Twayne's Masterwork Studies
No. 13
Copyright © 1988 by G. K. Hall & Co.
All Rights Reserved
Published by Twayne Publishers
A division of G. K. Hall & Co.
70 Lincoln Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02111
This book appears with two different titles:
- The Waste Land: A Student's Companion to the Poem
- The title of the American edition.
- The Waste Land: A Poem of Memory and Desire
- The title of the British edition.
The blurb on the back of the book:
Since its publication in 1922, T. S. Eliot's epic poem The Waste land has come to be considered the preeminent work of the modern period in English literature. In this enlightening guide to Eliot's masterpiece, Nancy K. Gish examines the history of its composition and, through careful analysis, reveals a poem that is both deeply personal in tone and universal in impact.
Nancy K. Gish is professor of English at the University of Southern Maine in Portland, Maine where she teaches twentieth-century Britsh and American literature and women's studies. Her publications include Time in the Poetry of T. S. Eliot and Hugh MacDiarmid: The Man and His Work. In addition she has held a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities and written scholarly essays on Eliot, MacDiarmid, and modern poetry.
The contents of her book are:
Contents
Note on References and Acknowledgments
Chronology: T. S. Eliot's Life and Works
1. Historical Context 1
2. The Importance of the Work 6
3) Critical Reception
A READING
4) Sources and Compostion: The Creation of the Text 21
5) Structure and Theme 31
6) "The Burial of the Dead" 45
7) "A game of Chess" 58
8) "The Fire Sermon" 69
9) "Death by Water" 84
10) "What the Thunder Said" 90
11) Allusion, Quotation and the Mythic Method 104
Notes 117
Selected Bibliograghy 120
Index 125
About the Author 128
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gish, Nancy K. 1942-
The waste land
(Twayne's Masterwork Studies ; no. 13)
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. Eliot, T. S. (Thomas Stearns), 1888-1965.
Waste Land I. Title. II. Series.
PS3509.L43W36485 1988 821'.912 87-31555
ISBN 0-8057-7973-6 (alk. paper)
ISBN 0-8057-8023-8(pbk. : alk. paper)
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