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Mate, I just wanted to say. I must have watched hundreds of hours of videos you have uploaded and really benefitted from it. Thank you so much for taking the time to gather and upload the content. I have massively appreciated it
I have been teaching AP Literature for eight years. It all comes down to a sensitivity to language, tone, etc. and critical thinking and reading which leads, if successful, to critical writing. I’ll never retire because I get the honor of teaching Eliot, Yeats, Shakespeare, Faulkner. My students discuss the texts and I love the give and take. I know no one, including my fellow teachers, who can or want to discuss these authors
You like to give and take with your students Christopher because you know your fellow teachers are probably doing the same. It is a most definitely bottomless and extremely profound joy that not many people know about.
I teach college British and American Literature; if you would accept a morsel of instructorly advise, inspire your students to begin analytical essays with textual quotations ...
This is great! I do take issue with that academic who summarily dismisses Yeats. Yeats could never have written The Wasteland; but Elliot could never have written Among School Children. That does not mean that one was “better” than the other. They were simply different poetic geniuses with different poetic concerns.
Quite agree. Don't like Yeats on the whole but some of his poetry is of the highest order. The two poets are from two entirely different eras, meaning their style is very different, but what they say is, of course, not dissimilar. The sentiments of 'The Waste Land' are not dissimilar to those of Yeats's magnificent 'The Second Coming'. There's also his 'Easter 1916', which is the best description I've read of fanaticism, applicable to the IRA, the Neo-Cons, ISIS, and Wokeism.
Such fond memories. Our teacher made us watch this when we were 17 and studying Eliot for our A levels. Now with hindsight, nearly 30 years later, I can't help but marvel at the trust our teacher had in our capabilities and the quality of education we were fortunate enough to receive.
I truly wish I had friends who appreciated such things, someone I could discuss this with. This poem may have possibly changed my life tonight. If only I were more intelligent, how I’d love to write this well.
Hey dude! I feel you, I too wish I had friends to discuss this with... But here in the comments of this video if you want there are people who can appreciate your thoughts and you can have a good discussion with. I myself love this poem, I have discovered it just a few weeks ago and I keep going back to it in my mind during the day. So many lines are burned into my memory. I particularly love the quote:"We think about the key each in his prison" because I recognize the thoughts I have during the days and nights, looking for a way to escape the prison. If there is one.
@@binghamguevara6814 The "handful of dust" is an obvious reference to the soil thrown by mourners on a coffin once it has been lowered into the grave. But there is another reference that gives the passage a much richer meaning. If you look back to the Latin/Greek epigraph at the beginning of The Waste Land. The Sybill of Cumae was once a beautiful prophetess in the service of Apollo. Desiring her, Apollo asked her to name her wish, and she told him that she wanted to live as many years as there were particles in a handful of dust. She rejected his advances, but he granted her wish. She forgot, however, to say that she wanted perpetual youth, and over the years, she grew ever more decrepit. The lines Eliot chose are from a Latin comic novel; at an extravagant dinner party, the Sybil is referred to, now a tiny wizened creature. Some boys ask her (in Greek) what she wants now, and she replies that she wants death - further life in this state of debilitation is meaningless for her, and only a burden. Eliot may be saying, through this reference, that a life lived out in futility is a more fearful thing than death itself.
These narrators are highly educated and cultured. But I was a Kansas farm girl in the1950s when i first read Prufrock and The Wasteland, and they spoke directly to me. This, I think, is the measure of Eliot's genius. What the thunder said -- words beyond this finite world..
This was a fantastic experience! So many years later and still so relevant. Edward Fox is really superb and embodies the poem. HIs is a musical and rhythmic rendition which makes the lines luminously intelligible.
Great to hear Stephen Spender. One of his poems opening lines has become a constant mantra for me since I first read it in my early twenties - 'we must live through the time when everything hurts'
I have listened to the video many many times. It has helped me tremendously especially when I have felt low. Thank you so much. The voices of those who read certain parts of Eliot’s two poems brought them to life and I have enjoyed listening to them over and over again. I really cannot thank you enough for these beautiful experiences ❤!!!
I have listened to the video many many times. It has helped me tremendously especially when I have felt low. Thank you so much. The voices of those who read certain parts of Eliot’s two poems brought them to life and I have enjoyed listening to them over and over again. I really cannot thank you enough for these beautiful experiences ❤!!!
What a lovely programme! Thoroughly enjoyed it... Some excellent personalities here whilst Eliot is just so utterly brilliant. Full stop.... Thank you to whoever posted this gem.
I just discovered this channel and I’m grateful that the first video I’ve watched was about T.S. Eliot, one of my favorite poets. The view of humanity of “The Wasteland” seems particularly resonant during these times.
"I had not thought death had undone so many." Just an amazing line. I think of this line everyday when I watch crowds I belong to (very Whitmanesque) joining me on the subway.
Sí de verdad es un verso impresionante! Pero hay que recordar que Eliot "roba" de otros poetas, en este caso menciona uno de sus poetas favoritos, o sea Dante. Inferno III, 55-57: “si lunga tratta di gente, ch'io non avrei mai creduto che morte tanta n'avesse disfatta.”
I’m beginning to love Mr. T.S. Eliot more and more as I am ageing. It is astonishing to see the amount of rationality and thoughts Mr. Eliot was loaded with from such an early age.
Our professor of Modern English literature at the University often used to say, if you wanna know the spirit of modern English poetry, there's only one option for you, that's TS Eliot. Really, this person has combined all the knowledge he got from his studies of around the world and poured that into his poetries, especially in The Hollow Men and The Wasteland, to make these "unreal".
Wonderful presentation. I read T.S.Eliot in college, 40 years ago, together with other stuffs and the only poet from the 20th century that I still read time and again, is T.S.Eliot. The rest is gone.
I spent a summer reading and re-reading it - looking up the allusions, the snippets in other languages, the critical commentary, the context. It really does pay off with repeated reading and study. I teach it to my seniors now.
I am 71 years old and I've loved Eliot since I was a small boy. The dry Sauvages,little Gidding and others were what I loved to read in silence and at night. I always have had a deep feeling that there was prophesy among his words. There are wordlers of which I'm one and then there's Eliot
In the mid 1970's i ended up as a student at the Royal Sea Bathing Hospital Margate . It was a difficult time for me and i recall sitting in a shelter on Margate seafront ,on many occasions, contemplating life and my place in it . This was most often in winter when english coastal towns can be particularly bleak . As part of my contemplations i had started reading about Eastern Philosophy. Later on i cane to know if T S Elliott and The Wastekand and noticed the vedantic references therein . A couple of years ago i had a rae visit to Margate and discovered a Blue Plaque on that seafront shelter informing that Elliot had written some if ' The Wasteland ' there !
16:10 Vorticism 21:00 best explanation - underneath the surface exist murmerings of past poets 22:57-26:26 Game of Chess narration 27:25 Range of characters 27:31 Conversation in pub discussed 29:42 River Tent is broken 30:58 Personal life of Eliot - Marriage Unreal city 35:06 Key figure - Tiresias
Eliot needed an editor to tell him The Waste Land contained at least twice as many words as it should and to verbally if not physically slap the anti-Semite out of him.
TS Eliot is one of my very favorite poets, but I just can’t listen to him perform 😸😹❤️ Wonderful documentary, I didn’t know this existed! Thank you so much for sharing it!
He was not a good reader of his own work. Nor were Yeats or Pound. Eliot sounds like he's impersonating Churchill, while Yeats and Pound both sound insane.
Ha ha. Horse for courses. I think TSEliot himself and perhaps Alec Guinness are the only ones who know how to read Eliot's work properly. Same for EPound (after many years still remember listening to a bad recording of his reading: 'Pull down thy vanity. I say pull down.') Tom Hiddleston's rendition of Pound's 'And the days are not full enough', for example, is sincere but to my ear not good at all. Poetry is best read without adding any sense of profundity -- let the poetry speak for itself.
@@castelodeossos3947 A problem I have with Elliot's readings is that, being a poet myself and a pedant with metre, Elliot's notion of metre was democratic, in the sense he believed the reader was right when reading a poem to either pick up on it or ignore it. So when he read his work aloud he ignored his own metre. He knew what he'd intended acoustically with his lines, but didn't read them that way. To my ear, it makes for a flat reading. When I write my own poetry, I'm so fastidious that I place accents over stressed syllables, a la GM Hopkins, that I don't think some readers will pick up on, so as to avoid any confusion.
@@iainrobb2076 Believe Yeats too insisted on 'metrical reading'. Believe both types of reading can be overdone and be well done. The most disagreeable is, to me, when someone 'enacts' the poem. Actors are worst of all.
@@castelodeossos3947 Oh, I totally agree with that. It's why I can't bear most modern adaptations of Shakespeare. The actors just have to read the lines, and read them well. Instead, they read enjambed lines directly into one another, ignore all accentuation, and gibber, shriek and yell at a breakneck speed and volume, and all that comes out is an incomprehensible din. They feel they need to overact to get the point across instead of paying deference to the intentions of the poet.
As a Minnesotan, I'm pleased to see that Eliot could attract 13,700 fans to Williams Arena at the U of MN, almost as many as show up there for a basketball game.
Beautiful and prophetic. These fragments I have shored against my ruin. I will show you fear in a handful of dust. Lips that would kiss form prayers to broken stone.
This was a fascinating documentary about a poem that I have loved since I first read it at the age of 20. And the actors reading the excerpts are absolutely marvellous - especially Eileen Atkins, in my opinion, but the two men too. With one bizarre exception, in the scene on the Thames, where the Rhinemaidens are quoted: Weialala leia, Wallala leialala. Never heard anything so bizarre in my life. Could he not have listened to a recording of Rheingold, to find out how it's supposed to be pronounced?
I read a story once - maybe reported by Princess Margaret - that T S Elliot once gave a private reading of ' The Wasteland ' to the Windsors at Buckingham Palace . Now we may have cause to thank the late Queen , and her parents , for contributions to Britain , but we could never accuse them of being overly intellectual. Apparently they thought the reading hilarious and had a barely restrained fit of the giggles . I say this to point out that appreciation of poetry is a matter of sensitivity rather than ' breeding ' .
Intento comprender algo, lástima que mi inglés sea tan pobre pero la fascinación que ejerce la poesía de T S Eliot es inmensa y me "obliga" escuchar todo lo escuchable (aunque poco o nada entienda) para conocerle lo más posible!
Thank you for uploading this. It explains a lot about Eliot's insights to life during his time and his predictions for the future to come based on his experiences at the time.
So good to see these documentaries on youtube I've had them on my old video cassettes for decades and would watch them from time to time but I see you haven't got the Proust documentary which to my mind is the best one and I still have it but it's getting grainy and unclear love to see the Proust documentary on your channel.
*Thank you* for sharing this with us all! Great contributions from all involved made it a delight indeed to help further explore and celebrate that work of art.
I've met fully qualified college professors who say The Wasteland is NOT about the world after WW1. They have the stones to suggest it is more than that. Of course there are layers, it has depth, but it is a vision of life after the first, most devastating event in human history.
Poor Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead...they just panned right over the part that was immediately accessible, recognizable, and touchingly simple. I love the polyglot international references and character shifts in the poem's entirety, but that lovely short section is so universal, it seems a shame to not at least tip at hat towards it.
The only one single poem which has the status of a classic; a classic of epic proportions, I remember how e I electrified we were when this poem was taught to us by our English professor way back in the early 70s,
The riches of the poem are buried, crypticallly. Eliot once said that poetry must not be an easy experience. The reader is expected to to excavate with archaeologist intent. Eliot did not write for the common man.
Eliot was a fine poet and an important one, but there were others who didn't wear their learning on their sleeve as Eliot and Pound did. Robert Frost once said "Eliot and Pound were into bric-a-brac. They studied that." He was alluding to their allusions to works of literature that few had read, certainly not the common reader. Other poets such as Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, E.E. Cummings, Elizabeth Bishop, Marianne Moore, and many other poets. Some poets are not well-known, but their works are considered important by some who are aware of their work. Poets such as Josephine Miles, Louise Bogan, Edna St. Vincent Millay; but there are others who go unrecognized whose poetry is remarkable. Bert Meyers comes to mind as do poems by Benjamin Saltman, Ann Stanford, and a plethora of others whose poems few have read. There is much to like beyond Eliot and Pound. Is Eliot's contribution to poetry really more important than Robert Frost's poetry, or sundry others whose is far less known? A professor of mine once asked me who I thought was a fine poet. I mentioned Carl Sandburg. He replied, "Don't be so typically bucolic, Mr. Campbell." I thanked him and he said, "It was not intended as a compliment." I said, "I receive it as one, Dr. Williams, I am a bucolic." Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is one of my favorite poems, It is a strikingly beautiful original work. Personally, I prefer the poetry of William Stafford to Eliot. There are books of poems such as James Wright's "The Branch will not Break" that are lyrically stunning; Robert Francis' "The Orb Weaver" also published by Wesleyan University Press, is another collection of poems that is quite memorable. Recently, I have come to appreciate the poetry of Dana Gioia. His collected poems in his book, "99 Poems" is excellent. A poet can write great poetry and not be known. How many readers, college students among them, know Eugenio Montale's poems. How many discuss the poems of French poets Jacques Prevert or Francois Dodat; Was not Charles Baudelaire as original a poet as Eliot or Pound? One of the annoying things about such documentaries is there is so much more to appreciate than is represented here. One should also include the lyrics of songwriters such as Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Gordon Lightfoot, Leonard Cohen, Cat Stevens, and countless others. If one is honest, much of Eliot's work is enigmatic. That said, we are better having gone there.
A Dash Of Hope Sometimes I wake up Listen to the birds And my heart is glad My spirit elevated 'Oh' says a part of me An impulse crying out 'I've got to share this With my mom!' Deep down A younger me imagines He will make a call And mother will be there To answer And enjoy my good news To share our love For nature But soon A bitter scythe Cuts shorr My hope My naive daydream And I fall A thousand miles Im a split second To a place Where my mother is not To the everpresent now Where my lovely old mom No longer exists Eric Christen 2020 (Nobody Famous - a book of 150 poems dedicated to a mother)
When you read Eliot's Criticism of Shakespeare, you get the feeling he secretly felt not thought, that he could do better than the latter,at certain intervals. But of course he wasn't going to mention it.
What splendid explanation though I had this poem in my M.A couse.I found " the waste land " very difficult to understand. It is now that I have understood it a bit. Now also I find the poem abstruse. Thanks for uploading this video.
Look for "He do the police in different voices," a line from "Our Mutual Friend" by Dickens. This is apparently where Eliot got the idea and title for the original version of "The Waste Land."
Excellent, Hectic Hector humbled by Valient Achilles! From east to West the twine shall meet since it ended in peace manthra, Shanti the tender leaves🍂 have become green, yellow, brown and black to become dusty dust that's all. Sky
After listening to this documentary and reflecting for a moment on the relevance of the whole poetry game and the big gamble and importance so many poets as well as readers of it find it so compelling I suppose is this. Poetry and the poets who write poetry are determined to do it well for starters. So much time , effort and reflection goes into it. Some poets would even say that it’s not really them writing but some other force or entity has taken over them , directing them as it were to put down so many important ideas that nothing else matters than this. To do it well for after all anybody can see the importance of what they have to say. So very important. Surely we all can see this.Yes the people who write poetry are committed to doing it well. And they do do it well, writing poetry. Yes the poets and poetry they write is a task that must be done well so important are these words they have to say. Which is why the majority of poetry through out the ages is so god awful boring I wouldn’t wish it on anyone who’s concerned with a decent life. There are a few , Charles Bukowski, Robinson Jeffers who didn’t give a damn about doing it well but more concerned about getting the word down and talking and describing real life than worry about some college professor who probably needs to get laid rather than thinking that it’s really about reading a good poem that makes it all worthwhile. You need to go to a cat house and get your monkey spanked or maybe become homeless and living out of your truck while detoxing off heroin before you start describing the beauty of goats coming down the mountain trail.
Whilst I seriously sympathise with your sentiments, I find your sexual suggestions quite bizarre, clucking from heroin wouldn't help neither, I am sure you know what your mean though, thank you for your interesting comments and analysis .
I agree and similarly, as I age it is/was those moments as you describe at a cathouse or on some drug misadventure that resonate. STILL, I remember those days waking up on the floor or in the backyard of a drug den AND looking at the others spruin about who lost the same battle I did the night before and get that smell. For a moment you think this is a gnarly way to live but you have to keep moving through the others on the floor back to your truck and a slightly impaired drive home. It is those drives home that you clearly see how all the prior generations lived and dealt with their demons and realize what is important in life. ONLY to go to bed and wake up to forget that and get back to the mundane.
Hello, do you happen to know the specific recording of Beethovens 15th String Quartet that plays in the introductory and the ending segments? Or the name of the quartet that is playing?
Subtitle wrong for 6:11, 12:54 and 13:24. He doesn't say 'Pathos' but 'Bathos'. 'Pathos' would be out of place. At 21:31, PAckroyd says 'bits of Villon' (subtitled as INAUDIBLE), which is François Villon, French poet of the Late Middle Ages. Funny that the documentary doesn't mention that "He Do the Police in Different Voices" (26:35) is an allusion to Dickens's novel Our Mutual Friend, where one Sloppy says he can give to 'Mrs Higden the Police-news in different voices.'
I think Elliot was right in his ambivalence about his evolving work for both the confidence, command, and wallop of its powerhouse lines and its clang of hodgepodge associations and singsong. English is not a rhyme rich language. Repeat. Giving Elliot the benefit of his own doubts, I wish he'd had the confidence to resist Pound's meddling. If a work in progress, it had been best left at that hopefully to mature over time. The distillation encouraged by Pound devolves into both nursery rhyme and obsession bordering on the trite. The exploration of Elliot as a man savaged by inequities yields insight and compassion more valuable than the evaluation of his poetry. Art after all is at best an offering of human size. A life bears divine imprint and inspiration. For that I thank this effort most.
Thanks for posting this. He was, of course an American and I would assume that his English accent is an affectation given that he didn't move here until he was 27. It is so far back (although presumably of its time) that he's hard to follow at times. Fortunately, we've got Jeremy Iron's masterful interpretation.
He's of Anglo American heritage. Eliot spent summers in Cape Ann which has the English named Gloucester, Essex and Manchester-by-the-sea. He went to Harvard at the turn of the century. Listen to the accent of Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of President F. D. Roosevelt. The poem is a modern masterpiece. Still relevant.
@@hazelwray4184 Thanks for those points of detail Hazel - it helps explain his accent more fully. I do love the poem too, especially Jeremy Iron's reading of it.
As I walk and walk and walk You keep following my gaze Shadows like are you acting Never tire nor do you sleep ever That ray of light that bears you Has endless stories to tell of you Have you ever been to its show It invites you staying behind me Like the ancient moon I hinge Between you and the light Strange it is that without an ocean I try to hang around in the infinity Come let's create some magic Let's dance in the little sky Without a trace of cloud May be the fire will melt Crossbow like we string together In the preyless wilderness Timeless be our journey Why am I rambling frenzy words It's only a matter of infinite walks That I keep walking with or without you. SWANSH..
@@PSVVinodKumar no that's what I'm saying I dont understand this stuff. I was hoping you could tell me what you like about it or what you think it means. You don't have to be rude.
like Eliot, I heartily recommend Jessie Weston's Ritual to Romance [1920] which as Eliot said is essential to understand The Wasteland [1922], but then why'd he refuse to translate his many lines of french, latin, greek etc at the page bottoms or at the very least in his footnotes to the Wasteland?
Joseph Campbell poits this out often in many of his audio lectures! He says that was her interpretation of the Fisher King story, specifically Wolfram von Esenbach's Parzival.
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Mate, I just wanted to say. I must have watched hundreds of hours of videos you have uploaded and really benefitted from it. Thank you so much for taking the time to gather and upload the content. I have massively appreciated it
I have been teaching AP Literature for eight years. It all comes down to a sensitivity to language, tone, etc. and critical thinking and reading which leads, if successful, to critical writing. I’ll never retire because I get the honor of teaching Eliot, Yeats, Shakespeare, Faulkner. My students discuss the texts and I love the give and take. I know no one, including my fellow teachers, who can or want to discuss these authors
I'm a teacher made in the same mold... it's a bottomless and profound joy.
You like to give and take with your students Christopher because you know your fellow teachers are probably doing the same. It is a most definitely bottomless and extremely profound joy that not many people know about.
I teach college British and American Literature; if you would accept a morsel of instructorly advise, inspire your students to begin analytical essays with textual quotations ...
@@peterfrengel3964
Puck hath no bottom ...
@@MCompton-cv1ze Man is but an ass if he go about to expound this dream.
This is great! I do take issue with that academic who summarily dismisses Yeats. Yeats could never have written The Wasteland; but Elliot could never have written Among School Children. That does not mean that one was “better” than the other. They were simply different poetic geniuses with different poetic concerns.
Quite agree. Don't like Yeats on the whole but some of his poetry is of the highest order. The two poets are from two entirely different eras, meaning their style is very different, but what they say is, of course, not dissimilar. The sentiments of 'The Waste Land' are not dissimilar to those of Yeats's magnificent 'The Second Coming'. There's also his 'Easter 1916', which is the best description I've read of fanaticism, applicable to the IRA, the Neo-Cons, ISIS, and Wokeism.
Yes agreed. But always felt Eliot was the greatest of the 20th century poet
Yeats is great. Eliot is great. The academics rate Eliot higher, but beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.
@@castelodeossos3947 What is "Wokeism?"
@@richardmindemann6935& in the ear...
This is the greatest thing on RUclips.
By some margin.
Such fond memories. Our teacher made us watch this when we were 17 and studying Eliot for our A levels. Now with hindsight, nearly 30 years later, I can't help but marvel at the trust our teacher had in our capabilities and the quality of education we were fortunate enough to receive.
in the whole wasteland.
Excellent. Wonderful
Hmmm* I think the Jacob Bronowski interview on Parkinson, matches this admirably
I felt so moved watching this again after 30 years. Eliot's voice will be present there in the mountains whenever I go visit a cousin.
I truly wish I had friends who appreciated such things, someone I could discuss this with. This poem may have possibly changed my life tonight. If only I were more intelligent, how I’d love to write this well.
Hey dude! I feel you, I too wish I had friends to discuss this with... But here in the comments of this video if you want there are people who can appreciate your thoughts and you can have a good discussion with.
I myself love this poem, I have discovered it just a few weeks ago and I keep going back to it in my mind during the day. So many lines are burned into my memory.
I particularly love the quote:"We think about the key each in his prison" because I recognize the thoughts I have during the days and nights, looking for a way to escape the prison. If there is one.
Give it a go.. writing flowing words and rhyme and meter etc. Im sure you could write a poem and if you keep on at it....
Yes there are people here and everywhere that appreciate our thoughts!!!
Your prison is only a construct of your mind Andrew.
I always thought my prison to be my body and it’s limitations
_"I will show you fear in a handful of dust..."_
One of the most muscular lines of poetry I've ever read...
what does this line mean?
@@binghamguevara6814 Strength of your Mind..
Evelyn Waugh's book a Handful of Dust.
@@binghamguevara6814 Death without meaning.
@@binghamguevara6814 The "handful of dust" is an obvious reference to the soil thrown by mourners on a coffin once it has been lowered into the grave. But there is another reference that gives the passage a much richer meaning. If you look back to the Latin/Greek epigraph at the beginning of The Waste Land. The Sybill of Cumae was once a beautiful prophetess in the service of Apollo. Desiring her, Apollo asked her to name her wish, and she told him that she wanted to live as many years as there were particles in a handful of dust. She rejected his advances, but he granted her wish. She forgot, however, to say that she wanted perpetual youth, and over the years, she grew ever more decrepit. The lines Eliot chose are from a Latin comic novel; at an extravagant dinner party, the Sybil is referred to, now a tiny wizened creature. Some boys ask her (in Greek) what she wants now, and she replies that she wants death - further life in this state of debilitation is meaningless for her, and only a burden. Eliot may be saying, through this reference, that a life lived out in futility is a more fearful thing than death itself.
These narrators are highly educated and cultured. But I was a Kansas farm girl in the1950s when i first read Prufrock and The Wasteland, and they spoke directly to me. This, I think, is the measure of Eliot's genius. What the thunder said -- words beyond this finite world..
And that's the good and bad of The Wasteland. Great lines to not a great poem make.
@@jbOneEarth
Musicality without meanimg.
This was a fantastic experience! So many years later and still so relevant. Edward Fox is really superb and embodies the poem. HIs is a musical and rhythmic rendition which makes the lines luminously intelligible.
I’m in
Great to hear Stephen Spender. One of his poems opening lines has become a constant mantra for me since I first read it in my early twenties - 'we must live through the time when everything hurts'
I have listened to the video many many times. It has helped me tremendously especially when I have felt low. Thank you so much. The voices of those who read certain parts of Eliot’s two poems brought them to life and I have enjoyed listening to them over and over again. I really cannot thank you enough for these beautiful experiences ❤!!!
I have listened to the video many many times. It has helped me tremendously especially when I have felt low. Thank you so much. The voices of those who read certain parts of Eliot’s two poems brought them to life and I have enjoyed listening to them over and over again. I really cannot thank you enough for these beautiful experiences ❤!!!
"the time when everything hurts" is almost over. soon, biden and kamala will be gone, and Trump will return.
Oh, but what an immensely beautiful and most welcome surprise to greet one’s day! Thank you a million times over!
What a lovely programme! Thoroughly enjoyed it... Some excellent personalities here whilst Eliot is just so utterly brilliant. Full stop.... Thank you to whoever posted this gem.
I just discovered this channel and I’m grateful that the first video I’ve watched was about T.S. Eliot, one of my favorite poets. The view of humanity of “The Wasteland” seems particularly resonant during these times.
"I had not thought death had undone so many." Just an amazing line. I think of this line everyday when I watch crowds I belong to (very Whitmanesque) joining me on the subway.
Sí de verdad es un verso impresionante! Pero hay que recordar que Eliot "roba" de otros poetas, en este caso menciona uno de sus poetas favoritos, o sea Dante. Inferno III, 55-57:
“si lunga tratta
di gente, ch'io non avrei mai creduto
che morte tanta n'avesse disfatta.”
An allusion to Dantes inferno. So clever.
I think of that line every time I walk across London Bridge
@@weemalky
The whole poem is replete with references to other work. What an astonishing mind he must have had.
@@timwatts9371 Such as" Goodnight sweet ladies" in the pub scene. Ophelia's lines of course!
I’m beginning to love Mr. T.S. Eliot more and more as I am ageing. It is astonishing to see the amount of rationality and thoughts Mr. Eliot was loaded with from such an early age.
Our professor of Modern English literature at the University often used to say, if you wanna know the spirit of modern English poetry, there's only one option for you, that's TS Eliot.
Really, this person has combined all the knowledge he got from his studies of around the world and poured that into his poetries, especially in The Hollow Men and The Wasteland, to make these "unreal".
He was an anti semite and a religious conservative.
Wonderful presentation. I read T.S.Eliot in college, 40 years ago, together with other stuffs and the only poet from the 20th century that I still read time and again, is T.S.Eliot. The rest is gone.
@Dylan Wilde As bigmouthed of you
@@cjoe6908 ??? what does that mean?
@@SuperGuanine That was a reply to a reply now deleted by somebody I was replying to.
I barely breathed while listening to this. Wonderful!
Y breath at all
Michael Gough's reading is simply sublime
I haven’t heard that reading. Have you hear Alec Guiness’ reading?
Absolutely beautiful. I loved hearing Thomas Stearn Eliot’s voice. What a true treasure. Thank you
Stearns
I could read this poem every day for a year and still not come to its end.
I spent a summer reading and re-reading it - looking up the allusions, the snippets in other languages, the critical commentary, the context. It really does pay off with repeated reading and study. I teach it to my seniors now.
Try reading it for 30 years and never tiring of it
@@Lyndanet I will! :)
You can't get through it either, huh?
I am 71 years old and I've loved Eliot since I was a small boy. The dry Sauvages,little Gidding and others were what I loved to read in silence and at night. I always have had a deep feeling that there was prophesy among his words. There are wordlers of which I'm one and then there's Eliot
In the mid 1970's i ended up as a student at the Royal Sea Bathing Hospital Margate .
It was a difficult time for me and i recall sitting in a shelter on Margate seafront ,on many occasions, contemplating life and my place in it . This was most often in winter when english coastal towns can be particularly bleak . As part of my contemplations i had started reading about Eastern Philosophy.
Later on i cane to know if T S Elliott and The Wastekand and noticed the vedantic references therein .
A couple of years ago i had a rae visit to Margate and discovered a Blue Plaque on that seafront shelter informing that Elliot had written some if ' The Wasteland ' there !
Wonderful in every way. I especially appreciated Peter Ackroyd, as I have read some of his novels.
His book (biography) on Eliot is very good.
16:10 Vorticism
21:00 best explanation - underneath the surface exist murmerings of past poets
22:57-26:26 Game of Chess narration
27:25 Range of characters
27:31 Conversation in pub discussed
29:42 River Tent is broken
30:58 Personal life of Eliot - Marriage
Unreal city
35:06 Key figure - Tiresias
watched this again. Can watch it again and again. Timeless poem, and a wonderful documentary ..
Thak You🙏
I love this so much and couldn't thank you more for this while living in the wasteland!
Eliot is one of the most wonderful poet in the history of English Literature.
He's v great, but I'd say Shakespeare.
Eliot needed an editor to tell him The Waste Land contained at least twice as many words as it should and to verbally if not physically slap the anti-Semite out of him.
@@TedPope Interesting info. Thank you. Q. The him at the end means himself, no?
In terms of range, topics, relevance, and invention WB Yeats far exceeds TS Elliot as the greatest English language poet of the the 20th century.
@@jamesdolan4042 Yes!!
Michael Gough, Edward Fox, and Eileen Atkins were absolute treasures. Listening to them is a magnificent experience.
Such an amazing poem, Burroughs mentioned it as an example of the cut-up technique.
TS Eliot is one of my very favorite poets, but I just can’t listen to him perform 😸😹❤️
Wonderful documentary, I didn’t know this existed! Thank you so much for sharing it!
He was not a good reader of his own work. Nor were Yeats or Pound. Eliot sounds like he's impersonating Churchill, while Yeats and Pound both sound insane.
Ha ha. Horse for courses. I think TSEliot himself and perhaps Alec Guinness are the only ones who know how to read Eliot's work properly. Same for EPound (after many years still remember listening to a bad recording of his reading: 'Pull down thy vanity. I say pull down.') Tom Hiddleston's rendition of Pound's 'And the days are not full enough', for example, is sincere but to my ear not good at all. Poetry is best read without adding any sense of profundity -- let the poetry speak for itself.
@@castelodeossos3947 A problem I have with Elliot's readings is that, being a poet myself and a pedant with metre, Elliot's notion of metre was democratic, in the sense he believed the reader was right when reading a poem to either pick up on it or ignore it. So when he read his work aloud he ignored his own metre. He knew what he'd intended acoustically with his lines, but didn't read them that way. To my ear, it makes for a flat reading. When I write my own poetry, I'm so fastidious that I place accents over stressed syllables, a la GM Hopkins, that I don't think some readers will pick up on, so as to avoid any confusion.
@@iainrobb2076 Believe Yeats too insisted on 'metrical reading'. Believe both types of reading can be overdone and be well done. The most disagreeable is, to me, when someone 'enacts' the poem. Actors are worst of all.
@@castelodeossos3947 Oh, I totally agree with that. It's why I can't bear most modern adaptations of Shakespeare. The actors just have to read the lines, and read them well. Instead, they read enjambed lines directly into one another, ignore all accentuation, and gibber, shriek and yell at a breakneck speed and volume, and all that comes out is an incomprehensible din. They feel they need to overact to get the point across instead of paying deference to the intentions of the poet.
Another Fantastic Melvyn Bragg Production!
As a Minnesotan, I'm pleased to see that Eliot could attract 13,700 fans to Williams Arena at the U of MN, almost as many as show up there for a basketball game.
How do I thank, youtube, for such wonderful variety! ❤
Enjoyed this, especially the actors. Thank you for posting.
What a wonderful film, Eileen Atkins is superb too. Yes,I am very impressed with this measured piece of work.
Oh this is so powerful! To describe bleakness of spirit so well. What a genius.
Beautiful and prophetic. These fragments I have shored against my ruin. I will show you fear in a handful of dust. Lips that would kiss form prayers to broken stone.
Fantastic documentary, so glad I found it..
A wonderful document…Cannot thank you enough for making it available for our viewing….
Lots of reading Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock. Also amazing poem.
Michael Gough is sublime, his subtlety spellbinding...👍
Yes wonderful. So many good English actors other than Johnny and Larry .
This was a fascinating documentary about a poem that I have loved since I first read it at the age of 20. And the actors reading the excerpts are absolutely marvellous - especially Eileen Atkins, in my opinion, but the two men too. With one bizarre exception, in the scene on the Thames, where the Rhinemaidens are quoted: Weialala leia, Wallala leialala. Never heard anything so bizarre in my life. Could he not have listened to a recording of Rheingold, to find out how it's supposed to be pronounced?
"Fear, in a handful of dust."
A perfect line.
I read a story once - maybe reported by Princess Margaret - that T S Elliot once gave a private reading of ' The Wasteland ' to the Windsors at Buckingham Palace .
Now we may have cause to thank the late Queen , and her parents , for contributions to Britain , but we could never accuse them of being overly intellectual.
Apparently they thought the reading hilarious and had a barely restrained fit of the giggles .
I say this to point out that appreciation of poetry is a matter of sensitivity rather than ' breeding ' .
Can never get enough of Eliot’s beautiful mind
I so love the plummy RP tones of the readings.
Intento comprender algo, lástima que mi inglés sea tan pobre pero la fascinación que ejerce la poesía de T S Eliot es inmensa y me "obliga" escuchar todo lo escuchable (aunque poco o nada entienda) para conocerle lo más posible!
Escuchar poesía en su lengua original es como un mantra; aunque no entendamos sus palabras ésta obra prodigios en uno y nos da gozo inefable.
@@SheylayamGullath Te llevará tiempo entenderlo en inglés, pero la recompensa será sublime. A no desistir.
I remember this poem from 10th grade English class. So glad my school covered this work. I can't imagine that happening now.
Indeed, far too white.
Yes, they're more interested in promoting the likes of Maya Angelou, or Eminem.
I'm teaching it to my seniors at this very moment.
@@barrypenobscott9882
Absolutely.
Eileen Atkins is so young! A great reader & lovely looking. 😍
Thank you for uploading this. It explains a lot about Eliot's insights to life during his time and his predictions for the future to come based on his experiences at the time.
Wonderful! Not seen this for over 30 years.
I should have been a pair of ragged claws, scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
my mother in a nut shell
"Mutt! You mutt!" *throws food*
@@TheHorse_yes “and with a whimper I’m f****g splitting jack”
"And he meant it"
"I hear the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing for me."
So good to see these documentaries on youtube I've had them on my old video cassettes for decades and would watch them from time to time but I see you haven't got the Proust documentary which to my mind is the best one and I still have it but it's getting grainy and unclear love to see the Proust documentary on your channel.
*Thank you* for sharing this with us all! Great contributions from all involved made it a delight indeed to help further explore and celebrate that work of art.
I absolutely love your channel
I've met fully qualified college professors who say The Wasteland is NOT about the world after WW1. They have the stones to suggest it is more than that.
Of course there are layers, it has depth, but it is a vision of life after the first, most devastating event in human history.
What alternative interpretations do they offer?
@@charliewest1221 Oh dear, it was when I was in college a long time ago and i'm still bitter about the run-around I got in English Lit. 😅
@@blackbird5634
Cheers, good friend.
My Gen Z student deeply connect with "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."
They connect with this overthinking and his self-loathing.
Poor Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead...they just panned right over the part that was immediately accessible, recognizable, and touchingly simple. I love the polyglot international references and character shifts in the poem's entirety, but that lovely short section is so universal, it seems a shame to not at least tip at hat towards it.
What a masterpiece!
The only one single poem which has the status of a classic; a classic of epic proportions, I remember how e I electrified we were when this poem was taught to us by our English professor way back in the early 70s,
According to poet Craig Raine 46:04, there are three main strands in the poem: fertility myths, Christ & the resurrection, and buddhist reincarnation.
The riches of the poem are buried, crypticallly. Eliot once said that poetry must not be an easy experience. The reader is expected to to excavate with archaeologist intent. Eliot did not write for the common man.
I’m reading “From Ritual To Romance” now and this compliments.
'this complEments'?
Eliot was a fine poet and an important one, but there were others who didn't wear their learning on their sleeve as Eliot and Pound did. Robert Frost once said "Eliot and Pound were into bric-a-brac. They studied that." He was alluding to their allusions to works of literature that few had read, certainly not the common reader. Other poets such as Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, E.E. Cummings, Elizabeth Bishop, Marianne Moore, and many other poets. Some poets are not well-known, but their works are considered important by some who are aware of their work. Poets such as Josephine Miles, Louise Bogan, Edna St. Vincent Millay; but there are others who go unrecognized whose poetry is remarkable. Bert Meyers comes to mind as do poems by Benjamin Saltman, Ann Stanford, and a plethora of others whose poems few have read.
There is much to like beyond Eliot and Pound. Is Eliot's contribution to poetry really more important than Robert Frost's poetry, or sundry others whose is far less known? A professor of mine once asked me who I thought was a fine poet. I mentioned Carl Sandburg. He replied, "Don't be so typically bucolic, Mr. Campbell." I thanked him and he said, "It was not intended as a compliment." I said, "I receive it as one, Dr. Williams, I am a bucolic."
Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is one of my favorite poems, It is a strikingly beautiful original work. Personally, I prefer the poetry of William Stafford to Eliot. There are books of poems such as James Wright's "The Branch will not Break" that are lyrically stunning; Robert Francis' "The Orb Weaver" also published by Wesleyan University Press, is another collection of poems that is quite memorable.
Recently, I have come to appreciate the poetry of Dana Gioia. His collected poems in his book, "99 Poems" is excellent. A poet can write great poetry and not be known. How many readers, college students among them, know Eugenio Montale's poems. How many discuss the poems of French poets Jacques Prevert or Francois Dodat; Was not Charles Baudelaire as original a poet as Eliot or Pound? One of the annoying things about such documentaries is there is so much more to appreciate than is represented here. One should also include the lyrics of songwriters such as Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Gordon Lightfoot, Leonard Cohen, Cat Stevens, and countless others.
If one is honest, much of Eliot's work is enigmatic. That said, we are better having gone there.
A Dash Of Hope
Sometimes I wake up
Listen to the birds
And my heart is glad
My spirit elevated
'Oh' says a part of me
An impulse crying out
'I've got to share this
With my mom!'
Deep down
A younger me imagines
He will make a call
And mother will be there
To answer
And enjoy my good news
To share our love
For nature
But soon
A bitter scythe
Cuts shorr
My hope
My naive daydream
And I fall
A thousand miles
Im a split second
To a place
Where my mother is not
To the everpresent now
Where my lovely old mom
No longer exists
Eric Christen 2020
(Nobody Famous - a book of 150 poems dedicated to a mother)
Fair play to you mate,I was impressed with your words, thanks for sharing them. Keep writing and try to enjoy it too.
Beautiful. Thank you,
Eileen Atkins reading T.S is the best thing I have heard in my life. 🔥💪 And also La Muerta from Juliet Stevenson.
When you read Eliot's Criticism of Shakespeare, you get the feeling he secretly felt not thought, that he could do better than the latter,at certain intervals. But of course he wasn't going to mention it.
many times he is shakespearian esp in 4 quartets.
Wonderful presentation!
Yes, Atkins is truly great ❤
A hard read but he brings out the meaning through the sprung rhythm. Well done.
Prufrock still blows this away.
21:35 "...echoes of Villon, " For Francois Villon, XV C. french poet.
Speak again, to us, Villon.
What splendid explanation though I had this poem in my M.A couse.I found " the waste land " very difficult to understand. It is now that I have understood it a bit. Now also I find the poem abstruse.
Thanks for uploading this video.
Calculus, physics, trig, etc., can also be abstruse. They take effort to learn, and reward that effort.
Does anybody know who narrated this doc? Voice is so familiar, but I can't place it. Driving me crazy.
It is Melvyn Bragg who himself contributed much to English cultural life .
Look for "He do the police in different voices," a line from "Our Mutual Friend" by Dickens. This is apparently where Eliot got the idea and title for the original version of "The Waste Land."
Excellent, Hectic Hector humbled by Valient Achilles! From east to West the twine shall meet since it ended in peace manthra, Shanti the tender leaves🍂 have become green, yellow, brown and black to become dusty dust that's all. Sky
We did this for A level, hadnt got a clue what it was all about !
No comments because it's great poetry with fantastic metaphor allegory and beyond laymans fancy. Sky
After listening to this documentary and reflecting for a moment on the relevance of the whole poetry game and the big gamble and importance so many poets as well as readers of it find it so compelling I suppose is this. Poetry and the poets who write poetry are determined to do it well for starters. So much time , effort and reflection goes into it. Some poets would even say that it’s not really them writing but some other force or entity has taken over them , directing them as it were to put down so many important ideas that nothing else matters than this. To do it well for after all anybody can see the importance of what they have to say. So very important. Surely we all can see this.Yes the people who write poetry are committed to doing it well. And they do do it well, writing poetry. Yes the poets and poetry they write is a task that must be done well so important are these words they have to say. Which is why the majority of poetry through out the ages is so god awful boring I wouldn’t wish it on anyone who’s concerned with a decent life. There are a few , Charles Bukowski, Robinson Jeffers who didn’t give a damn about doing it well but more concerned about getting the word down and talking and describing real life than worry about some college professor who probably needs to get laid rather than thinking that it’s really about reading a good poem that makes it all worthwhile. You need to go to a cat house and get your monkey spanked or maybe become homeless and living out of your truck while detoxing off heroin before you start describing the beauty of goats coming down the mountain trail.
Whilst I seriously sympathise with your sentiments, I find your sexual suggestions quite bizarre, clucking from heroin wouldn't help neither, I am sure you know what your mean though, thank you for your interesting comments and analysis .
I agree and similarly, as I age it is/was those moments as you describe at a cathouse or on some drug misadventure that resonate. STILL, I remember those days waking up on the floor or in the backyard of a drug den AND looking at the others spruin about who lost the same battle I did the night before and get that smell. For a moment you think this is a gnarly way to live but you have to keep moving through the others on the floor back to your truck and a slightly impaired drive home. It is those drives home that you clearly see how all the prior generations lived and dealt with their demons and realize what is important in life. ONLY to go to bed and wake up to forget that and get back to the mundane.
@stephenhammel4168
Er, in paragraphs next time, please, Stephen.
Hello, do you happen to know the specific recording of Beethovens 15th String Quartet that plays in the introductory and the ending segments? Or the name of the quartet that is playing?
Subtitle wrong for 6:11, 12:54 and 13:24. He doesn't say 'Pathos' but 'Bathos'. 'Pathos' would be out of place. At 21:31, PAckroyd says 'bits of Villon' (subtitled as INAUDIBLE), which is François Villon, French poet of the Late Middle Ages. Funny that the documentary doesn't mention that "He Do the Police in Different Voices" (26:35) is an allusion to Dickens's novel Our Mutual Friend, where one Sloppy says he can give to 'Mrs Higden the Police-news in different voices.'
Great readers. Fox is utterly magnetic. Gough too. Not forgetting Eileen Atkins.
I think Elliot was right in his ambivalence about his evolving work for both the confidence, command, and wallop of its powerhouse lines and its clang of hodgepodge associations and singsong. English is not a rhyme rich language. Repeat. Giving Elliot the benefit of his own doubts, I wish he'd had the confidence to resist Pound's meddling. If a work in progress, it had been best left at that hopefully to mature over time. The distillation encouraged by Pound devolves into both nursery rhyme and obsession bordering on the trite. The exploration of Elliot as a man savaged by inequities yields insight and compassion more valuable than the evaluation of his poetry. Art after all is at best an offering of human size. A life bears divine imprint and inspiration. For that I thank this effort most.
I don't get it
Thanks for posting this. He was, of course an American and I would assume that his English accent is an affectation given that he didn't move here until he was 27. It is so far back (although presumably of its time) that he's hard to follow at times. Fortunately, we've got Jeremy Iron's masterful interpretation.
He's of Anglo American heritage. Eliot spent summers in Cape Ann which has the English named Gloucester, Essex and Manchester-by-the-sea. He went to Harvard at the turn of the century. Listen to the accent of Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of President F. D. Roosevelt.
The poem is a modern masterpiece. Still relevant.
@@hazelwray4184 Thanks for those points of detail Hazel - it helps explain his accent more fully. I do love the poem too, especially Jeremy Iron's reading of it.
It sounds very affected. Rather like Harry Enfield’s character, Mr Cholmondley-Warner
@@timwatts9371 sounds like a boston brahmin which he very much was.
@@siamcharm7904
They sound like that? Thanks for that piece of information. I’ve heard a few different readings and I thibk Alec Guiness is the best.
This is brilliant.
The greatest thing I've ever heard.
👌🏽 Beaucoup apprécié , 💓 merci , de Québec😘
Nec Plus Ultra, Merci 🙏 Johnny BikeSanook directement de la Thaïlande 🇹🇭 ruclips.net/video/fPZxJCqLzbc/видео.html
As I walk and walk and walk
You keep following my gaze
Shadows like are you acting
Never tire nor do you sleep ever
That ray of light that bears you
Has endless stories to tell of you
Have you ever been to its show
It invites you staying behind me
Like the ancient moon I hinge
Between you and the light
Strange it is that without an ocean
I try to hang around in the infinity
Come let's create some magic
Let's dance in the little sky
Without a trace of cloud
May be the fire will melt
Crossbow like we string together
In the preyless wilderness
Timeless be our journey
Why am I rambling frenzy words
It's only a matter of infinite walks
That I keep walking with or without you.
SWANSH..
What does it mean
@@Laocoon283
Please connect the video and my comment. Hope you might find a clue
@@PSVVinodKumar no that's what I'm saying I dont understand this stuff. I was hoping you could tell me what you like about it or what you think it means. You don't have to be rude.
The poem was published exactly 100 years ago in the October issue of _The Criterion_ #TheWasteLand100
Ackroyd speaks of Eliot's "music," which recalls Ackroyd's novel "English Music".
Most excellent doc.
My proffessor dr. Anand in crsu jind Haryana India read it in our class..
Very attractively
A great pleasure.
The poem with notes and editing by pound was available at one time.
like Eliot, I heartily recommend Jessie Weston's Ritual to Romance [1920] which as Eliot said is essential to understand The Wasteland [1922], but then why'd he refuse to translate his many lines of french, latin, greek etc at the page bottoms or at the very least in his footnotes to the Wasteland?
Joseph Campbell poits this out often in many of his audio lectures! He says that was her interpretation of the Fisher King story, specifically Wolfram von Esenbach's Parzival.
How I loved this Thank you
One of the best.
I saw Fiona Shaw's performance of the Waste Land at Wilton's, as close to Rat's Alley as you can get. It was very atmospheric.
And the Waste Land is just as relevant today as it was in 1922.
These fragments I have shored against my ruins
So fantastic! Brilliant!,,