The Waste Land
Thomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot
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”.
Play sample:
Product Details
| Read by: | Elizabeth Klett |
| Length: | 27 minutes |
| Type: | Solo reading |
| Media: | MP3 CD |
| Package: | Paper sleeve |
| Item No.: | CD-7004 |
| List Price: | $2.99 |
| Artwork: | Disc contains 300 dpi image files for printing |
| CD label art: | Includes both square JPG and round PNG formats |
| CD jewel case art: | Includes cover, inner insert, and J-card |
| DVD case art: | Includes wrapper for Amaray box and inner insert |
Credits
Production
Read by: Elizabeth Klett
Book Coordinator: Elizabeth Klett
Meta Coordinator: Elizabeth Klett
Artwork
Cover: Combles, Nachschubkolonne, March 1918, from the German Federal Archives Bild 104-0998
The Recordings
About MP3 Audio
This MP3 digital audiobook is duplicated on compact disc in the MP3 audio format and is designed to play on any computer. It will play on CD and DVD players that are designed with MP3 capability. The files contained in an MP3 CD can be imported and played on mobile devices such as the iPod, iPhone, iPad, Android tablets and smart phones and on PSP (Play Station Portable) and PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) devices. Your CD/DVD player or mobile device owner’s manual should specify whether the device has MP3 compatibility. If the device is not directly compatible with the MP3 Audio format, the files on the MP3 CD can be copied onto a computer drive and then played on the computer media player or transferred to a mobile device.
The Recordings
These recordings were made using the author’s original published work, which is in the public domain. The readings were recorded by members of Librivox.org, which has generously made the recordings available to the public domain. While Librivox condones the sale and distribution of these recordings, it is not associated with the management or operations of MP3 Audiobook Classics. The audio files have been lightly edited and have been engineered using professional audio tools for maximum sonic quality. We spend considerable time and effort to ensure the recordings are free of noise, equalized for maximum listener pleasure, and that tracks are leveled and normalized to provide a consistent listening experience.
Table of Contents
| 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 |
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