Symbols in The Waste Land

Symbols in T. S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" When the poem was first printed in book form two months after its initial publication in the "Criterion" of October, 1922, the printer needed additional copy to fill a signature; since Eliot had no other poems ready at that time, he submitted the explanatory notes on "The Waste Land" which now fill about five pages in the "Complete Poems and Plays, 1909-1950". The notes have been the focus …

…possible to achieve by any other structural technique. The poem is essentially dramatic, and its appreciation depends on what Francis Fergusson calls "the histrionic sensibility." But both the stage and the cast of the poem exist in the mind of the speaker. It is true that often we need to recognize the personages through whom he speaks, but always we need to recognize as well the tone and emphasis of his voice speaking through them.