The Waste Land is a long poem in five parts, first published in 1922. It moves quickly between voices, places and times, from a London street at dawn to ancient myth and scenes of modern city life. There is no single story or narrator. Instead, fragments of conversation, memory, song and quotation build a picture of a worn-out, spiritually dry world in the aftermath of the First World War. Themes include loss, barrenness, the hope of renewal and the difficulty of human connection. The poem is dense and allusive, and many editions include the author's notes. It is often seen as the defining work of English-language modernism.
Quotes
April is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain.
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
These fragments I have shored against my ruins
Unreal City, 60 Under the brown fog of a winter dawn, A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many, I had not thought death had undone so many.