WL Manuscript. Gordon

The Waste Land Manuscript Author(s): Lyndall Gordon Source: American Literature, Vol. 45, No. 4 (Jan.
, 1974), pp. 557-570 Published by: Duke University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2924096 . Accessed: 25/11/2013 10:07
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The Waste Land Manuscript

LYNDALL GORDON St. Hilda's College,Oxford MANUSCRIPT OF The WasteLand was a hoardof fragments, accumulated slowlyover sevenand a half years.Only in the seventhyear did the hoard assume the proportions of a major work.The earliest fragments, which go back to T. S. Eliot's last years as a student, show a different bias from the poem that emerged in the autumnand winter of I92I-22. It is curious to read The WasteLand in terms of therather scrappy but emphatic vision fromwhich it evolved and certainpersistent notionsthat were editedor obscured only at the last moment. In orderto tracethe growthof The WasteLand through all the stagesof its composition,I firstgrouped the fragments accordingto the different batchesof paper Eliot used and then established a chronological orderby meansof a variety of clues,manyof whichwereprovided by Valerie Eliot's clear and well-annotated facsimile editionof the
mHE
with divine power: "I am the Resurrectionand the Life
At the age of twenty-six, when Eliot was stillat Harvard and livingin an Ash Street atticin Cambridge, he wrote Massachusetts, threevisionary fragments (pp. io8-iI5) on the same quadruled paper,punchedforfiling.2 All threeare concerned withrevelation and its aftermath: the attractions and problemsof "turning"or conversion. Two fragments, "Afterthe turning" and "So through the evening,"foreshadowthe climacticscene in the completed WasteLand, thedangerous initiating journey to thedeserted chapel in themountains. In thethird, a voicespeaksto Eliot,infusing him
...
manuscript.'
It is easy to dismisstheseearliest fragments in the manuscript as inelegantscraps Eliot sensiblydiscarded,but together they an-
1 T. S. Eliot, The WasteLand: A Facsimileand Transcript the OriginalDrafts, ed. of Valerie Eliot (New York: Harcourt,I971). The page numbersin the text referto this edition.I shouldlike to thankthe Berg Collection, New York Public Library, for making availablethe original manuscript of The WasteLand and Eliot's "Poems,"a notebook and folderof earlyholograph and typescript poems. 2 The paper has a "Linen Ledger" watermark (used by severalpaper companiesin
America). Valerie Eliotdates thehandwriting "1914 or even earlier" (p.
130).
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Literature American
again mood. In "Ash Wednesday"Eliot refers nouncea persistent introvisionary, towardsthe religiouslife.Other to his "turning" spectivepoems of the 'twenties-"Doris'sDream Songs," "The of out of the fragments Hollow Men"-seem to move so naturally poemsEliot wrotebetween satiric thewitty, in retrospect, I914 that, digression in his career. and I919 seemlike a deliberate I9I7 thathe had a personalupheaval Years later,Eliot told friends Jamesian which alteredhis rather "Prufrock" (I9II) writing after but a "Prufrock"; after years in the little wrote Eliot sensibility. WasteLand thevisionary suddenbatchofpoemsin I9I4, including suggeststhat the upheaval had a religiousfocus. In fragments, "Oh "The BurntDancer," "The Love Song of Saint Sebastian," Gara in Agony 'An From little voices,"and "The LittlePassion: and the cross with martyrdom his fascination ret'" Eliot explores at the end of the path, and debatesthe realityof the material None of thesepoemsis includedin The WasteLand manworld.3 A moth'sexpiatory but theypresageWasteLand material. uscript the penance foreshadow ordeal by fireand a lover'sself-inflicted man who has lost A withered and the seducer. ordealsof Narcissus withGeronhas obviousaffinities and direction his spiritual energy tion and the shadowyhero of the completedWasteLand. In the summerof 1914, Eliot moved to England and, a few monthslater,wrote"The Death of Saint Narcissus"while a stuat MertonCollege,Oxford.He wrotehis first dentof philosophy Make" "ExcelsiorFine British draft on paperwiththe watermark (pp. 90-93), the same paper he used for "Mr. Apollinax." Both I9I5, for,on February by January, poems musthave been written the to Pound.4Pound submitted 2, Eliot alludedto themin a letter second draft(pp. 94-97) to Poetryin August, I9I5, while Eliot in America.Evidently, this was againstEliot's wishes was briefly when -he mighthave considered the poem too confessional-for, With he returned to London, he withdrewit frompublication.
3 "Poems," (Berg Coll., NYPL), "The Burnt Dancer" (dated by Eliot: June, 1914), "Oh little voices," and "Saint Sebastian" were written before Eliot left America. Eliot use(d American paper with a "Marcus Wards" watermark. "The Little Passion" is the last poem copied into Eliot's notebook which he abandoned soon after his arrival in England in
The letter ... 4 "I understand that Priapism, Narcissism etc are not approved of. pp. IIO-III. is quoted in Ezra Pound: Perspectives, ed. Noel Stock (Chicago, I965), Valerie Eliot reports (p. 129) that Eliot could not remember the date of "Narcissus?" but it may have been early in 1915.
August,1914.
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"The Death of Saint Narcissus"Eliot firstintroduces the desert withits hot sand and rock,ultimately glimpsedin partI and developed at lengthin part V of the completedWaste Land. Narcissus,carriedaway by his own beautyand his willingness to be transformed, deliberately seeksout the desert as theproperspotfor a religious drama.He goes to become"a dancerto God," but to his dismay discovers no divine light,only his own flaws-his selfenthrallment, his indifference to others, his masochistic delightin the burningarrows.The ordeal leaveshim dryand stained, with the tasteof death in his mouth.It is crucial,I think,to see The WasteLand, indeed all of Eliot's subsequent work,in the context of thismartyr's tale,the story of an unsuccessful saint. No morefragments were written until some time afterEliot's marriage, in June, I9I5, to an Englishwoman, VivienHaigh-Wood. She was brightand literate and enthusiastic about her husband's poetry, but her nervoushysteria and her physicalfrailty-compounded by insomniaand dependence on sedatives-madeher a frightening burden.Within a few monthsof theirimmediately unhappymarriageshe fell seriously ill. In January, I9I6, Eliot wroteto his Harvardfriend ConradAikenthathe was notwriting, but had "lived through material fora scoreof long poems in the lastsixmonths" (p. x). BetweenI9I6 and I919 Eliot wroteanother batchof fragments, new introducing themes-the threatening wife, the metropolitan randomsexual desire."The Death of the Duchess" environment, a couple trappedin a bedroomand unable (pp. I04-I07) describes to communicate their needs.5 The wifeurgesheremotional separate claims only throughthe insistent strokesof her hairbrush. The husbandsilently longs to escape through the door. The titlesuggestsa sequel to "The Death of Saint Narcissus":God deniesthe would-besaint his chosenrole, and the husbanddenies his wife. It is probableEliot showed"The Death of the Duchess" to Pound by I9I8. There is a jokingreference, amongPound's comments on
5 It might be possible to be more specific about the date by matching the paper with that of non-Waste Land manuscripts but, in the absence of other clues, the paper evidence is inconclusive. The paper matches that of an unpublished review (I9I6) of H.D.'s translation of choruses from Iphegenia in Aulis (Berg Coll.). It also matches a draft of "Gerontion," which Eliot sent to John Rodker in the summer of I9I9 (David Schwab Coll., Universityof Virginia Library, Charlottesville). In a letter to Rodker (July 9, I9I9) Eliot mentioned the prospect of another poem, about the same length as "Gerontion"; this might be "The Death of the Duchess."
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Literature American
to a Duchess who is outragedby "Whispersof Immortality," of The Waste Land The poem is the first animality.6 Grishkin's (call it A) typewriter own used his Eliot in typescript: fragments withhim fromHarvard.7 whichhe had brought of Eliot's tensions of theemotional confession "Elegy"is another and demon,and again the husbandwould be rid of her. of victim "Elegy," in turn,is linked with "The riversweats" (pp. 48-53), WasteLand. whichbecamethe finaleof partIII of the completed for with remorse are associated emotions In both pieces,religious In each, sexual a terrible wrongdone to a woman or womankind. pain. Eliot believedhe mighthold to guilt precedespurgatorial only if the visionary power promisedin "I am the Resurrection" often so fire he that refining burntaway by the flesh werepurged, invoked.The rainingflamesin "The Death of Saint Narcissus" in "Elegy," They are followed, are one attempt to punishthe flesh. agonywhich and by theburning ball of fire," by "God in a rolling on the RiverThames,at Moorgate, promiscuity followsa seducer's and on Margatesands: burning burning burning Burning O Lord thoupluckest me out O Lord thoupluckest burning "Elegy" and "The riversweats"belong with a group of fragon small notepadsheetswith an "HieraticaBond" mentswritten On theversoof "Elegy" Eliot wrote"Dirge,"a fantasy watermark. underthe sea (pp. ii8-ii9). disembodiment of Bleistein's frightful
6 "Poems," Berg Coll., NYPL. 7 According to Eliot, there were never any handwritten drafts of the sections in typescript, only scattered lines (letter to Quinn, Sept. 21, 1922, John Quinn Coll., Manuscript Division, NYPL). Eliot used two typewriters.The differencesbetween them are identified by Hugh Kenner, "The Urban Apocalypse," Eliot in His Time, ed. A Walton Litz (PrinceSee also Grover Smith, "The Making of The Waste Land," pp. 23-49. ton, N.J., 1973), Eliot's early manuscripts and letters indicate that type127-141. Mosaic, VI (Fall, 1972), writer A was the one he brought from Boston. "The Love Song of Saint Sebastian," written at Harvard, was typed on A, as well as all Eliot's early poems through "Gerontion." A was also used for letters to Leonard Woolf, John Rodker, and John Quinn. It seems, however, Eliot had very easy access to an alternative typewriterB, which he used for letters to Virginia Woolf, for later letters to Quinn, for some Waste Land fragments, and for the envelope of the manuscript he finally sent Quinn. B might be an officetypewriter: in one B letter to Quinn, Eliot mentions that it was dictated. 8 The form of "Elegy" suggests that it was written during Eliot's quatrain period
(1917-19).
firstmarriage (pp. ii6-iI7).8 Again, the "Poe-bride" is a complex
The WasteLand Manuscript
56I
notinclude "Gerontion" in themanuscript and I shallnotdiscuss ithere except tosaythat itintroduces several neworganizing ideas: thecharacter of a religious candidate whohas losthispassion, the private crisis against thebackdrop of historical decline, the iden9Mrs. Eliot (lated "Dirge' I92I (p. I3I), but the first drafton Hieraticapaper might have been much earlier.The themeof death by waterand the name Bleisteinappear in poems written in I9I8 and I9I9. In I92I Eliot made a fair copy of "Dirge" on "British Bond" paper. " 10O CityCity" was retained and became11. 259-265 in the finaldraft of The Waste Land.
poemcomes about through "Gerontion" (May,I919). Eliotdid
The theme of deathby water, likethedeathby fire of Narcissus and the seducer, is a drastic meansof eliminating an unwanted identity. Thereis a similar drowning scene, involving thedisembodiment and transformation of a Phoenician sailor, in "Dans le Restaurant" (I9I8), whichwas latertranslated with alterations andaddedto The Waste Land.9 It is impossible, so far, to datetheHieratica cluster exactly, but I9I8 seems a reasonable guess. The earliest estimate wouldbe the spring of I917 whenEliotbeganhis career in the as a bankclerk forthere City, aretwoother Hieratica fragments associated clearly withthat experience. "O CityCity"(pp. 36-37)reports imEliot's pression oftheBillingsgate fishmarket, nearLloyd's Bank, and the whiteand gold Anglican church on Lower ThamesStreet, St. MagnustheMartyr, whichhe usedto visit during lunchhour.'0 I think thesecond fragment, "London"(pp. 36-37),provides one organizing idea forThe Waste Land,and it is rather a pityit is cutfrom thefinal draft. Briefly, Eliotregards theswarming, ugly metropolis from thepoint of viewof a seerhaunted by intuitions of idealpossibilities. He envisions phantasmal gnomes burrowing in brick and steel and menbounduponthemeaningless wheelof fortune, yet about this hellish scene there curls an "idealmeaning." In therevised version (p. 30), Eliotexplicitly contrasts thecity of menwiththeCityof God. a substantial ByI919 Eliothadamassed hoard ofprivate visions, fantasies, and ordeals. The earlier fragments and unare timeless thelater localized; onesalight on specific ofLonrates occasionally don thatEliotknewwell-suburban where he would Hampstead, havevisited hisparents-in-law, and theThames. theCity, The turning a hoard point between and a unified offragments
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the 1914 fragments, the torment of livingbetweentwo worlds.In May, Eliot wroteagain to JohnQuinn thathe had a "long poem" in mindand "partly on paper"whichhe wishedto finish(p. xxi). There is no otherevidence, as yet,thatEliot wroteanything more thatspring, so I assumewhat was "on paper" was the old hoard of fragments."3 The "poem"at thisstagewas stilla personal record. Althoughthe groundof Eliot's ordeal shifts-sometimes the domesticscene,sometimes the divinevisitation, sometimes the imaginarytrial by fireor water-he is always present, blightedand skeptical, hovering between theremote role of a religious candidate and a moreimmediate despair. In September, 192I, Eliot becameincreasingly "shaky"and was sick leave fromLloyd's Bank. On OctoberI2, giventhreemonths' and ten days later he went to Margate for rest and treatment, he at lasthad the movedto theAlbemarle Hotel. At theAlbemarle solitudeand leisurehe had craved for so many years.It seems weekstherethathe put together likelythatit was duringhis three ata first draftof The WasteLand. Eliot ironically rudimentary tachedto the manuscript his hotel bill for the period October22 J i6. The to NovemberI2. The first costhim approximately draft in the "whiteroom."The nexttwo first week he indulgedhimself in a modestroomen pension. morefrugally weekshe spentrather Using an alternative typewriter (B), which he broughtwith
11 At the same time as Eliot wrote "Gerontion" he reviewed The Education of Henry Adams for the Athenaeum. Eliot's use of an exemplary figure against the backclrop of historical decline perhaps owes something to Adams's mode of autobiography. 12 "Song to the Opherian" was published under the pseudonym Gus Krutsch in The Tyro (April, I92I). Eliot used the A typewriterand "British Bond" paper for the copy he retained for The Waste Land. 13 In May, Eliot also wrote a London Letter to the Dial which reverberates with donne'es for The Waste Land. See A. Walton Litz, "The Waste Land Fifty Years After,' Eliot in His Time, pp. 13-I5.
a touch a breath" (pp. 98-99).12 "Song" returns to the theme of
tification of spiritual desertand familiar urban waste.1" Eliot saw "Gerontion" as a preludeto The WasteLand, but in the end submitted to Pound's advice to excludeit. Towards the end of I9I9, Eliot wroteto his New York benefactor JohnQuinn and to his mother in Bostonthathe wishedto writea long poem he had had in mind for some time (pp. xvii-xviii). Like Gerontiondesperately awaiting a sign, the speaker of "Song,"thenextnew fragment, published in April,I92I, is "waiting
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Eliottyped watermark, him, and yellowish paperwitha "Verona" elucidative" epihis titlepage withwhathe calleda "somewhat graph from HeartofDarkness:
Did he livehislifeagainin every detail of desire, and surrender during temptation, the supreme moment of complete knowledge? He criedin a whisper at at someimage, cried outtwice, a cry somevision,-he thatwas no more thana breath'The horror! '14 The horror!
"Exequy"(pp. IOOa short lyric, Eliotalsotyped twonewpieces, a larger (pp. 22-23, 26-27, episodic section IoI) and,in duplicate, 30-35,38-47)which fragments combines theold City and Thames Fresca, a pampered with satiric Londoners: accounts ofunappealing a merchant, an insinuating intellectual woman,Mr. Eugenides, "The wanton andherlover, theclerk. Eliotcalledthesection typist Fire Sermon" these worldly types he planned to contrast because As flames. his lustto purgatorial withtheseducer who sacrifices the seducer turns his back on womenhe recallsSt. Augustine's fire of unholy loves,and the Buddha's earlyyears, his cauldron an aversion forall priests to conceive sermon, whenhe urged hiis theimpressions and to livethe to forget thisworld, of thesenses, holylife. draft first at Margate an unpreserved Possibly, Eliotalso wrote his him of of "Deathby Water." The sea might havereminded Massachusetts fishermen of Gloucester, boyhood heroes, thehardy In thepreserved cleanand dignified." -men whowere"inhuman, whenhis bravado faircopyEliotidentifies withthe fisherman's He admires calm thefisherman's schooner crashes intoan iceberg. knowsI knowI disaster ("And if Another acceptance ofpersonal know not"). He remembers Phlebasthe sailorand his strange transformations under thesea. WhatdidtheAlbermarle all theearly draft looklike?I assume werepartof and "I am theResurrection" fragments like"Elegy" thepoemwhenit tookshapeat this Eliotwouldotherstage, since
14 Eliot eventually on in a letterwritten deleted this epigraphat Pound's suggestion of Ezra Pound,ed. D. D. Paige (New York, I97I), Letters 24, I922. See Selected January redated pp. I69-I70. (Paige dated this letterDec. 24, I92I. It has been authoritatively by Hugh Kennerin Eliot in His Time,p. 44.)
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he them in themanuscript reason to include wisehavehad little of thefraglatersentQuinn.It is impossible to guessthe order Land The Waste part, areclear. For themost ments, buttheissues of Eliot's foraspects seems to havebeenoriginally a dirge identity love in "Elegy"and "The of marital thathe had lost.Stripped of divine lovein "The Deathof Deathof theDuchess," stripped Saint Narcissus," stripped of fleshin "Dirge" and "Death by he feels of theright kindof famein "Exequy," Water," stripped in suburbia, buried In "Exequy" he seeshimself fatally reduced. his tombthere and from a would-be fora lQver, saintmistaken SOVEGNA VOS AL TEMPS DE MON comesa greatcryforsympathy: xxvi). formypain.Purgatorio, in due time DOLOR" (Take thought it was Land was originally If The Waste Eliot's dirge, personal "death" The despair a rebirth rite. ofthenumerous alsopotentially of thevisionary by thedimpromise fragments is counterbalanced theturning," "After "I am theResurrection," fragments-"Song," the his case against Eliotpresents and "So through theevening." is foran alternative his evidence material worldwithauthority; is probably of its possibility flimsy. But the merecontemplation autodraft has a stronger The Albemarle essential to hisrecovery. than a rather individual It stresses suffering biographical feeling. spacebea culture, in thedangerous who is living an individual tween twoworlds to choose. andis unable hiswife in Lona weekwith After Margate, he spent Eliotleft ofrecuperation in thesanatorium for a further period don,then left the Eliotshifted of Dr. Vittozin Lausanne. Whilehe was there disease. casehistory to cultural personal emphasis ofhispoemfrom On November Pound influenced him in thisdirection. Possibly, his wifewiththePounds, Parisand left i8, Eliotpassedthrough whowerethenliving his likely thatEliotshowed there. It seems in mentor draft. Pound called Eliot'snextdraft the Albemarle Lausanne he had previwhich implies "thenineteen pageversion," on seeing themanuscript He also mentioned ouslyseenanother. morethanone occasion whenhe wrote:
If youmustneedsenquire Reader Know diligent on That each Occasion the caesarian Ezra performed Operation."5
15 Includedin letter to Eliot (Jan. 24,
I922),
ibid.,p.
I70.
565
of the "Verona"sheets is Pound's markings evidence The strongest and "Song." He markedtheseon two occasions:once in pencil, fromLauon Novemberi8, once in ink,on Eliot'sreturn probably One wondersabout Pound's verbalcomsanneearlyin January.16 ments on the Albermarledraft.He must have criticized"The afterEliot revisedand Death of the Duchess" becausein January, expandedit, he said that "the bad nervesis O.K. as now led up be cut because thatsomefragments to."17 I thinkhe also suggested he talked of the "remaining" letter, later,in the same January at the end of the poem. superfluities and began to altered In Lausanne The WasteLand was greatly extake its finalshape. Eliot cut "The Death of Saint Narcissus," ceptfora fewlines,and wrote"The Burialof theDead" (pp. 4-9) themein a moregeneralway. He cut to take up the death-rebirth "Elegy" and rewrote"The Death of the Duchess" as part of a largersection(pp. io-2i) wherehis accountof his own marriage betweena set piece on the luxuriouswoman is less conspicuous He reworked marriage. and an accountof a snarlinglower-class the evening"in anand "So through bits of "Afterthe turning" "What the Thunder Said" (pp. 70-8i), which othernew section, and "The He kept the titlepage takesup the themeof revelation. ordeal.He saved "Dirge," Fire Sermon"and the long fisherman's "Exequy,"and "Song," and put themat the end. removes Eliot'smoreautobiographtheLausannedraft In short, ical items and overlaysprivate sorrowswith an abundance of is stressed, experience scenes.If one person's contemporary realistic the weak it is not becausehe is specialbut because he represents and meageropportunities. human mass with its modestpotential Eliottakeshis audienceintohis story For thefirst timein his career of commonculturalexperience. and triesto writefromthe center At thispointhe toyswithan odd titlefromDickens: "He Do the Voices." He begins to dispersethe distinctive Police in Different culof standard amongthe voicesof a variety voice of the sufferer tural figures-the would-be playboy,the trapped husband, the Eliot's air of the glib intellectual. worker, the resentful adulteress,
16The carboncopy,with Pound's marginalia Eliot in pencil,was clearlyshown first. beforesubin accordancewith Pound's suggestions then revisedthe originaltypescript mitting it forfurther corrections. 17To Eliot (Jan. 24, I922), SelectedLetters, p. I69.
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American Literature
representativeness is frankly contrived, evenmocking, forhe never truly submerges his self. Nevertheless thenew "representativeness" probably served to makethepoemmorepopular thanit would otherwise havebeen.Eliotstilltried to keephisprivate search for salvation alivein "WhattheThunder Said,"and latertold Bertrand Russell thatthissection alonejustified thepoem.Suddenly, at Lausanne, thepilgrim's journey of I914 revived in his imaginationwithrenewed urgency-the sunbaked twisting road,thebells and chanting voices, the revelation of a new worldof reversed images.But the visionary element, so forthright in the earliest Waste Land fragments, is now depersonalized and evendisguised. In place of the man withextraordinary powers there is now a "form" and,in a later draft, merely a bat.And instead of a voice saying plainly "I am theResurrection," thethunder now rumbles obscure Sanskrit words. Eliotprobably tookto Lausanne his own typewriter (A) and white "British Bond"typing he usedfor"The Burial which paper, in heressay oftheDead" and "A GameofChess." HelenGardner, "The Waste Land: ParisI922," makes a strong caseforthepossithatEliothad no typewriter and that secin Lausanne these bility weretyped he left tions before London.18 Grover Smith, however, in "The Burial"pointsout thatthe name of the clairvoyant Sosostris-comes from CromeYellowand,since AldousHuxley's thiswas published onlyin November, I92I, it appears unlikely Eliotwrote he the section in Eliot before was Lausanne.`' After finished "A Game of Chess"he keptthecarbon and mailedthe original tohiswife hercomments. typescript for Vivien Eliotwrote "wonderful wonderful" nextto herhusband's graphic description the of tormented couple. She also madeseveral intelligent suggesand comments tions and,on theverso of thesecond sheet, asked Eliotifshemight haveitforkeeps:"Sendmebackthis copy & let me haveit" (p. I5). Thereis no doubtthatin Lausanne Eliotwrote several pieces byhandon quadruled paper:"What theThunder Said,"fair copies of "Dirge"and "Deathby Water," and a rough draft of "Venus Anadyomene" (whichwas soondiscarded alongwiththeFresca
18 Eliot in His Time, pp. 67-94. 19 "The Making of The Waste Land," Mosaic, VI (Fall, 1972), It is of course I32. possible that Huxley's manuscript was circulated-among his friends and that Eliot read
it prior to publication.
567
episode forwhich it was designed). Eliotusedthesameblackink forthetwofair copies. It is hardto saywhyhe did nottype them. Perhaps Eliotwrote them at night whenhe wouldnothavewished to disturb other patients bytyping.20 The Lausanne draftconsists of approximately twenty-two pages.21 The first three sections-"The Burialof the Dead," "A Gameof Chess," "The Fire Sermon"-review urbanlife. familiar In thesecond halfof thepoemthewandering heromovesinto scenes remote from ordinary experience. His heroic expedition to theGrandBanksin "DeathbyWater," and hisinitiation nearthe deserted chapelin "WhattheThunder Said" is followed by further ordeals in thethree closing fragments of thesemifinal draft, "Dirge,""Exequy," and "Song."These includehis imaginative participation in Bleistein's "sea-change," hisownpurgatorial agony underground, and his nocturnal vigilforthe divine"touch." In a sense these ordeals offer modes of release from theurban waste, and thepresence ofthesea in thesecond halfofthepoemsuggests a new,quitedifferent, arena. Eliotagainstopped in Parison hiswayhomeearly in January, I922, and showed Poundhisnewdraft. Poundcuttheline"(Those are pearlsthatwere his eyes.Look!)" fromMme. Sosostris's
20 Robert Sencourt says that Eliot left the sanatorium and completed his writing at Chardonne above Vevey, but he does not cite the source of this information. See T. S. Eliot: A Memoir (New York, I97I), p. I05. If this is true, it may explain why Eliot diid not use a typewriterfor his fair copies of "Dirge" and "Death by Water." 21 Hugh Kenner and Grover Smith have suggested that there was another (now missing) typescriptof The Waste Land, which Eliot mailed to Pound after his return to London in January, I922. Pound wrote to Eliot on January 24 that the manuscript was now nineteen pages long. My own supposition is that the "I9 pages" could easily apply to the present manuscript, to the twenty-two page Lausanne version, completed in Paris, minus the three final lyrics which, in the same letter, Pound advised Eliot to discard. The Lausanne draft consisted of: "The Burial of the Dead" (first page cut) 2 pages "A Game of Chess" 3 "The Fire Sermon" (Fresca, Venus discarded) 3-4 "The river sweats" (approved) 3 "Death by Water" (under consideration) 4 "What the Thunder Said" 4
plus "Dirge," "Exequy," "Song" at end
I9-20
3
22-23
Further evidence against a missing manuscript is a letter Eliot wrote to Quinn, in September, I922, assuring him that this manuscript-which he sent Quinn as a giftcontained the "only copies" of discarded portions (John Quinn Coll., Manuscript Division, NYPL).
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prophecy, whereuponEliot-reluctantto let the transformation on his "British Bond" paper themego-scribbleda new fragment (pp. 122-23). It elaborates on thefateof the drownedman. When reducedto a all his grossfleshis washed away and the skeleton And Eliot wonders sea-object, thenpearlsgrow in his eye-sockets. findspeace. whether then,at last,the spirit at "Death by Water"and orderedEliot Pound looked critically to type it. He drew a thick line throughthe central"London" to fragmentin "The Fire Sermon," and cancelled references He attacked and St. MaryWoolnoth. churches, MichaelPaternoster the Fresca episodeand Eliot cut it completely. On the versoEliot wrotean alternative tentis broken."It forepassage: "The river's tellsthewinter scenein London.The skybreaksintorain overthe Thames,and the last leavesof autumnare washed away. An exile cityto whichhe mustreturn. gloomily contemplates theforbidding his approval of two pieces, Pound signified, witha greencrayon, the seducer'sexploits(on which he wrote "OK echt") and the pilgrim'sjourney ("OK"). Either Pound or Eliot immediately typed a fair copy of "What the Thunder Said," using Pound's typewriter and double foolscap. When Eliot returned to London he probablyleftthis manuit furor partof it, in Paris so thatPound mightconsider script, ther. subsequent correspondence References to minordetailsin their Pound markedand mailed to Eliot suggest that,laterin January, an unpreserved Vivien'stypetentis broken," copyof "The river's of "A Game of Chess" (Pound markedthisa secondtime), script and the typescript of "Death by Water,"whichPound cut heavily. When Eliot offered 2o, he said the poem to the Dial, on January it had been threetimesthrough the sieve by Pound and himself and shouldsoon be in its finalform.22 On January 24 and a little suggestions.23 later,Eliot got two letters fromPound with further was not."weighty enough," Pound wrotethatthe Conradepigraph and Eliot droppedit. But the main forceof the letters was aimed with theirthemesof baptismal at abolishing the threefinallyrics death to the world, purgatory, and mysticalexperience. Pound "One test," advised Eliot repeatedly "to abolish 'em altogether."
22 The letter is paraphrased by Nicholas Joost, ScofieldThayerand "The Dial" (Carbondale,Ill., I964), p. 159. 23SelectedLetters, pp. I69-170, I71-172.
569
he wrote, "is whether anything wouldbe lacking if thelastthree wereomitted. I don'tthink it would.. . . The thing now runs from 'April'to 'shantih' without a break.. . . Don't tryto bust all records byprolonging it three pagesfurther." Eliotreplied that he accepted thecriticism "so faras understood." The "superfluities" werecut. In thesemifinal draft thecultural in thefirst halfof statement thepoemis moreor lessbalanced by thevisionary speculation in thesecond The effect half. ofPound's lastsuggestions is to curtail thesecond halfso thatcultural statement comesto dominate the poem. After Eliotreturned to Londonhe complained to Poundthat he was sick, miserable, and "excessively depressed."24 That winter he usedtomeet Conrad Aiken regularly forlunch, andwouldconfess to him-over rump steak at a pub in CannonStreet-how he wouldcomehomefrom work, sharpen hispencil, be unand then able to write. Yet there seemed material there, waiting. He later wrote to his mother thathe had in minda sequelto The Waste Land, a moreoptimistic poem aboutcoming to the grail.More thananything, he wanted to givethereligious ordeal backto his generation, and thedimensions of a universe in which suchan ordeal belonged. In thewinter of I922 he carried Danteeverywhere withhim in his pocket-Dante who had surveyed thatuniverse andwritten hisautobiography in colossal cipher. Eliot seemed to remain evenafter dissatisfied the poem was published in theCriterion and Dial in mid-October, I922. He said The Waste Land seemed likesomething he had written longbefore which couldno longer speakforhim."Mypresent ideasare he told Gilbert very different," a Dial editor. Seldes, Quinn'sreaction to themanuscript was notreassuring: "I havenoted theevidenceof Pound'scriticisms on the poem," he wrote. "Personally I shouldnothavecut out someof theparts thatPoundadvised youto cutout" (p. xxvi).Duringthe'twenties Eliot'suneasiness was confirmed by misreadings of The Waste Land. He was irritatedto be hailedas the spokesman forthatgeneration because, whenit fastened so hungrily on his disillusion and erudition, it thefact ignored that they weresubsidiary to a religious vision.
24
Letterto Pound (Jan.,I922),
ibid.,pp.
I70-17I.
570
AmericanLiterature
Eliot The manuscript of The WasteLand shows that at first priority, but that the made the religiousvision an unmistakable a radical change afterhe showed it to Pound. poem underwent The Waste Land began as the purelypersonalrecordof a man candidatefor a religiouslife but who saw himself as a potential by domestic was constrained by his own nature and distracted in an autobiography a kind of spiritual claims.Eliot was writing age thatwas not cordialto the genre.He decidedhe could reach he Like many autobiographers his audience only by indirection. as a child of the times, himself by presenting compelledattention the would-besaint.Eliot's with the resultthatreadersoverlooked took over the poem, for the strategy failedby its success, strategy terms and he was forced his saint'slifein moreexplicit to rewrite in "Ash Wednesday"and Four Quartets.25
25 Acknowledgment: for I shouldlike to thankA. WaltonLitz and Sacvan Bercovitch thisarticle. theirhelp in preparing

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The Waste Land Manuscript Author(s): Lyndall Gordon Source: American Literature, Vol. 45, No. 4 (Jan.

The Waste Land Manuscript

with divine power: "I am the Resurrectionand the Life

America). Valerie Eliotdates thehandwriting "1914 or even earlier" (p.

The Waste Land Manuscript

firstmarriage (pp. ii6-iI7).8 Again, the "Poe-bride" is a complex

The WasteLand Manuscript

poemcomes about through "Gerontion" (May,I919). Eliotdid

a touch a breath" (pp. 98-99).12 "Song" returns to the theme of

The WasteLand Manuscript

The WasteLand Manuscript

The Waste Land Manuscript

plus "Dirge," "Exequy," "Song" at end

The WasteLand Manuscript

Letterto Pound (Jan.,I922),

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