Death & Rebirth in The Waste Land

The waste land is composed of many cities and the poem is built upon the remains of many poems. In order to give it a form and order, Eliot has taken recourse to anthropology and exploration of ancient myths. Anthropology and psychology out together have produced themost fundamental revolutions in controversary thought and belief.

“The Golden Bough” has greatlu assisted him in finding a unifying factor for his poem. In 1920s also appeared Jessie Weston’s “From Ritual to Romace” abd a reading of this could help Eliot to give shape to his intricate material. He had learnt from this book the concept of “rebirth” of the year. From the fertility myths if the rebirth of the poetency of man, the christian story of resurrection and the Grail Legend of purification.

The course sourse of all these myths lies in the fundamental rhythm of nature: the season, that of death and rebirth of the year. Such knowledge and knowledge of psychology point to the close union in all these myths of the physical and spiritual, to the fact that their symbolism is basically sexual. It indicates the fundamental relation between sex and religion.

These are surface differences only which tend to mask profound resemblances and the reslut is both a feeling and sanctions wither. The purity if the Grails Legend loses itself in the symbols of generative significance. He could shape his material when he come to read Jessie weston’s work and of the mystery of death and rebirth by the story of the kingdom where the ruler has become weak and impotent by sickness, war and old age, the land becomes the waste and the task of the hero iis to dedicate himself to the uplift of the country and the nation. He must sacrifice his whole self for the regeneration of the people and the country: “Da” standing for Datta.