George Williamson

The structure of "The Waste Land"

BEFORE one can approach the structure of Eliots Waste Land in its own terms; one is usually obliged by current criticism to explore the materials involved in its genesis. I shall not decline the route, but I shall take it with the knowledge that we are exploring sources, not a poem, and that we are concerned primarily with the form in which the material is borrowed, with the modifications introduced by the poet. Our purpose will be to discover what light these may cast upon the intentions of the poem.