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==''The Waste Land'' and its derivatives as a palimpsest== | ==''The Waste Land'' and its derivatives as a palimpsest== | ||
| − | + | T.S. Eliot, in his essay "Hamlet and his Problems," introduces the idea of the [[objective correlative]], suggesting that the emotional impact of a literary work ought to arise from a sufficient sensible--that is, factual and having to do with the senses--foundation. The imagery, the word usage, the connotations, and the allusions ought all to support and build up to a particular emotional response in the reader, colouring the reaction to and interpretation of the work. | |
| − | At first glance, the scattered images of a hundred different perspectives and interpretations drawn from The Waste Land can seem hopeless; some are so constrained to one-to-one interpretation of symbolisms that they seem hackneyed, others come across as so all-encompassing as to say nothing, and still others tend to be emotionally moving but stubbornly unstated and uninterpreted. Looking at the collection as a whole, however, it takes on a different sort of life. Just as The Waste Land contains the limited, often blatantly erroneous perspectives of many different perspectives, personalities, and opinions, melding them all into a sort of loose whole, the derivative work that surrounds it begins slowly to have a similar effect. | + | The emotional evocation of ''The Waste Land'', accordingly, depends largely on the references and allusions it uses. For those well-versed in the western literary tradition, the connotations of each phrase and expression may be meaningful, but for the uninitiated, the meaning runs the risk of being obscured. |
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| + | At first glance, the scattered images of a hundred different perspectives and interpretations drawn from ''The Waste Land'' can seem hopeless; some are so constrained to one-to-one interpretation of symbolisms that they seem hackneyed, others come across as so all-encompassing as to say nothing, and still others tend to be emotionally moving but stubbornly unstated and uninterpreted. Looking at the collection as a whole, however, it takes on a different sort of life. Just as The Waste Land contains the limited, often blatantly erroneous perspectives of many different perspectives, personalities, and opinions, melding them all into a sort of loose whole, the derivative work that surrounds it begins slowly to have a similar effect. | ||
It is here that the idea of the palimpsest comes into play. The Waste Land, with its collection of fragmented vignettes, easily emulates the written, scraped, and rewritten parchment of a palimpsest. While the derivative works accessible today are, for the most part, quite whole, they still manage to evoke a similar sense of fragmentation due to the sheer volume of material that renders the reader's grasp extremely limited in comparison. In today's Web 2.0 culture, oversaturated with information that is, more often than not, written off with a "tl;dr" (too long; didn't read) or a demand for SparkNotes, the overload tends to leave many people with a collection of bits and pieces that comprise an overall sense of the whole. Rather than following a logical progression, they are superimposed over one another like the various layers of a palimpsest, with only the boldest segments standing out. As a result, it is not necessarily the primary pieces of each "conversation" that comprise the overall meaning; rather, that which is most impactful ends up playing the primary role in the end. | It is here that the idea of the palimpsest comes into play. The Waste Land, with its collection of fragmented vignettes, easily emulates the written, scraped, and rewritten parchment of a palimpsest. While the derivative works accessible today are, for the most part, quite whole, they still manage to evoke a similar sense of fragmentation due to the sheer volume of material that renders the reader's grasp extremely limited in comparison. In today's Web 2.0 culture, oversaturated with information that is, more often than not, written off with a "tl;dr" (too long; didn't read) or a demand for SparkNotes, the overload tends to leave many people with a collection of bits and pieces that comprise an overall sense of the whole. Rather than following a logical progression, they are superimposed over one another like the various layers of a palimpsest, with only the boldest segments standing out. As a result, it is not necessarily the primary pieces of each "conversation" that comprise the overall meaning; rather, that which is most impactful ends up playing the primary role in the end. | ||
