Eliot’s The Waste Land: Makings of a Play

Abstract

The Waste Land is one of the most domineering poetic works of T. S. Eliot. In one of his critical essays, Eliot believes in an idea that the best way to make poetry popular is the theatre; on the other hand, he supports the idea that drama should have an elevated poetic style. Thus, it is understood that the dramas of Eliot are poetic. In the same manner, his poetry might have elements of drama. For such case, the present study tries to show that The Waste Land comprises elements very much comparable to be called a play or a poetic drama. The five fragments of The Waste Land might work as acts of a play. In this study, there is an attempt to prove that The Waste Land encompasses appropriate dramatic elements of a play. The task tries to demonstrate the dramatic elements in the most famous long verse, The Waste Land, so to call it a play. The study makes an effort to exhibit primarily dramatic dialogism, characterization, and action in The Waste Land using the analytical-critical approach