Horan 1

Kendall Horan
Carrie Matthews
English 297
11 December 2014
Reaction Rather Than Revolution
T.S. Eliots The Waste Land, written in 1921, has long spurred discussion on the impact
of war, namely the Great War, the First World War, on society. Michael Levensons Does The
Waste Land have a Politics? and David Roessels Mr. Eugenides, the Smyrna Merchant, and
Post-War Politics in The Waste Land present parallel looks at how Eliots poem in tandem with
outside texts, occurrences, and popular opinion speak to the disintegration of empire in a
roiling capitol of peace. However, this approach is a more active, composite approach than
inherently needed when reading The Waste Land. Eliots The Waste Land may be read as a
singular reaction to post-war society, or more so a stand-alone presentation of the stunted nature
of it. By this reading, there is not a political agenda insofar as a call to action, but rather an
admonishment of the state of things, an ironic reflection on the degradation of society. Eliot is
not, like his peer Jessie Pope, looking to spur a revolution, but rather mourning the loss of culture
and human connection and speaking on a higher level of how it may never be recovered.
Through tone authorial and that of the many voices and the use of his many characters and
overabundant allusions, Eliot presents an averse and melancholic, though no less critical,
reaction to modernity in 1921 rather than attempting to incite any real change.
Though his characters are flat, two-dimensional beings with one-sided opinions and
limited knowledge of even the topics they are discussing, Eliot displays mastery of a multicultured literary canon, the juxtaposition of which attests to the existence of dual character and

Horan 2
authorial tones. Section two, A Game of Chess, contains a back and forth conversation
between two characters, presumably a man and a woman, that does well to set up the many
voices and draw the contrast needed to set Eliots tone apart from that of his characters, the
speakers. The conversation begins:
My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with me.
Speak to me. Why do you never speak? Speak.
What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?
I never know what you are thinking. Think. (II. 111-4)
Though there is little more than a line break separating one speaker from the next, it is easy to
sense the change in character; the back and forth nature of this passage makes the presence of
two speakers rather than one obvious. This is a trend that carries through the entire poem, a
poem originally titled He Do the Police in Different Voices. Eliot presents many characters
many voices by creating marked shifts in character tone. From stay with me to speak to
me, the shift in tone is clear: stay is a plea, speak a command, each a different form of
persuasion unlikely to be used by a single person in the course of one conversation and therefore
confirming the presence of two characters. The conversation continues until we see:
Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?
But
O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag
Its so elegant
So intelligent (II. 126-30)
From the condescension in the question made clear through the question of life; obviously the
speaker is living, asking suggests ridicule to the misspelling of Shakespeare, to the intentional

Horan 3
parody of a then-popular song and the hyperbole-laced adjectives used to describe it, Eliots
authorial tone shines through in an unabashed mockery of modern society. This passage is a
suggestion that there is nothing in anyones head and the deterioration of popular culture, the
truthfully poor quality of art widely considered elegant and intelligent, will keep those heads
empty. However, this suggestion is not made by the character, but the author. The characters
statement, Its so elegent / So intelligent, is genuine; it is not until read contextually that the
ironic hyperbole stands out. A Shakespeherian Rag is far from elegant. A rag is a short,
clipped piece of music, far removed from sprawling, stylistic, classical pieces and designed for
simple commercial entertainment, and that in conjunction with the misspelling of Shakespeare
speaks to far removal from all aspects of the fine arts. One word sentences speak and what
and think are neither elegant nor articulate. Nothing about beginning a stanza with O O O
O speaks to renowned poetry, and while the reader can see that, the character making the
statement cannot. Because the reader sees it all in context, context compiled by T.S. Eliot, the
poet responsible for allusions to Arthurian Legend and scarcely known mythologies, to
languages from German to Sanskrit and philosophies from Buddhism and beyond all appearing
in the same poem as O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag. Here the duality of tone clearly
exists, but to understand the importance one must further understand said duality.
Authorial tone transcends character tone, particularly in a poem with many characters,
many voices. Authorial tone is the summation of all character voices, all narration, all allusion
and extended metaphor, and it serves to support and ground the greater thematic and political
dimensions of the poem. Roessel points to the use of demotic speech in conjunction with
purified speech with regards to Eliots acknowledgement of the decay of European society
after the Great War the use of both types of speech in the poem clearly outlines Eliots view on

Horan 4
the decay of society in a show rather than tell manner (Roessel 171, 175). Further more, while
each of Eliots characters may express emotion and opinion, some even elevated beyond that of
the Shakespeherian Rag fan in A Game of Chess, it is the summation of these expressions
that presents Eliots overall reaction to and apathy toward post-war society. Levenson says in his
essay Eliot found himself a Conservative in the United States but a Labourite in London and
goes on to supply this as a basis for his belief that the matter of reaction versus revolution is too
simple a binary in which to view The Waste Land (Levenson 1). What Levenson fails to do is
view both the Conservative and the Labourite together against the backdrop of their greater
context, the character tone against the backdrop of the greater authorial tone. Take Lil and the
other woman in the pub at the end of Section II, A Game of Chess. Each character possesses
and expresses emotion and opinion, what with Lil bemoaning her broken marriage with a long
face and the woman opposite her tossing in casual, judgmental asides (II. 158-60). Even so,
each character comes across as a somewhat flat, one-sided entity: a simplistic Labourite and
Conservative, for instance. But when their dialogue is juxtaposed with the robotic HURRY UP
PLEASE ITS TIME, the veritable big picture may be gleaned (II. 165). This big picture is
authorial voice, the flat, one-sided parts within being character voice. The irony in the disparity
between the many voices and Eliots authorial voice serves to portray Eliots reaction to the
times: though people possess emotion and opinion, against the backdrop of a cultureless society
it is all but drowned out. There is no sense in revolution or malcontented moans of I cant help
it if it will all be cut short by the purified, regimental TIME and written off with slurred,
demotic goonight[s] (II. 158, 170).
This realization of the lack of sense in revolution is what sets The Waste Land apart and
allows it to be a singular, stand-alone reaction piece rather than anything meant to incite change

Horan 5
or serve as a composite of the eras political turmoil. Where Levenson describes the poem as an
engagement with the civilization of violence that entwines sex and commerce (Levenson 2,
8), Roessel describes the poem as Eliots general views on the Greeks and the disintegration of
Europe (176). Both views expect outside knowledge and association, Levenson addressing
theories of several academics and Roessel giving a geopolitical report on Smyrna and its citizens.
While these are fine expansions of allusions set forth by Eliot, claiming the existence of a
prominent political agenda or something that hinges on the exterior seems an overly complex
way to view Eliots work. With strong irony already clear in the disparity between character and
authorial tone, the assumption of irony in the use of overabundant allusion should also be noted.
Many critics, Levenson and Roessel included, attribute Eliots overuse of allusions to elitism, but
they all seem to ignore the irony so apparent in tone with regards to allusion and intent. At the
end of the poem, the thunder speaks one syllable, DA, that the speaker attributes to three
separate words, datta and dyadhvam and damyata, each allusions to philosophies from
three separate, non-European cultures (V. 400, 411, 418). What might be initially construed as a
call to action, What the Thunder Said in fact ends up being as fragmented and multifaceted and
wholly detached from European culture as much of the poem, speaking, in that one final syllable,
to Eliots melancholic apathy with regards to fixing post-war society. Eliot has no call to action,
he has no intention to incite revolution, he simply presents his own reaction to post-war society,
his own fragments [he] ha[s] shored against [his] ruins (V. 430).
Though it is easy to get lost in the many voices and allusions when reading The Waste
Land by T.S. Eliot, it is imperative to see the melancholic irony presented in the dual tones and
solidified in the overabundant allusions in order to see the political dimension of the text as one
of melancholic reaction rather than revolutionary agenda.

Horan 6