Eliot's "The Waste Land" is perhaps an excellent example of the experimentation with poetic technique that occurred during the period encompassing the Modernist movement. Hated and adored by critics and students alike, the complexities of technique, language (or languages), subject matter, and sheer length of the work have contributed to the poem's status as a definitive example of "modernist" writing. Along with Pound, Williams, Woolf, and Joyce as well as countless others, Eliot's work clearly illustrates the modernist idea of ​​representing objects and situations as they are, not as they appear, without explanation and using previously ineffective or even new techniques. such as the almost prosaic content of the poem and the use of cultural awareness to convey the meaning of the poetry written in a stream-of-consciousness style. "The Waste Land" exemplifies experimentation with style and structure, not necessarily just for its own sake, but as a genuine step toward the advancement of a genre that, for centuries, was bound by self-constraints. -imposed meters and accepted poetic constructions. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essayThe poem is made up of 5 sections. This is not in itself a surprising new invention, but the differences between each section reveal perhaps the most fundamental of the "new" techniques employed by Eliot. The change in narrative voice and scene in each part is confusing, strange, complex, difficult to follow and revolutionary. The confusion is further compounded by changes in the narrative voice and in certain locations in the scene, in the middle of a section, or sometimes even in the middle of a line. In the very first stanza, the reader is not clear who is addressing whom. Several alternatives are presented to us; Mary speaks, describing a past conversation; Eliot addresses the reader in the last line; Eliot describes in the third person a conversation between Mary and him. The latter option seems plausible in that Eliot claims to have met and spoken with the Mary in question, Countess Marie von Wallersee-Larish of Austria, and yet each of the other interpretations still makes sense in the stream-of-consciousness context. Eliot leaves the situation open to interpretation, and this idea is echoed throughout the poem. In a way, then, Eliot challenges each reader, not to understand what he writes, but to interpret and recover what he can for himself. It was a key concept of modernism. Instead of giving his readers verses detailing his thoughts, Eliot cuts out the middleman, so to speak, and simply lays his thoughts out on a banquet table and invites the reader to help themselves. It is precisely this lack of clarity that makes the poem both fascinating and repulsive to readers. In this way, his work exudes a sort of car crash aesthetic. Although the language is beautiful, new and complex, it contains in its structure and even in its word order a sense of horror and dread for anyone who wants an easy read. Eliot makes the reader work for every bit of understanding, and it is this technique that inspires such obsessive passion for "The Waste Land", and such hatred for it. Until preliminary versions of The Waste Land were published in 1968, critical interpretation of the poem was limited to believing that the poem was a vision of society, or a view from within society, in the Britain after the Great War, a grim analysis of the future of thissociety and a pessimistic view of life, love and art in such a climate. While this interpretation is certainly still current, since 1968 examinations of the poem as a fully autobiographical work have also become accepted. It would seem that the first interpretation of the poem is much more relevant. In the modernist context with which this essay is concerned, the subsequent analysis still needs to be addressed as it is certainly a pressing question as to the extent to which The Waste Land is applicable only to Eliot's life. This notion in itself is intrinsic to the modernist techniques that Eliot uses - the use of personal impressions and perceptions to convey a message or simply exist on their own. However, as an observation of society bordering on voyeurism, it would at times seem like Eliot's aim is to illustrate the new and confusing nature of modernity. He questions social class, moral values, and sexual behavior, while addressing conflict and differences between the sexes, a theme he claims in the notes to unify using the hermaphrodite figure of Tiresias in III. The poem relates these attributes to each other and presents scenarios where they are demonstrated, for example in lines 139-172. Eliot depicts a pub scene, opened with a discussion of abortion (illustrating morality and sexual attitudes between the sexes), shot through with suggestions of infidelity (conflict of gender, sexuality and morality) and pointed references to sex. Here, then, is a satirical and pointed portrait of the “lower classes,” a microcosm that Eliot uses to construct an image, perhaps a critique, of society as a whole. The intrusion of a capital voice during the pub scene is undoubtedly a new technique. As usual, no explanation of its source or purpose is offered – that is left to the reader. It serves as both the voice of the owner, the voice of time and/or death, or the voice of a returning husband waiting for his wife to “perform her duty.” There is another vignette on pages 215-256 in The Fire Sermon, observed by none other than Teiresias himself, whose entry almost exactly halfway through the poem is surely no accident, given its importance for the unification of the poem. The sexual nature of this vignette is used to denounce the weakness of the “white-collar” middle classes, of which TS Eliot was a member – he certainly associated himself with the “hooded horde”. This particular section is uncomfortable because of its close observation and the scathing tone of Tiresias' account. Eliot's sense of unease regarding the "modern" world is evident throughout the tone of the poem. Modernism allowed him to use juxtaposition to extremes - early on he sets the tone of the poem with "April is the cruelest month". April is spring, a time of birth and renewal in the natural world, but here in this Wasteland it is recognized as the source of suffering as once born into the world, the fate of all creatures is to suffer and die. . This morbidity is created and maintained by similar images in reverse, all of which were previously impossible to justify in older poetic forms and techniques. And yet, through the confusion and conflicting descriptions and narrative styles, the poem obviously remains a single work, and each part builds on all the others to fulfill its purpose. Without a single section, the poem would have no meaning. Eliot achieves this by using references to other sections of the poem and uses the same adjectives over and over in different contexts to achieve a subconscious effect on the reader. This manipulation of..