discuss Eliot’s The Waste Land.
Watch ALL of the lecture videos.
“April is the cruellest month” is what Eliot tells in The Waste Land. Eliot’s poem shifts between prophecy and satire. I want you to grapple with what this poem means. What is it prophecying? How does it relate to our current moment? Why does Eliot use the imagery that he uses? What about his word choice?
Choose one of the moments in The Waste Land and explain what Eliot is saying to us as a modern society. What was he saying to the people of his own time? What does this poem mean to us in our current moment?
How is April so cruel?
Make sure you link this to at least one other Modernist work that you were asked to read for this unit. How does this other work differ from Eliot’s? Why?
Demonstrate your ability to close read.
Close reading means you will make an argument and prove it with quotes from the text that you pick. Avoid generalizations. Get specific. Pick out specific moments in the text.