Track Section Length
1 Introduction to The Waste Land 0:18
2 I. The Burial of the Dead 5:08
3 II. A Game of Chess 6:07
4 III. The Fire Sermon 8:03
5 IV. Death by Fire 1:04
6 V. What the Thunder Said 6:49

Production
Book Coordinator: Elizabeth Klett
Meta Coordinator: Elizabeth Klett
Proof Listener: mb

Artwork
Cover: Combles, Nachschubkolonne, March 1918, from the German Federal Archives Bild 104-0998
Inset image: “Sunday Afternoon”, photograph of T.S. Eliot, by Lady Ottoline Morrell.
DVD insert: same as above
CD insert: same as above




The Waste Land is a long poem by T. S. Eliot is considered one of the most important poems of the 20th century. First published in 1922, The Waste Land is Eliot’s best known work and marked a significant turning point for modern poetry.  On the macro level, the poem conveys a sense of a disjointed, unreal world devastated by the Great War and populated by damaged people numbed by violence, heartbreak and trauma. The poem loosely follows the legends of the Holy Grail and the Fisher King, interwoven with vignettes of modern society. The five sections treat the overarching themes of disillusionment, despair and death from a variety of perspectives that are populated with allusions, quotations, and references to a vast range of eastern and western cultures, languages and literature. It is deliberately obtuse and difficult to follow. Frequent and abrupt shifts in time, place, character and tone add to the sense of discomfort and dissonance that underscore the themes.  Eliot had experienced a breakdown in 1921 and was treated for what we would now call depression. He was advised to take three months off from work and first went to the seaside resort of Margate, where he began the poem, and then to Lausanne, Switzerland, where he undertook therapies to help rewire his thinking. These practices corresponded with the tenets of Buddhism and Hindu philosophy he had studied at Harvard that eventually found their way into the poem, especially the last section, which Eliot said he wrote “in a trance”.


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Item Info
EAN - DVD case 0701236970005
EAN - CD jacket 0682550991610
Media MP3 CD
Package DVD Box
Author Thomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot (1888 - 1965)
Year 1922
Recording
Read by Elizabeth Klett
Length 27 minutes
Type of Reading Solo

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The Waste Land

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(SKU DB-7004) (EAN 0701236970005)
(SKU CJ-7004) (EAN 0682550991610 )
(SKU CD-7004)
(SKU DL-7004)

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