) but no where does he provide an insight to why Eliot would end this section with such a challenging line, "Hypocrite reader! - You!- My twin! - My brother!" This is typical of his annotations. Another line by line guide, B.C. Southam's "A guide to the selected poems of T.S. Elliot," looks at that same line and rather than provide the entire "Les Fluers du Mal", he explains that both poem are afflicted with a sense of "spiritual dissatisfaction." This is an example of an insight Mr. Rainey never provides. After reading "Waste Land" and the fifty one pages of annotation, I only feel burdened by his references not enlightened by them.