T. S. Eliot’s Misreading of Some Mythological Sources in The Waste Land
Keywords:
misreading, mythology, creativity
Abstract
Reading always entails an act of interpretation and all interpretation involves misreading. All poets cannot be separated from the previous ones. They must read and misread their precursors. T.S. Eliot misreads the mythological sources that he uses in his poem The Waste Land. This misreading is not a mistake, but it is meant to create new meaning to the available text. By misreading the previous texts, the poet creates a space of creativity for himself. There are six ways of misreading as explicated by Harold Bloom. In this article only three ways of misreading will be explained and applied, namely clinamen, tessera, and kenosis.Downloads
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References
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Brooker, J. S. & Bently, J. (1990). Reading The Waste Land: Modernism and the limits of interpretation. Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press.
Brooks, C. (1968). The waste land: Critique of the myth. In J. Martin (Ed.), A collection of critical essays on “The Waste Land" (pp. 59-86). Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall.
Hands, A. (1993). Sources for the poetry of T. S. Eliot. Oxford: Hadrian Books.
Leitch, V. B. (1983). Deconstructive criticism: An advanced introduction. New York: Columbia UP.
Ovid. (1955). Metamorphoses. trans. Mary M. Innes. London: Penguin Books.
Smith, G. (1983). The waste land. London: George Allen & Unwin.
Traversi, D. (1976). T. S. Eliot the longer poems: The waste land, ash Wednesday, four quartets. London: Bodley Head.
Weston, J. L. (1920). From ritual to romance. London: Cambridge UP.
Published
2009-12-04
How to Cite
Limanta, L. (2009). T. S. Eliot’s Misreading of Some Mythological Sources in The Waste Land. K@ta, 11(1), 85-98. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.9744/kata.11.1.85-98
Section
Articles
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