The Waste Land Section III: The Fire Sermon

Summary
The title of this, the longest section of The Waste Land, is taken from a sermon given by Buddha in which
he encourages his followers to give up earthly passion (symbolized by fire) and seek freedom from
earthly things. A turn away from the earthly does indeed take place in this section, as a series of
increasingly debased sexual encounters concludes with a river-song and a religious incantation. The
section opens with a desolate riverside scene: Rats and garbage surround the speaker, who is fishing
and musing on the king my brothers wreck. The river-song begins in this section, with the refrain from
Spensers Prothalamion: Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song. A snippet from a vulgar soldiers
ballad follows, then a reference back to Philomela (see the previous section). The speaker is then
propositioned by Mr. Eugenides, the one-eyed merchant of Madame Sosostriss tarot pack. Eugenides
invites the speaker to go with him to a hotel known as a meeting place for homosexual trysts.
The speaker then proclaims himself to be Tiresias, a figure from classical mythology who has both male
and female features (Old man with wrinkled female breasts) and is blind but can see into the future.
Tiresias/the speaker observes a young typist, at home for tea, who awaits her lover, a dull and slightly
arrogant clerk. The woman allows the clerk to have his way with her, and he leaves victorious. Tiresias,
who has foresuffered all, watches the whole thing. After her lovers departure, the typist thinks only
that shes glad the encounter is done and over.
A brief interlude begins the river-song in earnest. First, a fishermans bar is described, then a beautiful
church interior, then the Thames itself. These are among the few moments of tranquility in the poem,
and they seem to represent some sort of simpler alternative. The Thames-daughters, borrowed from
Spensers poem, chime in with a nonsense chorus (Weialala leia / Wallala leialala). The scene shifts
again, to Queen Elizabeth I in an amorous encounter with the Earl of Leicester. The queen seems
unmoved by her lovers declarations, and she thinks only of her people humble people who expect /
Nothing. The section then comes to an abrupt end with a few lines from St.
Augustines Confessions and a vague reference to the Buddhas Fire Sermon (burning).
Form
This section of The Waste Land is notable for its inclusion of popular poetic forms, particularly musical
ones. The more plot-driven sections are in Eliots usual assortment of various line lengths, rhymed at
random. The Fire Sermon, however, also includes bits of many musical pieces, including Spensers
wedding song (which becomes the song of the Thames-daughters), a soldiers ballad, a nightingales
chirps, a song from Oliver Goldsmiths The Vicar of Wakefield, and a mandolin tune (which has no words
but is echoed in a clatter and a chatter from within). The use of such low forms cuts both ways here:
In one sense, it provides a critical commentary on the episodes described, the cheap sexual encounters
shaped by popular culture (the gramophone, the mens hotel). But Eliot also uses these bits and pieces
to create high art, and some of the fragments he uses (the lines from Spenser in particular) are
themselves taken from more exalted forms. In the case of the Prothalamion, in fact, Eliot is placing
himself within a tradition stretching back to ancient Greece (classically, prothalamion is a generic term
for a poem-like song written for a wedding). Again this provides an ironic contrast to the debased
goings-on but also provides another form of connection and commentary. Another such reference,
generating both ironic distance and proximate parallels, is the inclusion of Elizabeth I: The liaison

between Elizabeth and Leicester is traditionally romanticized, and, thus, the reference seems to clash
with the otherwise sordid nature of this section. However, Eliot depicts Elizabethand Spenser, for that
matteras a mere fragment, stripped of noble connotations and made to represent just one more piece
of cultural rubbish. Again, this is not meant to be a democratizing move but a nihilistic one: Romance is
dead.
Commentary
The opening two stanzas of this section describe the ultimate Waste Land as Eliot sees it. The
wasteland is cold, dry, and barren, covered in garbage. Unlike the desert, which at least burns with heat,
this place is static, save for a few scurrying rats. Even the river, normally a symbol of renewal, has been
reduced to a dull canal. The ugliness stands in implicit contrast to the Sweet Thames of Spensers
time. The most significant image in these lines, though, is the rat. Like the crabs inPrufrock, rats are
scavengers, taking what they can from the refuse of higher-order creatures. The rat could be said to
provide a model for Eliots poetic process: Like the rat, Eliot takes what he can from earlier, grander
generations and uses the bits and pieces to sustain (poetic) life. Somehow this is preferable to the more
coherent but vulgar existence of the contemporary world, here represented by the sound of horns and
motors in the distance, intimating a sexual liaison.
The actual sexual encounters that take place in this section of the poem are infinitely unfruitful.
Eugenides proposes a homosexual tryst, which by its very nature thwarts fertility. The impossibility of
regeneration by such means is symbolized by the currants in his pocketthe desiccated, deadened
version of what were once plump, fertile fruits. The typist and her lover are equally barren in their way,
even though reproduction is at least theoretically possible for the two. Living in so impoverished a
manner that she does not even own a bed, the typist is certainly not interested in a family. Elizabeth and
Leicester are perhaps the most interesting of the three couples, however. For political reasons, Elizabeth
was required to represent herself as constantly available for marriage (to royalty from countries with
whom England may have wanted an alliance); out of this need came the myth of the Virgin Queen.
This can be read as the opposite of the Fisher King legend: To protect the vitality of the land, Elizabeth
had to compromise her own sexuality; whereas in the Fisher King story, the renewal of the land comes
with the renewal of the Fisher Kings sexual potency. Her tryst with Leicester, therefore, is a
consummation that is simultaneously denied, an event that never happened. The twisted logic
underlying Elizabeths public sexuality, or lack thereof, mirrors and distorts the Fisher King plot and
further questions the possibility for renewal, especially through sexuality, in the modern world.
Tiresias, thus, becomes an important model for modern existence. Neither man nor woman, and blind
yet able to see with ultimate clarity, he is an individual who does not hope or act. He has, like Prufrock,
seen it all, but, unlike Prufrock, he sees no possibility for action. Whereas Prufrock is paralyzed by his
neuroses, Tiresias is held motionless by ennui and pragmatism. He is not quite able to escape earthly
things, though, for he is forced to sit and watch the sordid deeds of mortals; like the Sibyl in the poems
epigraph, he would like to die but cannot. The brief interlude following the typists tryst may offer an
alternative to escape, by describing a warm, everyday scene of work and companionship; however, the
interlude is brief, and Eliot once again tosses us into a world of sex and strife. Tiresias disappears, to be
replaced by St. Augustine at the end of the section. Eliot claims in his footnote to have deliberately
conflated Augustine and the Buddha, as the representatives of Eastern and Western asceticism. Both
seem, in the lines Eliot quotes, to be unable to transcend the world on their own: Augustine must call on

God to pluck *him+ out, while Buddha can only repeat the word burning, unable to break free of its
monotonous fascination. The poems next section, which will relate the story of a death without
resurrection, exposes the absurdity of these two figures faith in external higher powers. That this
section ends with only the single word burning, isolated on the page, reveals the futility of all of mans
struggles.