mr eliot fragments

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The Waste Land: Mr. Eliot's "Fragments"Author(s): D. C. FowlerSource: College English, Vol. 14, No. 4 (Jan., 1953), pp. 234-235Published by: National Council of Teachers of EnglishStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/372576 .Accessed: 24/12/2013 12:53

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COLLEGE ENGLISHOLLEGE ENGLISH

especially for this unit. Each is concerneddirectly with reading: reading hygiene, fixa-tions, rate adjustment, skimming, concen-tration, comprehension, vocabulary, takingnotes, summarizing, and so forth. The stu-dents are timed each day, and they recordon a line graph their daily progress in rateand comprehension. At the end they take aretest and write an evaluation of the unit.Here are some of their comments: "This isthe first English class I have had that leavesme with a feeling of having learned some-thing new. I feel that if it weren't for thesereading exercises I could quite possibly havegone on indefinitely being a slow reader.""Before I took the series of reading exer-cises, I had never believed in fast readingbecause I was convinced that fast readingwould lower my comprehension. I waswrong.'' "Since I work and still carry aheavy program, you have no idea how im-portant it is to be able to read a chapter onlyonce and still get the idea. I have wastedmany hours re-reading when I could haveput the time to studying further." Theeulogistic comments are not surprising. Themedian score on the reading exercises rosefrom 265 to 525 words per minute; and whenstudents can see concrete improvement likethis in, of all places, an English course, theybegin to think the course might have some-thing to offer after all.

This is the kind of reading program with-in the means of every college in the country,and we would not have to struggle alongwith what Dr. William B. Benton calls "a

nation of reading cripples," if college Eng-lish departments made an honest attempt todo something about it.

WILLIAM D. BAKER

MICHIGAN TATE COLLEGE

THE WASTE LAND: MR. ELIOT'S"FRAGMENTS"

One of the most controversial passages inT. S. Eliot's The Waste Land occurs at thevery end of the poem. It will be recalled thatafter the three statements of the thunder-

especially for this unit. Each is concerneddirectly with reading: reading hygiene, fixa-tions, rate adjustment, skimming, concen-tration, comprehension, vocabulary, takingnotes, summarizing, and so forth. The stu-dents are timed each day, and they recordon a line graph their daily progress in rateand comprehension. At the end they take aretest and write an evaluation of the unit.Here are some of their comments: "This isthe first English class I have had that leavesme with a feeling of having learned some-thing new. I feel that if it weren't for thesereading exercises I could quite possibly havegone on indefinitely being a slow reader.""Before I took the series of reading exer-cises, I had never believed in fast readingbecause I was convinced that fast readingwould lower my comprehension. I waswrong.'' "Since I work and still carry aheavy program, you have no idea how im-portant it is to be able to read a chapter onlyonce and still get the idea. I have wastedmany hours re-reading when I could haveput the time to studying further." Theeulogistic comments are not surprising. Themedian score on the reading exercises rosefrom 265 to 525 words per minute; and whenstudents can see concrete improvement likethis in, of all places, an English course, theybegin to think the course might have some-thing to offer after all.

This is the kind of reading program with-in the means of every college in the country,and we would not have to struggle alongwith what Dr. William B. Benton calls "a

nation of reading cripples," if college Eng-lish departments made an honest attempt todo something about it.

WILLIAM D. BAKER

MICHIGAN TATE COLLEGE

THE WASTE LAND: MR. ELIOT'S"FRAGMENTS"

One of the most controversial passages inT. S. Eliot's The Waste Land occurs at thevery end of the poem. It will be recalled thatafter the three statements of the thunder-

Datta, Dayadhvam, Damyata-the poetconcludes as follows:

I sat upon the shoreFishing, with the arid plain behind meShall I at least set my lands n order?London Bridge is falling down falling down

falling downPoi s'ascose nelfoco che gli affinaQuando fiam uti chelidon-O swallow swallowLe Prince d'Aqzitaine ai a tour abolieThese ragments have shored against my ruinsWhy then Ile fit you. Hieronymo's mad againe.Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.

Shantih shantih shantih

Reactions to this passage range all the way

from E. M. Forster's skeptical query, "Whatdoes the scrap-heap of quotations at the endsignify?" to Cleanth Brooks's favorablejudgment, "The bundle of quotations withwhich the poem ends has a very definite re-lation to the general theme of the poem andto several of the major symbols used in thepoem" (quoted from T. S. Eliot: A SelectedCritique, ed. Leonard Unger [New York,1948], pp. 13, 342). Interest in these con-cluding lines has been especially great sinceMr. Eliot's conversion to Anglo-Catholi-cism. It has been alleged, on the one hand,that the poem exhibits no progression-thatit ends where it began-and, on the otherhand, that the poem contains promise of thesubsequent conversion.

It is not my purpose to take up this de-bate over the state of Mr. Eliot's mind asexhibited in The Waste Land. Further, Ifind myself in agreement with much of whathas been said concerning the artistic propri-ety of the closing lines (e.g., cf. George Wil-liamson, "The Structure of The WasteLand," Modern Philology, XLVII [1950],196 f., 205 f.). I wish only to suggest here anobvious interpretation of the passage, on onelevel, which to my knowledge has not hither-to been proposed.

The protagonist, here identified with theFisher King, sits on the shore fishing, withthe arid plain behind him, and asks the ques-tion: "Shall I at least set my lands in or-der?" (cf. Isaiah 38:1). What follows is, itseems to me, on one level at least, nothing

Datta, Dayadhvam, Damyata-the poetconcludes as follows:

I sat upon the shoreFishing, with the arid plain behind meShall I at least set my lands n order?London Bridge is falling down falling down

falling downPoi s'ascose nelfoco che gli affinaQuando fiam uti chelidon-O swallow swallowLe Prince d'Aqzitaine ai a tour abolieThese ragments have shored against my ruinsWhy then Ile fit you. Hieronymo's mad againe.Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.

Shantih shantih shantih

Reactions to this passage range all the way

from E. M. Forster's skeptical query, "Whatdoes the scrap-heap of quotations at the endsignify?" to Cleanth Brooks's favorablejudgment, "The bundle of quotations withwhich the poem ends has a very definite re-lation to the general theme of the poem andto several of the major symbols used in thepoem" (quoted from T. S. Eliot: A SelectedCritique, ed. Leonard Unger [New York,1948], pp. 13, 342). Interest in these con-cluding lines has been especially great sinceMr. Eliot's conversion to Anglo-Catholi-cism. It has been alleged, on the one hand,that the poem exhibits no progression-thatit ends where it began-and, on the otherhand, that the poem contains promise of thesubsequent conversion.

It is not my purpose to take up this de-bate over the state of Mr. Eliot's mind asexhibited in The Waste Land. Further, Ifind myself in agreement with much of whathas been said concerning the artistic propri-ety of the closing lines (e.g., cf. George Wil-liamson, "The Structure of The WasteLand," Modern Philology, XLVII [1950],196 f., 205 f.). I wish only to suggest here anobvious interpretation of the passage, on onelevel, which to my knowledge has not hither-to been proposed.

The protagonist, here identified with theFisher King, sits on the shore fishing, withthe arid plain behind him, and asks the ques-tion: "Shall I at least set my lands in or-der?" (cf. Isaiah 38:1). What follows is, itseems to me, on one level at least, nothing

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ROUND TABLE

more than a charm, the purpose of which isto break the spell of the waste land. The for-eign-language quotations provide the abra-cadabra element. Just as the hero of theGrail romances was expected to speak theproper words (usually in the form of a ques-tion) before the wounded king and his landcould be restored, so the protagonist in TheWaste Land, as both hero and king, utters anincantation designed to bring about the res-toration of life in himself and his environ-ment.

The potency of foreign or strange wordsin charms was considered to be great. Wit-ness, for example, the use of Latin words andphrases in the Old English charms. The met-rical charm For Unfruitful Land opens withan elaborate set of instructions (MS CottonCaligula A. vii, British Museum; my owntranslation):

Here is the remedy, how you might amendyour acres, f they will not grow well, or whereany wrongful hing s done by sorcery or witch-craft.

Take then at night, ere it dawns, our turfsfrom four sides of the land and mark how theystood before. Take then oil and honey andyeast, and milk from all the cattle that are onthat land, and part of each kind of tree thatgrows on the land except hard wood, and partof every known herb except burdock alone,and put holy water thereon, and let it dripthen thrice on the bottom of the turfs and thensay these words:

"Crescite wax, et multiplicamini and multiply,et replete and replenish, terre this earth. In

nomine patris et filii et spiritus sancti sit bene-dicti."

The charm continues with more detailed in-structions and reaches its climax in the fa-mous passage beginning with the invoca-tion:

Erce, Erce, Erce, mother of earth,May the Almighty grant, eternal Lord,Growing nd flourishing cres . .

and concludes with the instruction:

Say then three times, Crescite n nomine patris,sit benedicti. Amen and Pater noster thrice.

Of course, the Old English charm For Un-fruitful Land is quoted simply as an ex-ample. There can be no profit in searchingfor parallels n Mr. Eliot's text-such as thetriple "Amen" compared with "Shantihshantih shantih"-since details in the charmsvary widely. But it does seem to me that the"fragment" passage is best understood as acharm, and that the emotional impact of thepoem is enhanced by such an interpretation.

If this explanation is accepted, what maywe conclude about the progression of thepoem? Is the protagonist saying "Avaunt "to the horror of the waste land? My ownopinion is that the end represents a definiteadvance over the negativism of the openinglines. But Mr. Eliot's fondness for ironyprecludes any hasty dogmatism.

D. C. FOWLER

UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON

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