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Echoes of Shakespeare in T.S.Eliot’S the Waste Land

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Echoes of Shakespeare in T.S.Eliot’S the Waste Land JULISA Volume 3 Nomor 2, 2003 ECHOES OF SHAKESPEARE IN T.S.ELIOT’S THE WASTE LAND Purwarno English Department Universitas Islam Sumatera Utara, Medan e-mail: [email protected] Abstract T.S. Eliot in his works used many phrases, lines or references from previous writers either explicitly or implicitly. However, of the many phrases, the lines or references he used, the most dominant phrases are those of William Shakespeare. This article reveals that there are so many lines, phrases or references to Shakespeare's works quoted either in whole or in part by T.S. Eliot in one of his best poems entitled The Waste Land, especially the lines and phrases of Shakespeare's final drama The Tempest. Keywords: echoes, reminiscence, T.S. Eliot, Shakespeare, The Waste Land, The Tempest INTRODUCTION T.S. Eliot (1888-1965) was the most towering and allusive man of letters of the 20th century. He was a versatile genius who during his long span of productive activity achieved distinction as a poet, playwright, critic and journalist. Eliot‟s The Waste Land swings and sways with its memories of past masters among whom Shakespeare‟s is the dominant presence. His poetry marks a break from the 19th century tradition. He rejected the romantic theory that all art is basically an expression of the artist‟s personality, and that the artist should create according to the dictates of his own inner voice without owing allegiance to any outside authority. As a reaction of this subjectivism, he advocated his theory of impersonality of poetry. Eliot believes that inspiration alone cannot be safe guide. It often results in eccentricity and chaos. Some sort of guidance, some discipline, and some outside authority are necessary to save art from incoherence and emptiness. 128 Echoes of Shakespeare In T.S.Eliot‟s The Waste Land, Purwarno Eliot was a „classicist in literature‟ and one of his important contributions to literary criticism is that he paved the way for the rise of neo-classicism. Eliot, in his essay Tradition and the Individual Talent, regards the whole of European literature from Homer down to his own day as forming a single literary tradition. This tradition is not a dead one, it continues and lives in the present. A great poem or a great work of art can be possible only when the poet or the artist has a sense of this literary tradition. Eliot emphasized on the importance of historical sense. The historical sense compels a man to write not merely with his own generation in his bones, but with a feeling that the whole of the literature of a country has a simultaneous order. This historical sense is what makes a writer traditional. Eliot had a highest regard for Shakespeare, and this regard is the very reason why he has echoed Shakespeare in his poetical works. Eliot‟s classical bias appears both in his poetical and critical works. Among the voices found in Eliot‟s poetry, those of Shakespeare are the most predominant. Therefore, in order to understand Eliot better, it will be of much use to examine his indebtedness to Shakespeare, the great Elizabeth playwright. In this article, the writer searched out only on the echoes of Shakespeare in Eliot‟s The Waste Land. DISCUSSION The Waste Land (1922) is the most influential poem of the modern age and an important landmark in the history of English. It constitutes T.S.Eliot‟s most important poem, written in 433 lines and divided into five parts entitled The Burial of The Dead, A Game of Chess, The Fire Sermon, Death By Water, and What the Thunder Said. T.S. Eliot is regarded as one of the greatest English poets. His poetry marks a break from 19th century tradition. He emphasized the need of establishing a new tradition. Eliot poetry is a new kind of poetry, his technique is new, and this very novelty creates difficulties. The reader of his poetry must be well versed with the literature of Europe so that he may understand the poet‟s references found in his poems. One of the causes which contribute to make his poetry difficult arises from his borrowings on an unprecedented scale. His poetry abounds in allusions, references, quotations, and literary reminiscences which bewilder and perplex his readers. 129 JULISA Volume 3 Nomor 2, 2003 In The Waste Land, there are a number of allusions and references of different writers. Frequently a quotation is modified and altered so that it becomes very tough to identify its sources. That is why critic after critic has described The Waste Land as a very obscure poem and the chief source of difficulty is the extreme allusiveness of his style. The echoes of Shakespeare found in „The Waste Land‟ are both verbal and ideological. Helen Gardener remarks that the Shakespearean echoes apart from direct adaptation, are everywhere in The Waste Land. Some characters in The Waste Land are reminiscent of Shakespeare‟s. Eliot‟s reference to Shakespeare‟s play The Tempest form part of an atmospheric and thematic design in The Waste Land. The line from Ariel‟s song follows Madame Sosotris‟s discovery of one of the Tarot cards-that of the Phoenician sailor, Eliot writes. Those are pearls that were his eyes (The Waste Land, I, line 48, and II, line 125) The line quoted above is from Shakespeare‟s The Tempest (I, ii.)— that is Ariel‟s song to the ship-wrecked Ferdinand. The song is about the supposed drowning of Ferdinand‟s Father, Alonso: Ariel sings : Those are pearls that were his eyes: nothing of him that doth fade. But doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich and strange (The Tempest, I, ii) The supposed drowning of Alonso and Ferdinand is regarded as their purification by water, and the “sea change” suffered by Alonso typifies, from one point of view, suffering transmuted into art. Alonso is a transformed person at the end. The Lady in A Game of Chess feels nervous and frightened as she hears there is some sound or noise. She asks her lover what that noise is. The lover replies that it is the wind under the door. As the noise is heard again, the lady asks what the wind is doing under the door. The lover merely replies: 130 Echoes of Shakespeare In T.S.Eliot‟s The Waste Land, Purwarno Nothing again nothing The nervous lady then impatiently asks: You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember Nothing? The lover replies that he remembers a line from Shakespeare‟s The Tempest— that is Ariel‟s song, “Those are pearls that were his eyes”. Then the girl asks again: “Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?” In the conversation between the lady and her lover we find out that the word „nothing‟ is repeated again and again. It is repeated six times. The repetition of the word nothing is reminiscent of King Lear‟s warning to his youngest daughter, Cordelia: Cordelia : Nothing, my lord King Lear : Nothing! Cordelia : Nothing. King Lear : Nothing will come of nothing: speak again. (King Lear, I, i) Besides, there is also another passage, the conversation between the Fool and King Lear, which is worth quoting: Fool : Then „ tis like the breath of an unfee‟d Lawyer, — you gave me nothing for‟t —can you make no use of nothing, uncle? King Lear : Why, no, boy; nothing can be made out of nothing. (King Lear I, iv) Another allusion of the word „nothing‟ perhaps can be referred to the echo of Ophelia‟s modest answer to Hamlet: Hamlet : Do you think I meant country matters? Ophelia : I think nothing, my lord. 131 JULISA Volume 3 Nomor 2, 2003 Then in the third part of The Waste Land, The Fire Sermon, the second Thames daughter who feels extreme humiliation after the loss of her virginity says: I can connect Nothing with nothing (lines: 301-2) The girl feels frustrated and her life is equal to nothing. Just as nothing (O) added to nothing (O) is valueless so her life is a mere thing of naught. What the second daughter of the Thames says is also reminiscence to what King Lear says to the Fool. Lear : ………….. nothing can be made out of nothing. Lines 71-72 of The Waste Land which are the farewell of the ladies visiting one bar to an another are reminiscent of Shakespeare‟s Hamlet in which in Shakespeare‟s Hamlet we find Ophelia bids farewell to the Queen and other ladies of the castle. Therefore the pub keeper‟s farewell to the ladies visiting the pub in part two of The Waste Land, A Game of Chess, is closely the echoes of Ophelia‟s farewell. ………. Goonight Goonight. Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night. (The Waste Land lines 171-72) Ophelia: ……………….. Good night, ladies; good night, sweet ladies; good night, good night. (Hamlet, IV, v) The farewell words of the ladies in the bar do not have any tragic note. The words are merely a routine words for them before departing the bar. Vulgar talk is heard in their words. However Ophelia‟s departing words in Shakespeare‟s Hamlet impart to the whole episode an added poignancy. In other words her farewell words have certain tragic notes. Besides, Ophelia also met her “death by water” which is the same as the sub-title of The Waste Land part IV, Death by Water. Line 191 of The Waste Land: “Musing upon the king my brother‟s week” is reminiscent of Prince Ferdinand‟s words in Shakespeare‟s The Tempest Line 191 132 Echoes of Shakespeare In T.S.Eliot‟s The Waste Land, Purwarno quoted above is the protagonist‟s words in The Waste Land, Tiresias, while sitting by the waters of Leman and weeping: By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept.
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