T. S. Eliot The Waste Land

Good Afternoon Class,

The Agenda for today is as follows:

1. Discussion of Critical Lens 

2. An Introduction to one of Fitzgerald's contemporaries, T. S. Eliot and his famous poem, "The Waste Land"

-->T. S. Eliot's reading of Section I: "Burial of the Dead"
www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7kpAxJD7Wc

-->Background information
 *Life between the wars
 *T. S. Eliot's history
 *Some background to Modernism and the poem itself

-->Group Discussions
You will be put into groups and assigned one of the following sections:
1. A Game of Chess
2. The Fire Sermon (the first three pages)
3. The Fire Sermon (the last two pages) and Death by Water
4. What the Thunder Said

-->Questions to Answer:
1.  What happens in your assigned section?
2.  Which characters are present?
3.  What is the tone of your section?  Defend this with examples of literary elements.
4.  What elements of modernism do you see in your section?
5.  Does this section depict disillusionment or destruction and rebirth?  How?
6. One of the themes that the whole poem explores is the loss of a unifying mythic consciousness and a loss of cultural vigor.  How does your section deal with this?