scholarly journals The Abject in T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-33
Author(s):  
Eyesha Elahi
Keyword(s):  
Main Claim ◽  
The Waste Land ◽  
Waste Land ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Dead ◽  
As If

T. S. Eliot’s monumental poem, The Waste Land, discusses hopelessness and desolation and shuns them at every turn. The speakers spurn it and despair at the desolate state of humankind and society. This paper aims to read T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land in light of Julia Kristeva’s theory of abjection and Jacques Lacan’s notion of jouissance. The main claim is that despite the apparent horror of desolation, the more the poem tries to repel desolation, the more it cannot help but repeatedly allude to it, as if unwillingly drawn to it, so that death and desolation are not the subject, nor are they the object, but rather the abject of the poem. The sections of the poem I feel are most relevant for such an analysis are “The Burial of the Dead” (lines 1-30) and “What the Thunder Said” (lines 322-375).

A Peculiarly Christian Account of Sin

1993 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 220-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
William H. Willimon
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
The Sun ◽  
General State ◽  
Dead Tree ◽  
The Waste Land ◽  
Waste Land ◽  
Son Of Man ◽  
Adam And Eve ◽  
The World ◽  
The Dead

“The Church's notion of sin, like that of Israel before it, is peculiar. It is derived, not from speculation about the universal or general state of humanity, but rather from a peculiar, quite specific account of what God is up to in the world. What God is up to is named as covenant, Torah, or, for Christians, Jesus. If we attempt to begin in Genesis, with Adam and Eve and their alleged ‘fall,’ we will be mistaken, as Niebuhr was, in thinking of sin as some innate, indelible glitch in human nature.”April is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, …Winter kept us warm, covering Earth in forgetful snow, …What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man, You cannot say, or guess, for you know only A heap of broken images, where the sun beats, And the dead tree gives no shelter. …T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land, I, 1922

Defeat as Moral Victory

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beatrice Heuser
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Collective Memory ◽  
Violent Death ◽  
Philosophical Approach ◽  
Balkan Wars ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Dead ◽  
As If

This contribution adds to the legal-philosophical approach to the subject of victory by focusing on defeat as a moral victory in collective memory, mentality, and culture. Such a defeat can take the form of the violent death of an individual or a group in battle. At times the dead are commemorated as fallen heroes, just as if they had won their battle, but in addition they will be seen as martyrs to a cause that is construed as giving meaning to their sacrifice. Their death is celebrated as a moral victory if the cause outlasted this event and ultimately triumphed, or is still pursued. Instances can be found where such events, long past, have even recently still fuelled wars, as with the Irish Troubles or the Balkan Wars at the beginning and end of the twentieth century.

THE STARS, MILDEW, RUST AND THE WASTE LAND IN THE STORY OF THE GRAIL*

Trictrac ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-92
Author(s):  
Philippe Walter
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Chretien De Troyes ◽  
Holy Grail ◽  
The Waste Land ◽  
Waste Land ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
First Time ◽  
As If ◽  
The Middle Ages

When the Grail emerged unobtrusively for the first time shortly after 1180 in The Story of the Grail authored by Chrétien de Troyes it was hardly noticeable. It emerged in the context, viewed from certain angles, of a table ritual on the occasion of a feast presented by the Fisher King to young Perceval whom he invited to share his table. When it appeared before the two table guests it did not stop in front of them but disappeared into a side chamber. It was accompanied by a plate, a serving dish on which to carve meat. But it was also preceded by a bleeding lance whose presence at the feast seemed wholly out of context and inexplicable. The rather cryptic description of the grail, replete with hidden meanings and ambiguities, started a myth, more evocative than anything the Middle Ages had ever known. The Grail theme remained in evidence throughout the Middle Ages, then disappeared from the 16th to the 19th century, then sprang into life vividly once more in the form of Wagnerian opera as Parzifal. Today all manifestations of the Grail are egregiously misrepresented as if it had always been the Holy Grail. It behooves us to take another look at its earliest manifestation before all the transformations and Christianisations to which it was subjected by western culture1. In fact, the original Grail had nothing at all in common with Christianity.

scholarly journals Poetic Lithuania of Miłosz

2016 ◽  
Vol 38 (8) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Berkan-Jabłońska
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
The Sun ◽  
Symbolic Form ◽  
The Waste Land ◽  
Waste Land ◽  
The Past ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Gradual Transformation ◽  
Hostile Attitude

The article deals with the images of Lithuania found in Czesław Miłosz’s poetry. The novels and essays have only been used to confirm the conclusions drawn from the interpretation of selected poems. Despite the frequently-declared unwillingness of the author of Dolina Issy (The Valley of the Issa) to accept and use any autobiographical elements in literature, the land of his childhood has always been present in all the poet’s works. The explanation of this fascination with nostalgia seems to be unsatisfactory. The author of the article perceives the poetic images of Lithuania created by the uprooted immigrant as a symbol of his inner, not purely geographical, settlement. The subject of the discussion is the ever-changing perception of the Eastern-Borderland, which corresponds to particular stages of the protagonist’s journey through life. The starting point is the experience of eviction. It modifies the originally idealized vision of the “little homeland” and makes the hero’s attempt to reject or “amputate” it. The poems from the Światło dzienne (Daylight) collection surprise the reader by a hostile attitude towards the poet’s youth spent in Lithuania and the perception of those early memories as some destructive forces threatening the artist. It is only after a many years’ quest that the borderland heritage is appreciated and conquered again. Now, however, it acquires a different, more symbolic form. The cycle Miasto bez imienia (A Town without a Name) and the poem Gdzie wschodzi słońce i kędy zapada (Where the Sun Rises and Sets) are evidence of a gradual transformation. The faithful recreation in the poet’s memory of particular places and people changes into the construction of some outside religious space, built from the traces of the real world. Lithuania changes into a perfect reality, a Super-Land, capable of retaining the past and combining it with the present. It is a prop freeing the poet from the waste land of Urizen.

Beckett's Early Verse and the Modernist Long Poem: A Study of ‘Enueg I’

2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 197-213
Author(s):  
Sławomir Studniarz
Keyword(s):  
Long Poem ◽  
The Waste Land ◽  
Waste Land ◽  
Artistic Activity ◽  
Underlying Network ◽  
Experimental Works ◽  
The Cantos ◽  
Semantic Dimension ◽  
Psychological Dimensions

The premise of the article is the contention that Beckett studies have been focused too much on the philosophical, cultural and psychological dimensions of his established canon, at the expense of the artistry. That research on Beckett's work is issue-driven rather than otherwise, and the slender extant body of criticism specifically on his poetic achievements bears no comparison with the massive exploration of the other facets of Beckett's artistic activity. The critical neglect of Beckett's poetry may not be commensurate with the quality of his verse. And it is in the spirit of remedying this oversight that the present article is offered, focusing on ‘Enueg I’, a representative poem from Echo's Bones, which exhibits all the salient features of Beckett's early poetry. It is argued that Beckett's early verse display the twofold influence, that of the transatlantic Modernism of Eliot and Pound, and of French poetry, specifically the visionary and experimental works of Rimbaud, Apollinaire, and the surrealists. Furthermore, the article also demonstrates that ‘Enueg I’ testifies to Beckett's ambition to compose a complex long Modernist poem in the vein of The Waste Land or The Cantos. Beckett's ‘Enueg I’ has much in common with Eliot's exemplary disjunctive Modernist long poem. Both poems are premised on the acutely felt cultural crisis and display the similar tenor in their ending. Finally, they both close with the vision of the doomed and paralyzed world, and the prevalent sense of sterility and dissolution. In the subsequent analysis, which takes up the bulk of the article, careful attention is paid to the patterning of the verbal material, including also the most fundamental level, that of the arrangements of phonemes, with a view to uncovering the underlying network of sound patterns, which contributes decisively to the semantic dimension of the poem.

Determinants of Abuse of the Bodies of the Dead

2019 ◽  
pp. 71-77
Author(s):  
Margarita Khomyakova
Keyword(s):  
Low Income ◽  
Criminal Code ◽  
Value Judgments ◽  
Legal Norms ◽  
Low Level ◽  
Medical Institutions ◽  
Specific Object ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Dead ◽  
High Level

The author analyzes definitions of the concepts of determinants of crime given by various scientists and offers her definition. In this study, determinants of crime are understood as a set of its causes, the circumstances that contribute committing them, as well as the dynamics of crime. It is noted that the Russian legislator in Article 244 of the Criminal Code defines the object of this criminal assault as public morality. Despite the use of evaluative concepts both in the disposition of this norm and in determining the specific object of a given crime, the position of criminologists is unequivocal: crimes of this kind are immoral and are in irreconcilable conflict with generally accepted moral and legal norms. In the paper, some views are considered with regard to making value judgments which could hardly apply to legal norms. According to the author, the reasons for abuse of the bodies of the dead include economic problems of the subject of a crime, a low level of culture and legal awareness; this list is not exhaustive. The main circumstances that contribute committing abuse of the bodies of the dead and their burial places are the following: low income and unemployment, low level of criminological prevention, poor maintenance and protection of medical institutions and cemeteries due to underperformance of state and municipal bodies. The list of circumstances is also open-ended. Due to some factors, including a high level of latency, it is not possible to reflect the dynamics of such crimes objectively. At the same time, identification of the determinants of abuse of the bodies of the dead will reduce the number of such crimes.

Kant, Marginal Cases, and Moral Standing

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine M. Korsgaard
Keyword(s):  
Life Stage ◽  
The Other ◽  
Moral Standing ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Identity Problem ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Moral Difference

According to the marginal cases argument, there is no property that might justify making a moral difference between human beings and the other animals that is both uniquely and universally human. It is therefore “speciesist” to treat human beings differently just because we are human beings. While not challenging the conclusion, this chapter argues that the marginal cases argument is metaphysically misguided. It ignores the differences between a life stage and a kind, and between lacking a property and having it in a defective form. The chapter then argues for a view of moral standing that attributes it to the subject of a life conceived as an atemporal being, and shows how this view can resolve some familiar puzzles such as how death can be a loss to the person who has died, how we can wrong the dead, the “procreation asymmetry,” and the “non-identity problem.”

scholarly journals The formation and constitution of crystals of lead salts containing water-soluble colloid

1935 ◽  
Vol 235 (749) ◽  
pp. 125-164 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Selective Adsorption ◽  
Water Soluble ◽  
Lead Salts ◽  
The Subject ◽  
As If ◽  
Saturated Solutions

The influence of small amounts of dissolved foreign substances on the growth of crystals from saturated solutions has been the subject of much investigation. Usually the added substances have been electrolytes. Dyestuffs have not been neglected, but with some few exceptions comparatively little attention has been given to the effect of non-ionized water-soluble electrolytes such as gelatine or dextrine. As a rule, the presence of the foreign substances is found to cause the crystals to assume a different habit. Whenever this occurs the absorption must have occurred on certain crystal-faces in preference to others, but, although the added material is active by virtue of its close attachment to such faces, it is rarely found to be incorporated into the solid to any great extent. The growing crystals appear to reject the impurity—thrusting it outwards as the growth advances. The action of water-soluble colloids on the halides and certain other salts of lead is exceptional in several ways. Although when such colloids are present in small concentrations one can generally observe a modification of habit, at higher concentrations there may be little selective adsorption, and the result may be a rounded crystal on which no plane faces at all can be distinguished, as if the forces by which atoms are attracted to the structure had been equalized in every direction.

scholarly journals XXXI. A short account of Dr. Maty's illness, and of the appearances in the dead body, which was examined on the 3d of July, 1776, the day after his decease

1777 ◽  
Vol 67 ◽  
pp. 608-613 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Dead Body ◽  
Short Account ◽  
The Dead ◽  
As If

About two weeks before he died, he was taken with a fit of violent oppressive pain, just above the pit of the stomach, which made him feel as if he was very near dying. He was bled, and gradually recovered; yet so imperfectly, that any motion of his body, or any pressure upon that part with the point of a finger, instantly brought on such oppressive pain, that he was convinced the least addition to what he had several times felt, must have put an end to his life. He had an idea that there might be a collection of matter behind the sternum, which might be discharge by some chirurgical operation.

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