The Waste Land : key facts

The Waste Land is a remarkable modernist poem by Thomas Stearns Eliot. Look at the key facts of the poem to get a quick idea.

• Original Title:  He Do the Police in Different Voices
• Writer: Thomas Stearns Eliot OM (26 September 1888 – 4 January 1965)
• Written Date: Autumn 1921
• Publication Date:  October 1922
• Tone: Agonizing, Disillusionment, and Frustrating
• Genre: Modernist Poetry
• Total  Lines: 433 Lines
• Time Setting: Post-World War I
• Place Setting: London

Eliot gathered the idea to compose this poem in 1914 but could not complete it due to a breakdown brought about by his father’s death in 1919. This poem was composed in the Autumn of 1921 when Eliot stayed at the Margate City in London and Lawson in Switzerland for treatment. He names the poem ‘HE DO THE POLICE IN DIFFERENT VOICES’ primarily. When he goes to his friend Ezra Pound with this poem, he does not only shorten the length but also changes the title to ‘The Waste Land’. Finally, the poem came to publication in October 1922 after being customized at the hands of Ezra Pound. Pound excludes 54 lines from the first section, 72 from the ‘Fire Sermon’, and 83 from the ‘Death by Water’. Eliot appreciates his friend’s editing, and being pleased with this, he designates his friend as ‘il miglior’, the Italian phrase that means ‘The better craftsman’.