"twit twit twit jug jug jug jug so rudely forc'd!"

[htorrens]

Ok, back to Eliot

Comments

[melsc]

Hey I never thought of the first verse as being pastoral, but now I can kind of see that. Interesting take on it.

[htorrens]

I didn't either, but we've been talking about pastoral stuff in Shakespeare a lot recently. I didn't notice it the first time i read it either.

Birds and imagery

[love_leah]

I don't know why birds' images associated with death is so common in literature, but maybe its because Birds come from above and when you die, your soul goes back to heaven or wherever you believe souls come from. Maybe it's the idea that we are all from the same place, up above in another world. Or maybe that's just my religious beliefs and my wishful thinking. Anyways, Eliot is amazing

[roger_kuin]

Interesting idea about the pastoral; if it is, though, it is a perverted pastoral, in this Waste Land where life is neither living nor dead, and where all normal values are twisted. If spring merely disturbs, and you go South in the winter and feel free only in the mountains, something is in trouble.