This line read to me as a representation of the increasing automation and lack of autonomy that is a central theme throughout The Waste Land. This woman, who has just engaged sexually with a man, is performing an “automatic” act by smoothing her hair. Sex, for this character, has become a necessity for her survival, financially, and therefore an automatic act devoid of the human feeling with which it is typically associated. This line appeared to me in conversation with The Jig of Forslin, specifically the line “women by mirrors combing out their hair,” which is positioned in a section about “thousands of secret lives” that have been revealed and laid “bare.” This idea of automation of everyday life, the transition from unique to monotony, brought me back to our discussions of industrialization, and how the overall sentiment of the poem’s moment was one where autonomy was being lost to automation. The character of the sex worker in the Fire Sermon does not suffer the terrible fate of most other women in the poem, but instead is forced to live a life where acts that should carry joy and wonder become tired and repetitive.

I was struck by Eliot’s choice of repetition of this line, especially due to its repetitive nature in the source work. Every stanza of Edmund Spenser’s Prothalamion ends with the same line. What stuck out to me in Prothalamion were the lines that came before the repetitions, which undergo subtle but noticeable transitions from stanza to stanza. It begins as “Against the bridal day, which is not long,” then changes the “is” to a “was,” then the “the” into a “their,” and then the “against” to an “even as.” These subtle changes affect the meaning of “sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song” every time that it is used in the source material. Within the Waste Land, the refrain is preceded in both its cases by references to other works. The first time it is mentioned follows the line “the nymphs are departed,” which is similarly drawn from Spenser (“a flock of nymphs I chanced to espy.”) The second time, when used as a pair, follows “by the waters of Leman I sat down and wept,” which bears a clear relation to the line “by the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion,” from Psalm 137. By preceding his use of the repetitive line in this way, of drawing from but varying other sources, Eliot is following in the footsteps of Spenser and his slight variation. This reflects the larger theme of variation and adaptation that influences the entire poem, and Eliot’s attempts both to adapt and to use directly the work of others.

This whole second section of “A Game of Chess” breaks formally from the first half. The beginning of the section is comprised of one large paragraph, unbroken, while the middle section, specifically lines 111-128, are broken up: indentations carry words across the page, whole sentences begin with one word on the line before, questions infect the poem. The form of the poem begins to break apart and descend here, mirroring the content and references to Hamlet’s Ophelia, who begins to break apart inside and descend into a state of madness. Interestingly, the line pulled directly from Ophelia, “Good night, ladies; good night, sweet ladies; good night, good night,” which ends this section of the poem, is not the last word spoken by Ophelia. This is surprising, as the crazed repetition of “good night” within Ophelia’s line seems like a final goodbye, and would not be shocking as the last words of a person contemplating suicide. Eliot is therefore both in accordance and disagreement with the original Shakespeare: his text breaks down like Ophelia, but his ending is taken from her middle. This reinterpretation reflects broader modernist themes of taking the old and adapting it to the new, which Eliot does repeatedly, and takes it to a deeper level within the form of the poem, mirroring the content of an older text within the form of his text.

The line “From satin cases poured in rich profusion; In vials of ivory and coloured glass / Unstoppered, lurked her strange synthetic perfumes” felt to me an interesting parallel between the line “Purple the sails, and so perfumed that the winds were love-sick with them;” from Antony and Cleopatra. While the clearest connection between these texts is the “burnish’d throne” line, an image that Eliot draws directly from Shakespeare, the description of lavish luxury that follows intrigued me. The lush, opulent imagery of “satin,” “rich,” and “ivory” mirrors similar imagery within Shakespeare, like the use of “purple,” a color which was costly to produce, and therefore associated with wealth and nobility. These images stand in stark contrast to the dark, deathly imagery of the previous chapter of the poem, like the “brown fog” and “dead sound.” However, underneath this rich imagery is a thread of suicide and violence more gruesome than that found in “The Burial of the Dead.”

Almost all of the sources we read include a woman of noble standing conducting some act of violence, whether it be suicide or violence against another. The imagery highlighted above from Antony and Cleopatra is vastly different from the ending where Cleopatra kills herself by being bitten by a snake. This pattern continues in Ovid, where Philomela is both “dressed magnificently” and later goes on to “strike” and “hack” the throat of her nephew, brutally killing him before feeding him to his father. In Aeneid, Dido lays on a “golden couch” before she gives “over to the flames,” thereby killing herself. All of these cases, which Eliot references over and over in this passage, infect the poem with a dark, gruesome meaning that would otherwise be covered by the richness of the imagery. This shows the nature of death and darkness, which can express themselves so clearly, as seen in “The Burial of the Dead,” or can seep into and hide themselves behind glamour and opulence, as seen in the beginning of “A Game of Chess.”

The line “A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many, I had not thought death had undone so many” stuck out to me from tonight's reading. The line “I could not believe death had undone so many” is pulled from Dante, and discusses the trek of the dead towards Hell. By pulling this line and placing it in The Waste Land, Eliot is placing the reader in a form of hell, comparing the Urban Landscape of post-WWI London to the situation Dante experienced in Hell itself. This quote appeared even more interesting when considering Baudelaire as well, and his Seven Old Men. It reads “Then, I thought, must I, undying, contemplate the awful eighth,wondering if the old, ugly men he has encountered will continue to duplicate and grow further. These men have come “out of the same Hell,” drawing a direct contrast between the seven men and the “crowd” that flows over London Bridge. Eliot is wondering here about the nature of evil and destruction, and posing the question of perpetuity within destruction. What if this crowd that “death has undone” will continue to grow, the “awful eighth” being added again and again? Death, in this section, is presented as a never-ending horde, a swarm whose ugliness will replicate itself over and over.

The Tarot section of The Waste Land seems at first a random assortment of cards and ideas mashed together in a list. Of these ideas, the “man with three staves” struck me, especially because of Eliot’s description of him in the footnote. Eliot writes “The Man with Three Staves I associate, quite arbitrarily, with the Fisher King himself.” The tarot cards, including this one, are associated with Arthurian legends in a less “arbitrary” fashion by Weston, who argues that four objects related with Arthurian legends “exist today as the four suits of the Tarot,” thereby establishing a direct connection between the ancient legend and modern day Tarot cards.

The card of the men with three staves is of particular interest beyond simply Eliot mentioning it, primarily because of the religious imagery present in its composition. The card consists of a man with three sticks, two on one side of him and one on the other. These three wooden sticks can be seen as representations of the holy trinity of God the father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Further religious imagery comes from the outfit of the man. He is dressed in a red cape, with an armored arm poking out, and a thin golden circle resting on his head. This is reminiscent of the signature look of a Roman soldier during the time of Jesus’ death, with the crown potentially symbolizing Jesus’ holiness or status as “King of the Jews.”

The religious composition of this card connects Christian themes to the otherwise non-Christian practice of spiritual divination through Tarot readings. This contradiction, which is also apparent in other Tarot cards, is similar to the Christian/pagan contradiction within the Arthurian legends. The legends, as Weston argues, pull from both folk and Christian stories, and both stories must be understood together to understand the true background of the final legend. Similarly, the listing of many different Tarot figures in The Waste Land emphasize contradiction, and are meant to loose the reader in a mess, both on the surface and underneath, that can only be understood when multiple conflicting parts are held together.

I find there to be a connection, and contradiction, between the opening lines of The Burial of the Dead and the reading from The Canterbury Tales. The Canterbury Tales read, in contemporary English, “When April with its sweet-smelling showers / has pierced the drought of March to the root, / and bathed every vein in such liquid / by which power the flower is created;” This set of lines is describing ostensibly the same thing as Eliot’s opening, the coming of spring after a long cold winter. However, the language and characteristics couldn’t be more different. Chaucer, through the use of the language “sweet-smelling” and “bathed,” paints spring, and more specifically April, in a positive light, focusing on the “power of the flower.” Even the more harsh language of “pierce” and “drought” are associated with a noble April, who is destroying the dreariness of March. In contrast, Eliot describes April as “the cruellest month,” furthering his description with “breeding,” “mixing,” and “stirring,” all language that implies a more sinister and darker nature of what April is doing. Eliot’s choice to start a poem titled The Waste Land and a section titled The Burial of the Dead with a description of seasons turning from darkness to light may at first seem contradictory. However, when comparing Eliot to Chaucer, it becomes clear that he has taken a description of April as a beautiful and positive actor, and has twisted it into a malevolent being, destroying the warmth and comfort of winter. This twist, from beauty to malevolence, can serve as a reflection of time, and how it twists what was once beautiful into something evil.

The original title of the poem struck me as a powerful reflection on voice and perspective, and as an invitation to read deeply into perspective throughout The Waste Land. "He Do the Police in Different Voices" immediately suggests differing perspectives, with “different voices” implying multiple “voices” inhabiting the same body. These different voices, in the original Dickens, are being performed by Sloppy, a young “long boy,” who is described as a “beautiful reader of a newspaper. He do the Police in different voices.” This description of Sloppy is surprising and comes in contrast to both his name, which is derived from slop, a word defined with vocab like “mudhole,” “dung,” and “slime,” and from the descriptions given of Sloppy as having “an open mouth of disproportionate capacity” and as “ungainly” and “awkward." This description of his mouth's “disproportionate capacity” and his bodies “ungainly” nature alienates Sloppy from most humans, and does not lend itself to an understanding of him as “beautiful.” Furthermore, “dung” and “slime” are not words typically utilized to describe a boy who does “beautiful” readings. Therefore, Sloppy’s ability to do “different voices” is surprising, forming a contrast to the dehumanizing descriptions given of him. The line “He Do the Police in Different Voices” is a rare but beautiful humanization of a character who is otherwise defined by his abnormality. As the original title of Eliot’s poem, this invites the reader to seek out different perspectives and look beyond the surface to find humanity in the abnormal.

The Waste Land suggests a desolate place, a barren landscape devoid of life. The waste land that appears in Le Morte D’Arthur fits this description, when “sithen increased neither corn, nor grass, nor well-nigh no fruit, nor in the water was no fish.” (4) This land is lacking, defined by “nor,” known for what it does not have. While the war-torn context of the poem lends itself to an understanding of a waste land solely defined by depravity, a careful inspection of the texts that inspired this title reveals a different, and more hopeful, interpretation.

In her work From Ritual to Romance, Jessie L. Weston identifies a cycle maintained across the variations of the myth of the Holy Grail. In this cycle, a land goes from paradise to waste land and back to paradise again, with the health of the land tied directly to the health of its King. Though the waste land is barren and bleak, the stories of the Holy Grail carry with them a level of hope, a promise that on the other side of the waste land is a restoration to what was. In this sense, a waste land must not simply be defined by its fall from previous glory, and instead must take into account a promise of a better future. The story of the Bible and the vegetation ceremonies studied in The Golden Bough mirror this understanding of a waste land, sharing a similar progression from paradise to barren waste land, followed by a resurrection.

The story of the fall, referenced explicitly in Le Morte D’Arthur (“When sinful Eve came to gather fruit, for which Adam and she were put out of paradise,” (6), is potentially the most well-known example of a transition from paradise to waste land. The biblical waste land, though full of human sin and suffering, is also full of hope, hope for the coming of the messiah and a return to the paradise of Eden. Similarly, ancient vegetation ceremonies occur in a waste land, the barren time between the fertility of the spring and fall, reflecting the “yearly decay and revival of life.” (Frazer, 7) The death and resurrection in both these stories (albeit one is of the gods and one is of mankind), is similar to that found in the quest for the Holy Grail, and is essential to understanding the title The Waste Land.

The title of Eliot’s poem places the poem in a sort of limbo, having fallen from a paradise that was before yet not having reached a paradise that is to come. This imparts upon the poem a tension between the loss of what came before and the hope for a future restoration. Like the Israelites in the Old Testament and the ancient civilizations in winter, the waste land is waiting for a better future, for a resurrection and restoration that is still to come.