T. S. Eliot - The Waste Land

In my seminar work I want to analyse The Wasteland written by Thomas Stearns Eliot. I have chosen this poem because of its complicadness of images. I admire the way that Eliot found parallels between many different religions. He was able to compare and contrast without satirising (except for the use of the Tarot card reading). He successfully demonstrated the contrast between life and death through various motifs such as birds, music, and water. Though he also used sex as a motif, he did not do it in a profane manner. Eliot understood that he could his message across ñ that there is meaningless sex in the waste land ñ without being vulgar. One of the themes in the poem is that man needs a spiritual rebirth to come out the waste land. This theme is meaningful to me because I am in a waste land. I have existed in this land of dryness, depression, and death for about three months now. I've been spiritually enlightened. There are many possibilities what to analyse this poem. I have read many critiques and not a single one had the same canalisation and if I found two similar authors opinions were very different. I have decided to analyse this poem according to me, my impressions with a little help from some critics. It is so complicated to examine whole poem minutely. That’s why I have decided to chose the first part of the poem (The Burial of the Dead) to analyse it more comprehensive according to rhetorical figures.