The Waste Land and Other Poems by T. S. Eliot is arguably the most influential and important book of poetry produced in the 20th century.
First published in 1922, “The Waste Land,” T. S. Eliot’s masterpiece, is not only one of the key works of modernism but also one of the greatest poetic achievements of the twentieth century. A richly allusive pilgrimage of spiritual and psychological torment and redemption, Eliot’s poem exerted a revolutionary influence on his contemporaries, summoning forth a potent new poetic language.
April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain . . .
'The poem succeeds – as it brilliantly does – by virtue of its incohenrence, not of its plan; by virtue of its ambiguities, not of its explanations... We accept The Waste Land as one of the most moving and original poems of our time.' Conrad Aiken, New Republic, 1923.
