The Waste Land

Written by T. S. Eliot

Narrated by Jon Waters

“April is the cruellest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.”

The Waste Land is a seminal work of modernist poetry by T.S. Eliot. Written in 1922, this five-part poem is a portrait of its time, a work that expresses the disillusionment of the modernist era and the desperation that the generation of writers of that time was feeling.

This poem comes from the area just after the first world war, an era in which the world was in disarray. Many young men had lost their lives or livelihoods from the war, families were torn apart, and the survivors were aimless and disoriented at how to move on. This was the era of literary greats like Ezra Pound, F. Scott. Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein and, of course, T. S. Eliot. The artists of this time turned to poetry and literature as a way of expressing the widespread spirt of wandering their generation had come to embody.

The Waste Land’s alternating narrators, character vignettes, references to eastern religions, and imagery of chaos and disillusionment all come together to create an impactful and insightful work of art. This poem exemplifies a generation of artists, and is a masterful work from a great artist at his peak.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Spotify Audiobooks
• Release date: May 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781094244426

T. S. Eliot

THOMAS STEARNS ELIOT was born in St Louis, Missouri, in 1888. He moved to England in 1914 and published his first book of poems in 1917. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948. Eliot died in 1965.

Reviews for The Waste Land

[Paul Himmelman · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I will have to read this poem again but my first impression was that I don’t know what the big deal is about. The reading was a tad over dramatic for my taste but I hear that’s actually how Elliot himself read, so, good job, if I’m not wrong about that.

[Ezioma Blog · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It's a beautiful poem. I love the dramatic style of narration employed in it.

[Emily Savidge · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This production is unedited and hearing the clicks as the performer marks his mistakes and re-does his line completely takes the listener out of the experience. It's a useless waste of time and trying to remove the listening experience from the actual words is impossible