T.S. Eliot and The Waste Land
T.S. Eliot and The Waste Land
MEG-1 Block 9- Modernist Poet - T.S. Eliot - The Wasteland Unit 45-47
UNIT 47-
Thomas Steams Eliot (1 888-1 965), was an American who made England
his home, and left behind him a wealth of literary works in prose, poetry and drama.
T.S. Eliot was born on 26 September 1888 in St. Louis, a large industrial city in the Missouri State of the U.S,A. His Calvinist (Puritan Christian) ancestor emigrated in 1667 from East Coker, a village in Somersetshire, England, to settle in a colony of New England on the eastern coast North America. Eliot's and father, W.G. Eliot moved in 1834 from Boston to St. Louis, and established the first Unitarian church there. A leading philanthropist of his time, he also founded Washington University. T. S. Eliot was the seventh and youngest child of Henry Ware Eliot and Charlotte Champe Stearns,
At school, his favourite writers were Byron, Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe, R.L. Stevenson, Conan Doyle, Swinburne and D.G. Rossetti. Eliot's Family tradition took him to the University of Hanrard, where he spent four years in the study of philosophy. It was at Harvard that Eliot, for the first time, read some works of Baudelaire, the French poet, in whom he discovered poetical possibilities that he had not found in any of the English poets.
After getting his M.A. degree in 1910, Eliot went to Paris for a year to study French literature and philosophy.On his return to Harvard, Eliot registered himself as a graduate student in philosophy since he intended to pursue philosophy as an academic career. He also studied Sanskrit, Pali and Indian philosophy. The Bhagavad Gita was one of the Indian classical texts that he studied with interest. He learnt about Buddhism, the influence of which remained with him for many years. The concluding section of The 'Waste Land' shows the shadow of Indian spiritual thought on Eliot's poetic sensibility. For a short while, Eliot studied in Germany, and later went to Oxford. Spending the years of the First World War (1914-18) in England, he married Vivien Haigh-Wood in June, 1915. Though he went on a short visit to America to see his family, he had made up his mind to settle down in England, At first, he worked as a schoolmaster, but in 1917 he gave up that job at the Lloyd's Bank in London, where he worked for eight years. Around this time, Eliot's poems began to appear, first in magazines and journals, and later in small volumes.
thk publication of The Waste Land, in 1922, that Eliot came to be recognised as a leading light of English poetry in the period following the Great War. Giving up his bank job in 1925, Eliot joined a newly formed publishing house, which later came to be known as Faber and Faber. Two years later, he gave up the Calvinist faith and joined the Church of England. This was not due to a sudden change of mind but the culmination of a long process, which coincided with his becoming a British citizen. He declared in the preface to a book of essays that he was a classicist in literature, a royalist in-politics and an Anglo-Catholic in religion. This statement caused a flutter in the English literary circles where such firm beliefs were not publicly expressed.
Eliot's first wife, Vivien, died in'1948 after a prolonged mental illness. Nine years later, he married his secretary, Valerie Fletcher, much to the disappointment of his friend, Emily Hale, whom he had known and corresponded with for more than forty years.
After a severe illness in the winter of 1962-63, Eliot's health gradually deteriorated. He died on 4 January 1965. Buried at t the Westminster Abbey in London
Work -
The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism (1933) and After Strange Gods (1934). The Waste Land, in 1922, Prufiock and Other Observations was published in 19 17, and The Sacred Wood, a book of essays, in 1920. Four Quartets (1943) - 4 parts - 'Burnt Norton', 'East,Coker, 'The Dry Salvages' and 'Little Gidding.' He was commissioned to write Murder in the Cathedral for the Canterbury Festival of 1935. Its publication was followed by that of The Family Reunion (1939), The Cocktail Party (1 949), The Confidential Clerk (1953) and Kke Elder Statesman (1 958).
' Prufrock and Other Observations (1917) was his first published poetic work, and The Sacred Wood (1 920) the first book of critical essays. With the appearance of The Waste Land (1922), Eliot came to be recognised as an English poet of great promise.
Awards - He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948 and the Medal of Freedom (the highest American civilian honour) in 1964.
After a severe illness in the winter of 1962-63, Eliot's health gradually deteriorated. He died on 4 January 1965. Among the distinguished mourners at the Westminster Abbey in London was his mentor, Ezra Pound, who told the gathering that the best tribute to Eliot would be to read his works.
THE WASTE LAND : ITS THEME AND ART
a. The wasteland of religion, where there are but no water;
b. the wasteland af spirit, where all moral springs have dried up; and
c. the wasteland of the reproductive instinct, sex has become a means of physical satisfaction rather than a source of regeneration.
The poet communicates to the reader his own sense of anarchy and fertility that he finds everywhere in the contemporary world. He has no intention of expressing the 'disillusionment of an entire generation.'
It consists of five parts:
l. 'The Burial of the Dead',
11. 'A Game of Chess',
111. 'The Fire Sermon';
IV. "Death by Water' and
V. 'What the Thunder said'.
Through all the five sections of 'The Waste Land', Eliot explores, at . some length, the variations of this paradoxical theme. Along with this, he presents through his poetic art the wonderful trinity of religion, culture and sex. A combined ideal of the three concepts taken together ought to be the common goal of humanity, but, since these human impulses tend to work in bolation, we have the resulting corruption of the European civilization. Perhaps-the Orient (Eastern World) could provide an alternative, and that is how 'The Waste Land' ends on a message of charity, hope and peace from the Hindu Upanishads.
'The Waste Land' is mainly concerned with the theme of barrenness in the mythical wasteland of the twentieth century. The land having lost its fertility, nothing useful can grow in it; the animals and crops have forgotten the true significance of their reproductive function, which was meant to rejuvenate the land. The negative condition of the land is closely related to that of its lord, the Fisher King, who too, through illness and maiming (some kind of hurt), has lost his procreative power. There is some curse on the land and its master, and this could be removed only by a concerted effort at spiritual regeneration
One of the themes of The Waste Land is also death; 'Death by Water' being only one aspect of it. The poem deals with the contrast of 'two kinds of life and two kinds of death': Death In-Life and Life-in-Death.
WRITING AND PUBLICATION
The poem was mostly written in 1921, when Eliot was under great strain. to a breakdown suffered by his wife, Vivien. At that time, he was himself feeling mentally exhausted.
Fragments kept appearing in his Magazine Criterion in 1922 in october
American version came in November
British version in 1923
French version in 1947
Eliot's drought of it as a 'series of poems', Pound persuaded him that the poem should appear as a single sequence. Reading the five parts together is more effective in understanding what the poet says.
Ezra Pound suggested shortening of the poem
From 200 to 132 (The 5 Sermon)
III-The Fire Sermon
IV, 'Death by Water
The poem was mostly written in England and Switzerland; it was revised and edited by Ezra Pound, Eliot's friend and mentor.
The Form of the Poem
He writes a long poem only for the purpose of expressing a variety of moods. This requires the bringing together of a number of different moods and themes, which could either be related in themselves or in the mind of the poet, who can visualize and combine together the diverse elements, According to Eliot, the parts of a poem taken together form a whole which is more than the sum of the parts, and the pleasure that one gets from reading a part is enhanced by his grasp of the whole. This is what he means by the poetic unity of a work of literary art
The five parts are interwoven and linked together through cross-references and echoes of one or several occurring in the others. Through recurrence of images, figures, rhythms and lines, there are constant that what we are reading is basically one long poem, and not a disjointed group of five.
The Poet's Vision
Eliot's wasteland is the European scene immediately after the end of the First World War.
Consequently, his poem presents a horrifying vision of the inodem world. It is linked to the popular myth of the Fisher King who became impotent through sickness, and whose lands were devastated by barrenness. The location of 'The Waste Land' is a place where the people, surprisingly, pray for winter but not for spring, since all normal values are topsy-tuny in that land. The Tarot pack of cards, once used for prophesying important events, is reduced in the hands of Madame Sosostris the 'famous clairvoyants' into an instrument of ordinary fortune telling. It is significant that she is not able to find in her pack the card of the 'Hanged Man' representing some hanged god (or even Christ on the cross), a symbol of redemption, life and fertility. This is another symbolic indication of the arid desert into which the green earth is transformed in the poet's vision. Another picture of corruption is seen in the second part of the poem, 'A Game of Chess'. Shakespeare's Cleopatra (Queen of Egypt) amidst her affluence and wealth once again depicts the lot of the modern man of the twentieth century. The grand works of classical art no longer sustain him in his search for ideal attainments. The rape of Philomel's virginity the metaphorically repeated in Eliot's wasteland, a perverse act which is the result of a combination of man's scientific temper with his spiritual dryness. In 'The Fire Sermon', the third part of 'The Waste Land', we encounter Tiresias, the blind visionary, who pronounces his judgement upon the existing relationship between modern men and women. According to him, this very significant and vital natural relationship is reduced to a meaningless physical ritual. Even Cleopatra, that great romantic figure of ancient history, is degenerated into a psychiatric patient who needs counsel and help. What Tiresias and all other characters in Eliot's poem see is the poet's vision of the futility of human behaviour in a social context. The only positive picture is that of the Hyacinth Girl, but the flowers she carries are doomed to decay in the fog and rain. This part of the poem ends with reference to quotations from the teachings of two visionaries, the Buddha of the East and St. Augustine (a Christian saint) of the West - and they are commenting on the physical aspect of love between man and woman. Both religious philosophers significantly use the imagery of fire to convey their impression of lust. On this point, the wisdom of the East and West somehow arrives at the same conclusion. 'Death by Water', the fourth part of The Waste Land contains some pictures of death by drowning and comments on the decay of youth into old age. The world is a whirlpool that draws high and low, rich and poor, Christian and Jew, into its destructive vortex, as there is no permanence of human endeavour. The fifth and last part of the poem, 'What the Thunder said', begins the journey over the desert to the Perilous Castle, which is connected with the legendary quest (search) for the Holy Grail. The voice of Prajapati (Brarnha) in the Upanishad follows in the form of thunder; 'Datta, Dayadhvam, Damyata1- give, sympathise, control.
Several Speakers in the poem which sometimes gets confusing.It is hard to separate 'I' from 'you' of several narrators projecting the different points of view of the poet. The female voices, though, speak freely of their loneliness and fear. The most significant voice in the poem is that of Tiresias, who provides the link among the five parts of 'The Waste Land'.
He manifests the recurring image of women as victims in The Waste Land. The objects of Eliot's irony are not only women in general, but also the meaningless man-woman relationships
the pack of Tarot cards as a symbolic structural device
uses ritualistic and mythic allusions
The first line of The Waste Land, April is the cruellest month ...' is an inversion of the popular myth that April is a time of warmth, love and joy. Winter is a symbol of spiritual decay, of an animalistic life that involves merely eating, sleeping and breeding, which they seem to prefer to a meaningful life of spirituality and thought.
In this city, men and women are ghostly figures without a vital social life; they have no permanent moral values, only pretensions and make belief. The crowds flowing over London Bridge, every day, morning and evening, are not independent human beings, but the slavish victims of a mechanical way of life, bereft of the vitality of real living. The planting of a corpse in the modern wasteland is not a sacred ritual but its antithesis comparable to the action of a dog first burying and then digging up a bone. The dog digs up the bone in order to prevent it from blossoming into new life. It is obvious that Eliot deliberately uses symbolic and mythical imagery and literary allusions for expressing his deeply thought out meaning drough a well -ordered artistic pattern, which is his poem, 'The Waste Land'.
Eliot's poem ends on a note of peace: 'Shanti, shantih, shantih'.
UNIT - 46
THE WASTE LAND: 1. THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD
Read the poem here- (All 5 Parts)
Eliot quotes his favourite writers to himself in the poems
Multiple layers of meanings
Problem of time - Past present future as past can determine our present.
Glossary and description in IGNOU books
A GAME OF CHESS
The title of this part of The Waste Land is taken from a play called A Game of chess by the English dramatist, Thomas Middleton(l580 - 1627). another play by Middleton, a young woman is being seduced in the background of the stage even as a game of chess is in progress in the foreground. By choosing the title of this part of his poem, Eliot is suggesting that the relationships of men and women, as shown here, are like the moves and countermoves in a subtle game of chess, both parties trying to overcome each other.
The peculiar expression 'Jug Jug' is both the bird's song as well as a rude joking reference to the act of sexual union, the purity of the one being contrasted by Eliot with the vulgarity of the other interpretation. Through Philomel, the poet projects the internal image of women as victims in a male-dominated world. But as the scene unfolds, the society lady at the dressing table is revealed to be an exploiting seductress rather than an innocent victim, the sound of foot-steps on the stairs are of her approaching lover who now joins her. The one sided conversation that follows exposes the shallow values and priorities of such men and women caught up in the social whirl of modem times. Lines Ill - 126 : The woman of this satiric episode is in a nervous mood, and would like to be entertained through a bit of light- hearted and frivolous conversation. But her man is not drawn into the amusing dialogue since he is in a pensive (thoughtful) mood. He is thinking of the fragility of life in the slum and what follows after death. 'Nothing again nothing'
Lil is women about the return after war of Albert, her soldier husband, while her unnamed friend wants her to take better care of herself before she welcomes back the man of the house. The experienced friend goes to the extent of advising Lil to order a new set of teeth (dentures) so as to look more attractive to her husband who has already paid her to fix the dentures. The soldiers all over the world, when they return home from war, look forward to having a 'good time' with their wives or girl friends, and that includes plenty of sex. If the women do not provide that kind of relaxing entertainment, the men will naturally look for it somewhere else. As Lil looks accusingly at her wise and experienced friend, the latter advises her to take good care of Albert for her own sake. After all, why should Lil look old at just thirty one. Perhaps it is due to the pills she took to bring off an abortion having already aborted five times. She knows the pills have had a bad effect on her in spite of the assurances of the chemist from whom she bought the medicine. The friend is at a loss to understand why Lit married if she did not want children. When Albert finally returns home on a Sunday, Lil invites her friend to dinner to celebrate the occasion, and she serves special dishes made out of pork (pig's meat). As the pub closes for the day, the women bid farewell to each other, all others present wishing a good night to everybody else. There is a touch of sadness of parting that colours the farewell at the pub.
UNIT 47 T.S. ELIOT : THE WASTE LAND (111)
III THE FIRE SERMON
The title of the third part of The Waste Land is taken from the Fire Sermon preached by Gautam Buddha (563BC-483BC) to convince his followers, the Buddhists, of the negative and evil influence on the human mind of the fires of lust, passion, infatuation and hatred.
This opening passage of the third part of The Waste Land provides some visual images of the River Thames in autumn. The leafy branches of the trees on the river bank provide a tent-like shelter in summer. But, at the present time, the leaves that resemble hands with fingers have fallen down on the wet earth, and there is no shelter. The cold wind blows across the land without the noisy flutter of the leaves. The pretty young girls are gone away. Line 176, 'Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song', recalls the refrain of Edmund Spenser's 'Prothalamion.' There is no evidence of the picnics and parties held on the river bank on the summer nights-none of the debris (left overs) that people generally leave behind on such occasions. The sons of the directors of the companies situated in the City part of London, the boy friends of the 'gone away' girls too have departed from the scene. They have not left their addresses by which they could be traced. Line 182 is an echo of the psalmist's lament, when he recalls the longing of the Jews for their homeland during their exile in biblical Babylonia : "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion (Israel)! The biblical associations of the line evoke the poet's feelings of despair and alienation from contemporary life of the early twentieth century. Lines 185-6 are an ironic variation on the theme of 'To His Coy Mistress' by Andrew Marvell, the seventeenth century English metaphysical poet: But at my back 1 always hear Time's winged chariot hurrying near. This sad image of death is the very opposite of Spenser's lyricism. Eliot suggests death as a human skeleton with the naked jaws spread to their extreme limits in a gesture of ominous laughter. Lines 187-202 This second passage presents a contrasting picture of the River Thames. The persona or speaker of these lines ironically identifies himself with the Fisher King of the legend. The image of the slimy rat dragging itself through the bushes on the bank is an ugly picture providing a contrast to the earlier bright images of the river. The persona identifies himself with Prince Ferdinand of Naples in The Tempest of Shakespeare, mourning the reported death by drowning of his father. This obsession with the naked realism of the images connected with death are opposed to the renewal of life in the fertility myths.
Lines 207-14 Lines 215-27 Lines 228-48 Lines 249-56 The first two lines consist of sounds made by birds like sparrows and nightingales. And, then there is repetition of a phrase that, obviously, refers to the rape of Philomela by her sister's husband, King Tereus. Hence the single word "Tereu'' which concludes this passage. The 'Unreal City' could be any city in Europe, America or Asia. It is a ghost city-hence unreal-where the passing crowd and life in general are hidden under the fog of a winter noon. Eugenides, the merchant from western Turkey, is ironically associated with the Fool in the Tarot cards. Eliot once admitted that, while working in a bank in the City, he was invited by an unshaven man from Smyma with currants in his pockets. Also, in any business transaction, the documents of ownership and transport would be handed over to the purchaser in exchange for a bank draft payable at night. At the time of sunset, when the western sky bears a violet colour, the clerks of the banks and offices in the City stand up and stretch their backs as a gesture of realization (after a whole day spent working at the desk). Their bodies are like taxi-engines idling at the side of the road, waiting for a customer. At that very hour, Tiresias (the blind prophet of ancient Greece), who lives between the two fives of a male and female, and whose breasts are shrinking in old age, has a vision of what life brings to each man and woman as reward for their daily labour. That is the time when the sailor comes home from the sea. The typist returns home from office at tea-time, clears the dishes from the dining table and makes preparations for the dinner. Her undergarments, touched by the last rays of the sun, are hanging dangerously out of the windows. On the divan, which serves as her bed at night, are spread all the various items of her clothes of daily use. Tiresias foresees the scene that follows and makes a prophecy for the future. Like the London typist, he too waits for the visitor expected by her. Finally, the young man with a disfigured face, arrives at the typist's flat. He is no hero, only an ordinary house-agent's clerk, but his self-assurance is as high as that of a rich industrialist from Bradford in North England. The clerk imagines that the typist must have finished her dinner, and must be feeling tries and bored. Hence, she would be in a receptive mood to love-making. He tried his best to arouse her passion by caressing her, but she remains unresponsive. Finally being himself sexually aroused, he assaults her without any resistance from her. He is so egotistical and selfish that he does not expect a response from her, and regards her indifference as a welcome to his advances. Tiresias, the eternal witness of Theaves in ancient Greece, has undergone the suffering and pain of the typist centuries ago, in anticipation of the events to come. He has given company to the lowest among the dead, and he watches ineffectually while the clerk gives a parting kiss to the typist before finding his way down by the darkly lit stairs. The typist has hardly noticed the departure of her lover. She looks at her reflection in the mirror, and feels relieved that the prearranged sexual encounter is over.
The Thames daughters complain that the surface of the river is covered with oil and tar; the flat-bottomed freight-carrying boats have to shift position between the high and low tides of the sea, the widespread red sails change direction with the tide while hanging by the central poles of the barges that push floating logs of wood down the river towards Greenwich and the Isle of Dogs. The two lines that conclude this passage are the lament of the Rhine maidens of Wagner.
What follows in this passage is the song of the three Themes daughters. The first speaks of the boring trams and dusty trees of Highbury in North London. The riverside districts of Richmond and Kew do not please her either. Floating down near Richmond she raises her knees, lying on her back on the floor of a narrow boat. This action is obviously meant for the convenience of the lover accompanying her in the boat. TW-second girl says that she had her encounter in the poor quarter (area) of Moorgate. At that time, her heart was virtually under her feet because of the sexual excitement she experienced. After the encounter, her lover feels sorry and cries out of remorse. He promises to behave property in future, a remark on which she makes no comment. Being practical-minded, she knows there is no reason for her to resent the physical union that she and her lover enjoyed together. The third Thames daughter declares on Margate Sands, a seaside resort on the Thames in Kent, that she finds it difficult to connect different things together. She ponders over the broken fingernails of her dirty hands (which is a hint of her low working class origin in society.
IV DEATH BY WATER
'Death by Water' is a revised version of the last seven lines of a French poem, 'Dails le Restaurant', that Eliot wrote in May-June, 1981. This par1 of Tlze Waste Land refers to the various associated connections of water with mortality and the theme of death by drowning. It has links with the drowned god of the fertility cults, the shipwreck in The Tempest of Shakespeare, and with the death of Ophelia in Hamlet.
Mr. Eugenides, the Smyrna merchant of line 209 in part 111. Since he is already dead, there is no question of remembering the cry of the sea gulls, the movement of the deep sea, and any matters concerning profit and loss, which were his everyday business while he was alive. An undersea current gently disturbs the bones of Phlebas. His bones rise and fall suggesting the different stages of his youth and old age while he was living. Lines 3 15-1 6 recall Alonso's words in The Tempest, where he thinks that his son, Ferdinand, is perhaps dead. The narrator of the poem next addresses the pilot (of a hypothetical ship) who turns the wheel that controls the direction of the ship. The pilot is asked to ponder over the fate of Phlebas who was once handsome and tall like the former. The phrase, 'Gentile or Jew', is an evocation to all mankind, of non-Jewish or Jewish origins. 'The wheel' could also be taken as the wheel of fortune in the Tarot pack. The last line in this passage has a link with Philebus, a dialogue of Plato (Greek philosopher of 5th century BC). There Socrates, the Greek philosopher and teacher of Plato, refers to 'People who think themselves taller and more handsome and physically finer .... than they really are'. In saying so, Socrates is actually commenting on self-deception.
V. WHAT THE THUNDER SAID
In the first section of part V, three themes are introduced: the journey to Emmaus (a village near Jerusalem), the approach to the Chapel Perilous, the present decay of Eastern Europe. The story of the journey to Emmaus occurs in the New Treatment, Luke XXIV, 13-3 1. Two disciples of Jesus Christ were travelling on the road to the village after his crucifixion and discussing the events of the past few days. Christ, just risen from the grave, joins them and explains to them how his death and resurrection were in full accord with the divine plan. The disciples do not recognise Christ until he blesses their evening meal, and then he disappears from the scone. The approach to the Chapel Perilous is the final stage of the quest for the Holy Grail1 (the cup used by Christ at his last supper with his disciples). The decay of Eastern Europe is a reference to the Red (communist) Revolution of Russia under the Czars in November 19 17, with the refugees fleeing to West Europe. None of these themes is resolved in 'pat the Thunder said', the three journeys merge here but remain inconclusive.
On the day of Christ's crucifixion, there was a terrible earthquake. His death meant a kind of universal death for all. 'Patience' of line 30 is the key-word in this passage since it signifies the suffering of the living humanity after Christ was no more. It also denotes the agony of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of mankind.
There is no water in this land, only rocks and a winding sandly road which goes up among the dry and bare mountains. If only there were water, the travellers on the road would gladly stop to drink. But, for want of that, they can neither stop to rest nor think of what to do. The heat of the sand underfoot dries their sweat. The rock is like the cavity-filled mouth of the mountain that does not spit (or yield) any water. This is no place to rest and refresh oneself. The dry mountains are not silent but echoing with the sound of rainless thunder. There is not even the solace of solitude, since the ominous faces of the dwellers of this wasteland glare at the pedestrian travellers from the doors of cracked mud-houses.
There is an empty place of worship, without doors and windows. The wind comes and goes through it as it likes. But in this deserted small gap in the mountains, the grass is singing over a graveyard in the faint moonlight. The dry bones of the graves can cause no harm. A cock stands on the roof tree of the chapel, crowing, 'Co co rico co co rico' in the flash of lightning. Soon after a damp gust of wind brings welcome rain. The cock is connected with the betrayal of Christ. After his arrest by the soldiers of Pilate, the Roman governor of Palestine, one of his first disciples, Peter, thrice denies that he knows him. The cock crows after the third denial. Peter then remembers what his master had previously said to him, 'Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice.'
e, At that time, the thunder in terms of the message of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad V, 2. The threefold offspring of Brahma, the Creator in Hindu mythology, i.e., men, gods and demons, approach him after finishing their formal education. To each group, he says only one syllable, 'DA', and they interpret it according to their separate ways of thinking. The men interpret it as datta, which means 'to give'? The demons interpret it as dayadhvam, which means 'to be compassionate'. The gods interpret it as damyata which refers 'to control oneself. When the three groups express what they understand by 'DA', Brahma responds with Om, which signifies that they have understood him. The thunder in heaven repeats that very message. DA, DA, DA, i,e., give to the needy, be compassionate, exercise self-control. One should practise this very three-fold advice
The ending of The Waste Land of T.S. Eliot is marked by a sense of uncertainty. It has been suggested that the last line, which is a triple repetition of the Sanskrit word 'Shantih', invokes 'the peace of God, which passeth all understanding. 'To Eliot it means a moment of exhaustion after the hard endeavour of writing the poem. It also expresses a longing for peace, appeasement, absolution, and something close to total destruction which in itself is indescribable.
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