· How did you feel about the inclusion of the notes? Were they useful or did you find them unnecessary?
· What poetic effect do the first seven lines of the poem make?
· How did you feel about the religious imagery within the poem?
· Death by Water has been described as a lyrical interlude, a poem of serenity and a
negative acceptance of death. What is your view?
· What purpose do you think that the Tarot pack served within the poem? Do you think that this device worked well?
· What effects do the words of the thunder have in the final section of the poem?
· What does the poem show us about Eliot’s attitude to the past?
· It has been said that Tiresias acts as the central consciousness of the poem – do you agree with this?
· What do you think of Eliot’s description of people in the pub? Was it realistic or unrealistic? Is Eliot too detached from the lives of ordinary people?
· At the end of The Fire Sermon Eliot breaks off his sentences – what effect does this have? Why does he end this section with the word burning?
· Were there too many cultural and literary/biblical references within the poem or just the right amount?
· What effect do the words of the thunder have in the final section?
· How much do you think the sequence is a comment on the political/world events of the time?
Glossary
- The Burial of the Dead
Stambergersee – a lake near Munch
Hofgarten – a public park in Munich
“Bin gar…” – “I am not Russian at all, I come from Lithuania, pure German.”
“Frisch…du” - “The wind blows fresh towards the homeland; my Irish child, where are you waiting?” The lines are from the beginning of the opera Tristan and Isolde by Wagner.
“Ded…das Meer” – “waste and empty is the sea.” From Tristan and Isolde.
Madame Sosostris – there was a similar character to this in Crome Yellow by Aldous Huxley.
“Those are pearls that were his eyes” – a line from The Tempest.
Mylae – a battle in the first Punic War between the Romans and the Carthaginians.
- A Game of Chess
Laquearia – a panelled ceiling.
“The change of Philomel…” – Philomena was raped by her brother in law King Tereus and he cut out her tongue to stop her telling her sister. The Gods turned her into a nightingale.
‘jug jug’ to dirty ears – the song of the nightingale (from Elizabethan poetry), jug is also a form of sexual address.
- The Fire Sermon
Waters of Leman – like the rivers of Babylon.
“Et, O ces…” – “And, O those children’s voices were singing in the dome!” from Parsifal by Paul Verlane.
- Death by Water
Phlebus the Phoenician – according to Eliot a further aspect of Mr Eugenides the one-eyed merchant.
- What the Thunder Said
Ganga – The Ganges.
Himavant – a holy mountain in the Himalayas between India and Tibet.
Datta – Give.
Dayadhvam – sympathise. Be compassionate.
Damyata – control.
