{"id":2072,"date":"2015-04-29T17:14:44","date_gmt":"2015-04-29T22:14:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nonsolusblog.wordpress.com\/?p=2072"},"modified":"2015-04-29T17:14:44","modified_gmt":"2015-04-29T22:14:44","slug":"april-the-cruellest-month-is-also-national-poetry-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/rbx\/2015\/04\/29\/april-the-cruellest-month-is-also-national-poetry-month\/","title":{"rendered":"April, \u201cthe cruellest month\u201d, is also National Poetry Month!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cApril is the cruellest month.\u201d Thus begins one of the most important pieces of modern poetry ever written: T.S. Eliot\u2019s The Waste Land<\/em>.\u00a0 Characteristic of Eliot\u2019s work, this poem invites readers to question their own knowledge by putting forth information in multiple languages.\u00a0The Waste Land\u2019s<\/em> epigraph, written in Greek, details the fable of Apollo\u2019s gift of eternal life to the Sybil and her mistake in forgetting to also ask for eternal youth. The Sybil\u2019s careless choice of words exemplifies T.S. Eliot\u2019s and the modernist literary movement\u2019s belief that every word within a text holds its own importance.<\/p>\n

Published in 1923, The Waste Land<\/em> was written during a time of great trouble in Eliot\u2019s life. His marriage was failing, he was suffering from a nervous disorder and his disillusionment with the post-war world was increasing. Critics of Eliot have sometimes commented on the poem\u2019s seeming obscurity.<\/p>\n

During a trip to Europe, Eliot and his wife stayed with author Ezra Pound in Paris, France. Having been advised to seek treatment for his nervous disorder in Lausanne, Switzerland, Eliot spent his time there writing. Upon his return to Paris, he presented his 19-page manuscript to Pound, who made significant and detailed comments and cuts. Eliot would later dedicate this poem to Pound.<\/p>\n

The poem was originally published in the United Kingdom in the first issue of The Criterion<\/em>, a literary magazine founded and edited by Eliot, in October of 1922. Its first appearance in the United States came one month later in November of 1922 in The Dial<\/em> magazine, followed by a volume including the author\u2019s notes by Boni and Liveright, in December of 1922. In September of 1923, Leonard and Virginia Woolf\u2019s Hogarth Press,\u00a0 published the first UK book edition of the poem in a run of 450 copies handset by Virginia Woolf.<\/p>\n

\"Eliot,<\/a>
Eliot, T.S. The Waste Land
811 E\u21134w1923<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Eliot\u2019s most famous work went through several different titles in its many different manuscript forms. The poem\u2019s original title was He do the Police in Different Voices<\/em>, a reference to Charles Dickens\u2019s novel Our Mutual Friend<\/em>, in which Betty Higden says of her son Sloppy, \u201cYou mightn\u2019t think it, but Sloppy is a beautiful reader of a newspaper. He do the Police in different voices.\u201d Eliot\u2019s final title may also allude to other published works: Jessie L. Weston\u2019s From Ritual to Romance<\/em> which outlines the Grail legend, the wounding of the Fisher King and the following sterility of his lands, or possibly Madison Cawein\u2019s Waste Land,<\/em> another poem similar in theme and language, published in 1913.<\/p>\n

\u201cApril is the cruellest month\u201d because winter has ended and yet the first signs of spring have not yet broken through the mud and sludge. However, April also represents the beginning of a new growing season. T.S. Eliot\u2019s The Waste Land<\/em> is a perfect topic for our final blog post of April, as we conclude this year\u2019s National Poetry Month and our campus finally shows signs that spring has arrived! -NC<\/p>\n

Eliot, T.S. The Waste Land<\/em>. (Richmond, Surrey: Printed and published by Leonard and Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press, Hogarth House, Paradise Road, 1923) 811 E\u21134w1923:\u00a0https:\/\/i-share-uiu.primo.exlibrisgroup.com\/permalink\/01CARLI_UIU\/gpjosq\/alma99360287012205899<\/a><\/p>\n

Read The Waste Land<\/em> on the Poetry Foundation\u2019s website: http:\/\/www.poetryfoundation.org\/poem\/176735<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cApril is the cruellest month.\u201d Thus begins one of the most important pieces of modern poetry ever written: T.S. Eliot\u2019s The Waste Land.\u00a0 Characteristic of Eliot\u2019s work, this poem invites readers to question their own knowledge by putting forth information in multiple languages.\u00a0The Waste Land\u2019s epigraph, written in Greek, details the fable of Apollo\u2019s gift […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":115,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nc"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/rbx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/rbx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/rbx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/rbx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/115"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/rbx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/rbx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2072\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/rbx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/rbx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/rbx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}