文档介绍：Group 1 Waste Land
艾略特（1888—1965），原籍美国，1927年入英国籍，是后期象征主义，也是整个现代主义文学最有影响的诗人和批判家之一。1947年荣获英国女王授予的“劳绩勋章”，1948年获诺贝尔文学奖，表彰他：“对当代诗歌作出的卓越贡献和所起的先锋作用”。
A Brief Introduction of Eliot
Main works
早期创作：《普鲁弗洛克的情歌》
中期创作：《空心人》《荒原》是中期代表作（1922）
晚期创作：《四个四重奏》
戏剧创作：《大教堂凶杀案》、《合家团圆》《鸡尾酒会》
This poem is divided into five chapters and it contains over 400 lines. Eliot adopted the story of “looking for the Grail(圣杯）” to disclose the “living hell” of the hopeless society.
Images shown to the readers are ：barren fields，frozen rocks，gloomy cities，cold prisons and people who are heavily drank and having no faith about life. In this ridiculous world，there is no admiration for the great persons and no disciplines for people’s behavior; but only despair of souls.
Structure and Content
The burial of the dead shows that life of modern people differs very little to a funeral. And the burial of the dead is intended to save the soul of the dead. Here is the detailed analysis of this.
The first lines “April is the cruelest month” are very important in understanding of the theme of the first chapter. Usually we see April a nice month in early spring, while the poet turned this upside down, announcing that it is cruel. This indicates that he is afraid of the approaching of spring. It is because of the frightening memory of the passed pains left onto the poet’s heart. So the poet prefers to sing