1. Thomas Stearns Eliot 1888 St. Louis, Missouri -1965 London

2. Poet (Waste Land) Dramatist (Murder in the Cathedral) Literary critic (

3. Modernist poetry Free verse no strict metre or rhyme but still recognizable as poetry by virtue of complex patterns move away from the Romantic idea of an unproblematic poetic 'self' directly addressing an equally unproblematic ideal reader or audience. Romantic reaction to the excesses of Victorian formalism

4. 1948 receives the Nobel Prize in Literature "for his outstanding, pioneer contribution to present-day poetry."

5. The Waste Land (1922) reflects decay and fragmentation of western culture modern man no longer experiences a coherent sense of unity with his fellow men he is spiritually and morally empty even relations between the sexes have become sterile and loveless

6. Fragmentation „a heap of broken images“ cultural fragments which the poet pieces together. Main sources: The Bible Dante‘s Divine Comedy BaudelaireShakespeareHomer‘s Odyssey Ovid‘s Metamorphoses The Upanishads, the sacred text of the Hindus James Frazer, The Golden Bough

7. sterility - fertility broken images, we cannot reach the meaning anymore modern world is culture has been made banal and no longer teaches anything A barely remembered mythical past whose legends contained a sense of moral and spiritual wholeness The Holy Grail The Fisher King rites celbrating rebirth of nature

8. Tiresias In Greek mythology a blind prophet who was transformed into a woman for 7 years. He was made blind by the gods for having revealed their secrets. He is the character who has a thoroughly insight and a deep understandig of both sexes.