Customer Reviews

The Annotated Waste Land with Eliot's Contemporary Prose: Second Edition

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.