Fusion of Modern and Post-Modern Elements in T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land (1922)

Abstract

Eliot's The Waste Land (1922) has been analyzed by many researchers from various perspectives. Its analysis as a fusion of modernism and post-modernism is still interesting to be done. The present research analyses the poem from modern and post-modern perspectives. It focuses on the critical analysis of the poem that signifies the moral and cultural degeneration of the modern world. This research has two dimensions i.e. The Waste Land (1922) and the two theories. As a literary theory or movement, modernism is a style of art, literature and architecture that advocates those ideas, methods and philosophies which have a bricolage with the tradition. Focusing on the linguistic, stylistic and structural aspects of the poem, the researcher concludes that this poem is the hallmark in modern poetry. On the other hand, Post-modernism as a literary theory questions the social orders, break boundaries and parodies modernism. It presents an irony of obsolete modernity. Post-modern literature has gothic and classical setting. It uses the techniques of juxtaposition, paradoxes, unreliable narrator and tends to have a connection with the past. The research focuses on the critical analysis of the poem in the light of modernism and post-modernism. The researcher traces out the traits of modernism and post-modernism in The Waste Land (1922) and declares it the fusion of both.