Vol. 30 | March 2022 | Ajit Barua’s “Introduction to 'The Waste Land'” - An English Translation | Sultan Ali Ahmed

Editors' Note: The following is a translation of Ajit Barua's "Introduction" to T. S. Eliot's 'The Waste Land' originally written in Assamese which demonstrates the rich legacy of the poet's influence and importance in the Assamese literary landscape. The present translation of the Assamese ‘Introduction’ by Ajit Barua has been done with the objective of taking the original view of an Assamese poet and scholar on ‘The Waste Land’ to a larger audience for its wider reception and appreciation.

[Translator’s Introductory Note: Ajit Barua (1926-2015), the eminent Assamese modernist poet, a winner of the Sahitya Akademi Award and the Assam Valley Literary Award, also brought out an Assamese translation of T.S. Eliot’s ‘The Waste Land’. This translation of the poem was published in a book form by Journal Emporium, Nalbari, Assam, in 1998. The book, however, is now out of print. Ajit Barua did his M.A in English from Calcutta University and, after serving a brief tenure as college teacher, joined the Indian Administrative Service and retired as the Commissioner of Lower Assam. However, this top bureaucrat was a serious student of literature and particularly of modernist poetry in English and French throughout his life. He was also well-versed in Bengali literature. After receiving a stipend from the govt of India, he went to Paris and stayed two years there to learn French.

The influence of Eliot’s poetry is easily discernible in the early phase of his poetic career. Moreover, Eliot remained an all time favourite author with him as numerous references to Eliot are scattered in the literary and critical essays that he wrote in Assamese. He won the prestigious Sahitya Academy Award in 1990 for his collection of poems titled Brahmaputra Ityadi Padya (Brahmaputra and Other Verses). Another milestone in his literary career was the translation of Albert Camus’s classic allegory The Plague into Assamese from the original French.

In his Assamese translation of ‘The Waste Land’, Ajit Barua also wrote an ‘Introduction’ which makes some illuminating observations on modernism and modern poetry. In this introduction, he analyzes the question of difficulty in modern poetry. While introducing this celebrated and cerebral poem to the Assamese audience, Barua throws some light on the diversity of opinions regarding the interpretation of the poem and also offers his own interpretation of the poem with sufficient evidences. Another important point is that while translating ‘The Waste Land’ into Assamese from English he also consulted the French translation of the poem which was immensely helpful for him. In his translated text of the poem, Barua added detailed notes and explanations on the allusions and symbols used in the poem and these notes reflect Ajit Barua’s sincerity in his study and his erudition.]

The Full Text

Of all the English modernist poems, ‘The Waste Land’ is the longest one. When the poem was first published in 1922, it immediately evoked sharp reactions. The harshest critical remark, published in the paper called ‘The New Statesman and Nation’, came from F. L. Lucas who enjoyed some reputation as a critic. He commented, “Unintelligible, the borrowings are cheap and the notes useless.” The book-reviewer of the ‘Times Literary Supplement’ wrote, “Mr Eliot was sometimes walking very near the limits of coherency.”

The meaning of the two comments from the two critics is that ‘The Waste Land’ is incomprehensible and incoherent. The principal charge against the poem is its incomprehensibility and the chief cause of this is its apparent incoherency. Hence, the question of incoherency may be discussed first. According to Eliot, “And finally, there is the difficulty caused by the author’s having left out something which the reader is used to finding....”.[1]

In other words, while reading a poem or a novel, a reader expects a continuous flow or a continuous sequence of words in their serial order. This is because in everyday life we are accustomed to such a sequence. When a reader does not find such a sequence or connecting entity, then he can not make a meaning out of it. For example, how are the first 18 lines in the first part of the poem (‘The Burial of the Dead’) related to the next 12 lines of the same part? Or, what is the relationship of the part comprising lines 19 to 30 with the part comprising lines 31 to 42? The point to be noted here is that the parts mentioned here are apparently unconnected. The reason is that the linking elements have been left out. It causes one kind of difficulty.

However, why do the modernist poets leave out some connecting materials? This is for two reasons. First, they want to make poetry more condensed; and secondly, they often take recourse to associations. When a man thinks, he generally does not think in a logical sequence and proper order. Some ideas occur in the mind in a disorderly manner. The celebrated stream of consciousness technique is an endeavour to capture this process of the mind.

Let us again take up the first section of the poem. Up to line 19, an aristocrat Lithuanian- German Woman speaks about her life. She drinks coffee at Hoftgarten, chats and thinks about life, speaks about an exciting incident of her life and then narrates her life of luxury. Then she disappears as a narrator and there comes an intermission. From line 19 to 29, there comes the matter of the church. This intermission might have originated from this association: there is no peace in the humdrum daily life, the kind of life that the lady is shown to live in the first portion of the poem; rather, there is peace “under the red rock”. There is shade. There is peace. If this is added then a connecting point emerges between the two portions of the poem. Then, what is the role of ‘hyacinth girl’ that occurs from line 31 onward? That is another association. Till now, my objective was to explain what kind of a process association in poetry is.

From association, there might arise another matter in the poet’s mind. That is allusion and, along with it, quotations from other writers. These are also parts of the “difficulty” in poetry. Now, both allusion and its branch, quotation, make the matter more significant in the mind of the poet which the poet wishes to express. For example, the first quote used in the poem: (from line 31 to 34 :‘Fricsh ..... der wind ...... Weilest du’) --- the associations that these lines carry can be produced only in original German; the same cannot be produced in translation. Somebody may remark that it is the craftsmanship of the poet. It may be so. For a long time, there has been a deep-seated notion amongst us that a poet writes poetry for the readers- to convey something. However, the poet may not write for the readers, may not wish to convey any message. Of course, a poet is pleased if his poetry is well received by the readers. Now you or I do not know German, but there are people who know German. For example, Ezra Pound, according to whom, there are only three difficult words in the whole poem of ‘The Waste Land’: “Shantih Shantih Shantih” and the meanings of these three words are also very clear from their earlier context. For you and me, the meaning of those three words is clear even without the context, because these three words are also Assamese words. However, apart from associations and allusions, there are some other concepts which have to be explained for the maximum possible understanding of ‘The Waste Land’. Yet, associations and allusions also need a little more elaboration.

Associations

The issue of association has already been mentioned. It would be appropriate to mention here that in the interpretation of a poem, maximum importance should be given on those things what the poet himself has said regarding the poem or on the issues raised in reference to the poem. The next persons in importance are the other accomplished poets. Thereafter, the place of the sensible readers who can identify themselves with the poet (here he uses the Sanskrit term “Sahridaya” used by classical Indian literary theorist Abhinavagupta – the term “Sahridaya” means sensible readers who can feel the same feelings with the poet--translator). The place of the professional critics like F.L. Lucas comes at the last. In this context, it may be examined what Eliot himself says on associations in poetry.

Eliot translated the French poem “Anabase” written by St. John Pierce into English in 1930. In the introduction to that translation Eliot said, “There is a logic of the imagination as well as a logic of concepts”.Prior to that, he said:

[Anabase]...... is a series of images of migration, of conquests of vast spaces....... of destruction and foundation of cities and civilizations of many races..... There may be suppression of linking in the logical sequence of such images, but the images are not illogical. It is another type of logic.[2]

There may be a suppression of the linking material in such a series of images or in other words in “logic”, but the images are not actually discordant. It is a different type of sequence.

The poet follows this logic in several parts of ‘The Waste Land’. It is the appropriate occasion to discuss the logic of reasoning and the logic of imagination.

The theoretical basis for adhering to the association of ideas and of applying the stream of consciousness technique is provided by the Freudian psychoanalytical theory of “free association”. Graham Hough says that Eliot has applied the stream of consciousness technique in ‘The Waste Land’. He was a professor of English at Cambridge University. In this regard, he quotes from Grover Smith.[3] Smith is an honourable man. Even a poet like Stephen Spender has called him “Eliot’s most distinguished exigesist.”[4] While referring to the stream of consciousness, Grover Smith makes the matter unnecessarily complex by drawing in the names of French philosopher Bergson, French novelist Proust and so on. Eliot has not consciously followed the stream of consciousness technique; rather, he said, “In ‘The Waste Land’, I wasn’t even bothering whether I understood what I was saying”.[5]

If he has not bothered whether he himself understands the poem or not, then the question of consciously applying the stream of consciousness method does not arise.

A very notable thing is that, to express in the words of Spender, Eliot is a poet of fragment poems.[6] Eliot had been accumulating some fragments since 1911 and by compiling all those fragments, he created ‘The Waste Land’. And there are some other such instances – the use of ‘The Waste Land’s’ fragment in ‘The Hollow Men’, the use of the ‘Burnt Norton’ fragment in ‘Murder in the Cathedral’, etc. Hence, it is possible that there would be a lack of linking material or some apparently unintelligible references in the combining of the fragments written over a period of eleven years. A couple of them are entirely unintelligible. In the end note to the translated poem, there are references to some of them.

Hereafter, in reference to the association of ideas, the themes of ‘The Waste Land’ may be discussed, because, if there is one or more than one theme, then the association of ideas may extend to the theme or to one of the themes. For example, the account of the luxurious, aimless life of the girl given in the first portion of the first section (‘The Burial of the Dead’) is immediately followed by the reference to the Christian church. It will be seen next that one of the themes of ‘The Waste Land’ is the necessity of Christianity. Thus, the apparently disjointed things have acquired coherence.

The Themes

The critics have divergent views on the theme or themes of ‘The Waste Land’. Among them, there are a few poet-critics. I accord preference to the poet-critics. Among them, the most prominent is Stephen Spender, whose place in twentieth century English poetry is next to Yeats, Eliot, and Auden. There is a reference to what Eliot has said (on the poem). Why I accord preference to the view of the poet has also been discussed here. Spender said:

The central theme of ‘The Waste Land’ is the breakdown of civilization and the conditioning of those who live within it by that breakdown, so that every situation is a symptom of the collapse of values.[7]

According to Spender, then, the central theme of ‘The Waste Land’ is the stagnancy in civilization and the impact of that stagnancy on human beings interior to that civilization. Therefore, every circumstance is the symptom of degeneration.

Spender, in this reference, also cites the opinion of another insightful English poet-critic, William Empson, who said, that the theme of ‘The Waste Land’ is that, “London is somehow saved from the First World War, but the destruction of London is inevitable in the next one (World War) as the city is under the grip of international investors.”[8]

Spender agreed with Empson on the point that the theme of the poem is doom and Eliot was immersed in the fear of the imminent doom of the European civilization. Citing to his conversation with Eliot in 1929, Spender says that when he asked Eliot regarding the nature of such doom, Eliot’s reply was: ‘fratricidal riots- people would be slaughtering each other in the open streets’. On a question asked by W T Levy, Eliot said that, among all the books written on him, the one written by Helen Gardner was the best.[9] It is probable that some people would not accept this view. Nevertheless, according to Helen Gardner, the theme of ‘The Waste Land’ is fear. According to her, “a sense of fear” predominates in the entire poetic works of Eliot.[10]

The endorsement of the view that the theme of ‘The Waste Land’ could be fear is also found in another fact. As the epigraph of ‘The Waste Land’, Eliot initially wanted to use the utterance “The horror! The horror” from the novel The Heart of Darkness (1902) written by the Polish-English novelist Joseph Conrad (1857–1924).

Afterwards, this epigraph was dropped following the correspondences between Eliot and Ezra Pound occurring in the period between 24 December, 1921 and the first part of January,1922.[11] In one of those correspondences, Eliot said that the said utterance was “somewhat elucidative”.[12]

The noteworthy thing is that there exists in the poet’s mind a deep link between an epigraph and the theme of a poem. For example, the epigraph in Eliot’s poem ‘Burnt Norton’ is the three fragments of the theory of Heraclitus, a Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher. These theories deal with Heraclitus’s concept of time. The theme of ‘Burnt Norton' is also time.

That Eliot initially made Conrad’s ‘The horror! The horror’ the epigraph of ‘The Waste Land’ and later describing it ‘somewhat elucidative’ does actually mean that Helen Gardner’s surmise regarding the principal theme of ‘The Waste Land’ as fear is appropriate. It is known to all that ‘horror’ means fear!

However, I personally think that the principal and actual theme of ‘The Waste Land’ is Eliot’s unhappy and disappointing first marriage and his “grumbling” against that experience.[13] On his marriage, Eliot remarked in the 1960s:

Much has to be said to explain my sudden marriage with Vivien Heywood. Yet the explanation would probably remain obscure. I was still, as per my conviction after one year, in love with Miss (Emily) Hale. Even, I cannot assert this confirmation with firm confidence: it may occur due to my response to the suffering I had for living with Vivien and my desire to return to an earlier condition....... I think what I wanted from Vivien was a flirtation or an affair. I was too shy and too inexperienced to accomplish any such thing with anyone. My belief is that I convinced myself that I was in love with her (Vivien) only for this reason that I wanted to close all the roads of returning to America and wanted to commit myself to stay on in England. And she (Vivien) convinced herself (under the influence of Pound) that she would protect my poetic self by making me stay in England.”[14]

What Eliot wrote next is most important, “The marriage did not bring any happiness for her (Vivien).... and it brought to me that condition of the mind from where emerged ‘The Waste Land’.[15]

The second serious theme of the poem is the First World War and the consequent social change (I do not wish to use the evaluative terms like degeneration, downfall etc.), and more particularly, the death of Eliot’s dear friend Jean Verdenal (1889 – 1915) in that War. It is worth mentioning that Eliot dedicated his first collection of poetry Prufrock and Other Observations (1917) to Verdenal. The particular reason of this dedication is cited in Southam’s book.[16] A brief account is given here:

Eliot had met Verdenal in Paris during 1910-11. Both of them were aged 21/22 at that time. Verdenal was killed in the battle of Dardanelles in the first half of 1915. In his journal ‘The Criterion’ (April, 1934), Eliot again recalled Verdenal. Here what he said about Verdenal is so touching that it is reproduced here in Eliot’s original English, “.... The memory of a friend coming across the Luxembourg Gardens in the late afternoon, waving a branch of lilac, a friend who was later (so far as I could I find out) to be mixed with the mud of Gallipoli”.

In sequence of importance, the third major theme of ‘The Waste Land’ is death and the resurrection of nature, of man, and of Jesus Christ; in nature, the dying and rebirth of grass and crops, particularly the agricultural crops, in each year; the decay, death and resurrection of civilization, the physical death of man and the possibility of rebirth; the death of Jesus Christ and his resurrection.

Now, as the themes have been clearly dissected and analysed above in plain, this could have been done by the poet too in the poem itself. Then, of course, it would have been easier for us to understand, but it would not have been poetry, it would have been probably a logical essay. Poetry takes recourse to association of ideas, symbols and similes. If looked closely or studied several times, it would be seen that the theme of death and resurrection has closely coiled itself around the whole poem. It often becomes visible and then again loses sight of. Let us consider the first four lines:

April is the cruellest month
Bringing lilacs out of the dead land
Mixing memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

The land was dead, the roots too almost dried up, but the lilac flowers have bloomed. With this is entangled the theme of the death and resurrection of Osiris, the ancient Egyptian god of crops. What needs to be kept in mind is that the ‘end notes’ added by Eliot to the poem has established the links between the poem and the anthropological matters related to Osiris.

The degeneration of civilization is depicted through the symbol of the Tarot pack of cards. As per the book by Jessie L. Weston, this pair of cards was associated with the rise and fall of the water levels in the river Nile. Despite Grover Smith’s doubt regarding this, Eliot has certainly written this part about Madam Sosostris keeping Weston in mind. The destiny of a whole nation was linked with the rise and fall of the water level of the river Nile. As of now, in ancient time too, the mainland of Egypt hardly experienced rainfall barring the small narrow and long strip of land nearing the shore of the Mediterranean Sea. For the fertility of land, Egypt was entirely dependent on the Nile. When flood occurred in the Nile, it took with it the soils from the large countries spread over the equatorial Africa and also carried the decomposed soils from the high mountains of the present Ethiopia and, by inundating the entire Egypt, the flood used to make it fertile. Besides, there was the planned irrigation system developed in the country. According to Frazer, the inhabitants of ancient Egypt closely monitored the rise and fall of the water level of the Nile with a great deal of suspense. It is because, if the water level remained below a definite height, then famine was inevitable. Thus, the very pack of cards linked with the destiny of an ancient civilised people is now being reduced to an ordinary tool in the hands of a cheap clairvoyant. Is it not the symptom of the degeneration of the civilization? And the other forms of degeneration of western civilisation, particularly those occurring before and after the First World War, have also been recounted in the poem. The message of the degeneration of the London society in the aftermath of the First World War is found from line 60 to the end of the first section (‘The Burial of the Dead’) and in the second part (from the line 112 to the line 172 consisting a conversation in a pub between one man and two women of lower middle class family) of the second section (‘A game of Chess’). It is noteworthy that the aforesaid first and second themes are intertwined in several lines here. It should be recalled that the first theme of the poem is the unhappy conjugal life of the poet with his first wife and the second theme of it is the degeneration of the civilisation in the wake of the First World War. There is the echo of the words uttered by the neurotic-patient Vivien from line 112 to line 122. The “closed car” in line 136 is suggestive of the travel made in closed car with the ailing Vivien, and it is also linked with the condition of the common masses.[17]

The theme of the degeneration of Europe resurfaces again in lines 366 to 376. The quote from Herman Hesse’s book in Eliot’s own notes makes it more explicit.

Thus, having discussed Eliot’s use of the method of associations in ‘The Waste Land’ and also the major themes in the poem, we may proceed to discuss some practical techniques used in Eliot’s poetry. The first among them is the theory of ‘objective correlative’ and its application. A very important theme of ‘The Waste Land’ as well as the entire poetic oeuvre of Eliot is the necessity of Christian religion and the possibility of human salvation through the Christian religion. This theme has been carefully avoided by the English and American critics due to their Protestantism and also by the Bengali translators like Bishnu Dey due to his allegiance to Marxism. Eliot’s poetry possesses multiple dimensions, however, in the overall analysis, and, also slightly by his own admission, Eliot was a poet and writer who preached Christianity. Therefore, it is quite evident that Christianity is also a major theme in ‘The Waste Land’. It is not so that the death and resurrection only of nature, of civilisation or of Jesus Christ is possible, but the resurrection of the waste land bereft of the sense of Christianity is also possible through the Christian religion. And probably, through the poem ‘The Waste Land’, the poet has indicated at the possibility of saving this earth which was already converted into a waste land due to its divorce from Christianity. In other words, through symbolic suggestiveness, it is said: this waste land could be made fertile and productive only by Christianity. Eliot was basically a poet of Christianity, particularly of Anglican religion.

This point and this theme are very important. In my view, this is the principal theme. As we, the Assamese people, have become familiar with Eliot through the Bengali writers, therefore, we have wrongly considered Eliot as poet of social satire, as an exponent of degeneration. Only his first collection of poetry entitled Prufrock and Other Observations consists of such social satires. There is social satire in “Gerontion”(1917) published in 1919 and “Poems” (1920), but Christianity has already made inroads in them.

That Eliot is basically a poet of Christian religious outlook began to be clear from his poem “The Death of Saint Narcissus”. This poem was written in 1912. Eliot was 24 at that time. Then he wrote some poems of social satire anthologized in his book Prufrock and Other Observations coming under the influence of the French poet Jules Laforgue (1860-87). It may be mentioned here that Laforgue was an out and out atheist poet. Hereafter, Eliot wrote ‘The Waste Land’. It has already been shown that a major theme of this poem is Christianity. Thereafter, in 1925, he wrote his semi-Christian poem “The Hollow Men”. In the afternoon of 29thJune, 1927, Eliot was formally admitted into the Anglican religion under the Church of England at the church situated at Finstock and he became a devotee of this religion.[18] Then, his undeclared Anglican poem “Ash Wednesday” was published on 24 April, 1930. Afterwards, he wrote “Choruses from the Rock” in 1934 which established him not just as a poet of Christian religious sentiment, but also a propagator and poet of Anglican Christian religion.

It is already mentioned that the Bengali poets and scholars have completely avoided Eliot’s role as a propagator of Christianity. The reason is not clear. The Bengali poet Bishnu Dey published the 1st edition of his Bengali translation of Eliot’s poetry in 1948 – on the occasion of Eliot’s 66th birthday.[19]  A translation of ‘Ash Wednesday’ was also included in the book. The Bengali title of the translation is given as “Choroker Gaan” (Songs of Chorok). How is the Bengali Chorok Puja linked with the period of Lent in Christianity? As per the Christian Calendar, Ash Wednesday is the first day of the Lent, a Christian religious observance. This forty day long religious rite symbolizes Jesus Christ’s forty day fasting to establish victory over the temptation of the Satan. During the Lent, the Christians repent for their past sins and orient their minds towards God by diverting them from the worldly things.

On the day of Ash Wednesday, a ritual takes place inside the Church in which the priest puts a cross sign with ash on the forehead of all the Christians present in the church except the priests,and utters these words “From dust you came and to dust you will return.” This is a version of what God said to the first man Adam. (The Old Testament, 3/19). On the contrary, Chorok Puja is no religious festival at all; it is purely a folk tradition.

This is a very important theme, although implicit. The Eliot that we have known through the Bengali writers and poets is a poet of social satire. “Prufrock”, “Portrait of a Lady”, “Rhapsody on a Windy Night” – all these are poems of social satire. (They are anthologized in Eliot’s Prufrock and Other Observations). That Eliot is basically a religious poet and even a poet propagating Christianity became more evident in 1927 when he formally got indoctrinated to the Anglican religion. Bishnu Dey’s essay on Eliot written in January, 1965 (Eliot died on 4 January, 1965) does not make any reference to Eliot’s religious position. The reason may be that Bishnu Dey himself was an atheist and a follower of Marxism. However, it is illegitimate to project Eliot as just a poetic craftsman, in the overall analysis, by separating him entirely from Christianity. More particularly, it is ridiculous to recreate ‘Ash Wednesday’ as “Choroker Gaan”.

Objective Correlative

No attempt is made here to coin an Assamese equivalent word or phrase to substitute ‘objective correlative’. Because, in 1961, Eliot himself said that he was not sure whether the expression was valid or not after so many years since its creation.[20] Another such phrase is “Dissociation of Sensibility”. Eliot first used the phrase “objective correlative” in his essay “Hamlet” (1919).[21] In that essay, he says:

The only way of expressing emotion in the form of art is by finding an ‘objective correlative’, in other words; a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula of that particular emotion; such that when the external facts, which must terminate in sensory experience, are given, the emotion is immediately evoked.

There are many points of objections in this interpretation. In my view, the most objectionable word here is ‘formula’. The dictionary meaning of formula is “set form of words”, i.e. the unchangeable group of words. If an unchangeable group of words, a set of objects or a chain of events is fixed to express a particular emotion, then such poetry will become mechanical or formulaic. However, since Eliot in his mature stage expressed doubts on the appropriateness of ‘objective correlative’, so it should not be debated much.

The notable point is that Eliot was writing ‘The Waste Land’ exactly at that time when he was propounding the theory of ‘objective correlative’. The first reference to the writing of ‘The Waste Land’ is found in his letter written on 5 November, 1919.[22] Then, on or about 15 October, 1922, ‘The Waste Land’ was published simultaneously in the two magazines – “Criterion” and “Dial”. According to Donald Gallup, Eliot’s essay “Hamlet” was published in the magazine “Athenaeum” on 26 September, 1919 for the first time.[23] It shows that the planning of ‘The Waste Land’ and the theory of ‘objective correlative’ occurred simultaneously in Eliot’s mind.

This theory has a little more history. In 1913, a few poets proposed certain principles regarding poetry as they were fed up with the abstruseness in contemporary poetry. One such principle was that poetry must have concrete images in them and poetry must show the particulars of the objects clearly. Since, those poets spoke about the inevitability of the images, so they were called Imagists. Eliot was a member of this group at one point of time.[24] This is the origin of ‘objective correlative’. It means concrete image. My affectionate friend, renowned journalist, Sri Dhirendra Nath Bezbarua, had once asked me about ‘objective correlative’. I replied that ‘objective correlative’ and our old friend ‘symbol’ might be the same thing. The moot point is that Eliot had the ingenuity to coin very catchy phrases. The glitter that hits the eye at first sight gradually lowers down to its normal state and, only then, the dispassionate analysis reveals that what seemed a supernatural aura is in fact an illusion. F. O. Matthiessen, one of Eliot’s most incisive critics, said that Sweeney, a character that frequently occurs in Eliot’s poetry, is actually a symbol.[25] To give it a bit more seriousness – Sweeney may be called an objective correlative. According to Matthiessen, Sweeney is the “complete symbol” of “coarse earthiness of common life”. Sweeny appears at line 198 in ‘The Waste Land’. The title of one of Eliot’s poems is ‘Sweeny among the Nightingales’; there is another unfinished poem called ‘Sweeny Agonistes’.[26] In each instance, the character of Sweeney is the symbol or objective correlative of ‘coarse earthiness’. Sweeny is the formula of earthiness. Sweeny has not been presented in any other form.

Now the question is – some long descriptions, which may be called a situation or chain of events or even a set of objects – whether they are objective correlatives or allusions?

Allusions

The Sanskrit equivalent of allusion is ‘Udghat’. The term may be used in Assamese as well. In Bengali dictionary, there is an expression called “porukhho ullekh” (indirect mention). If the synonym of a term from another language can be given in a single term, then the wording of the translation becomes appropriate. So, the term ‘Udghat’ has been used here. ‘The Waste Land’ consists of numerous allusions – and many more are being explored for the last 70 years and more. There are many who think that allusions create obstacles in the enjoyment of poetry. And there are many others who think that the allusions explore several levels of meaning in a poem and thus provide a variety in its enjoyment. What Eliot himself has said regarding this, may be mentioned here:

We can only say that it appears likely that poets in our civilization, as it exists at present , must be difficult. Our civilization comprehends great variety and complexity and this variety and complexity, playing upon refined sensibility, must produce various and complex results. The poet must become more and more comprehensive, more indirect, in order to force, to dislocate, if necessary, language into meanings.[27]

Here Eliot expresses his feelings on why modernist poetry is difficult (unintelligible), allusive and complex. Therefore, it is natural that the English modernist epic ‘The Waste Land’ would demonstrate these characteristics.

Besides allusions, the matter of quotations may also be discussed. Quotations are also a kind of allusion. In ‘The Waste Land’, there are numerous quotations from works of other writers, along with the signs of indirect presence of other writers. Examples may be cited of a group of words; or a resonance of that group of words, although the group of words causing the resonance and the resonated group of words may be apparently different. As an example of quotation, mention may be made of “those are pearls that were his eyes” occurring at line 48 which is exactly reproduced from Shakespeare’s The Tempest Act-I, Scene- II. This quotation occurs due to the link between this line or its previous line and the associations of the theme of a particular portion of the poem. In another section of this introduction, the role of the association of ideas in modernist poetry has been discussed.

At the end, I express my gratitude to Professor Ranjit Kumar Dev Goswami for glancing over the manuscript of my book.[28]

Translator’s Endnotes:

(In the original ‘Introduction’ the author did not add any end note. He used in text citations and in case of some quotations, no reference was added. Here, the author’s references and other related information are put under this section.)

[1] This is a quotation from T. S. Eliot’s book The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism. Faber and Faber, London, 1963, p. 151.

[2] The author does not mention the book from where this reference is made. It is stated in the text that the quotation is taken from Eliot’s preface to the translation of ‘Anabase’.

[3] Smith, Grover. T. S. Eliot’s Poetry and Plays, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1960, p. 58.

[4] Spender, Stephen. Eliot, Fontana, Collins, 1975, p. 103.

[5] ‘The Paris Review Interview’, p. 105.

[6] Spender, op cit, p. 106.

[7] Ibid, p. 106.

[8] The author does not mention the source. It is most probably from the same book by Spender.

[9] Levy, W.T. and V. Scherle. Affectionately T. S. E., London, 1968, p.105.

[10] Gardner, Helen. The Art of T S Eliot, Faber and Faber Ltd, London, 1968, p. 99

[11] Eliot, Valerie, ed. T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land, A Facsimile Transcript, Faber, London, 1971, pp. 3 & 125

[12] The author does not specify the source. From the context it is clear that the source is Valerie Eliot’s edited book The Letters of T. S. Eliot Vol. I (1898-1922), Faber and Faber, London, 1988. The title figures in the bibliography given at the end of Barua’s book.

[13] Eliot, Valerie. ed. T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land, A Facsimile Transcript, Faber, London, 1971, p. 1

[14] This long passage is the English retranslation of the Assamese translation from a letter by T S Eliot collected in Valerie Eliot’s edited book The Letters of T S Eliot Vol. I (1898-1922), Faber and Faber, London, 1988 (p. xvii). The author does not quote it in original English as he does in case of some other quotations.

[15] English retranslation of the Assamese translation done by the author from one of Eliot’s letter collected in Valerie Eliot’s edited book.

[16] The author refers to his bibliography given at the end of his book where he includes B C Southam’s book A Students’ Guide to the Selected Poems of T. S. Eliot, Faber and Faber. London, 1968. He also mentions that at page number 31 the said description occurs.

[17] The author refers to his own note provided against line 136 in his translation of the poem ‘The Waste Land’. There is a mention of a ‘closed car’ at line 136. The author Ajit Barua is of the view that Eliot propagated the theory of impersonality in poetry to camouflage the real events of his life. ‘A closed car’ might be related to his own life. Southam makes no comment on it. However, Lyndall Gordon (Eliot’s Early Years, OUP,1978, pp 95-96) gives a detailed discussion on it. It will be sufficient to mention here that Eliot had referred to the health of his first wife Vivien in a letter written to Bertrand Russell in January,1916. Vivien was living at the hotel Torbay at that time for her recovery. This hotel is situated in a sanatorium called Torquay. In the papers recovered from the archives of Bertrand Russell, it has been found that Vivien had to spend one very painful night at that time and the next day she roamed in a hired car.

[18] Sencourt, Robert. T. S. Eliot, A Memoir edited by Donald Adamson, Garnstone Press, London,1971, p. 109.

[19] The author mentions the details as ‘Elioter Kobita, Signet Press, Kolkata’ in the text itself.

[20] Eliot, T. S. To Criticize the Critic, Faber and Faber, London, 1965, p. 19.

[21] Eliot, T. S. Selected Essays, Faber and Faber, London, 1961, p. 145.

[22] Eliot, Valerie. T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land, A Facsimile Transcript, Faber, London, 1971, p. xviii.

[23] Gallup, Donald. T S Eliot: A Bibliography, Faber and Faber, London, 1968, p. 204.
[24]       The author refers to page 15 in The Faber Book of Modern Verse. However, the details of the book are not found in the bibliography.

[25] Matthiessen, F. O. The Achievement of T. S. Eliot, OUP,1959, p. 59.

[26] Eliot, T. S. The Complete Poems and Plays, Faber and Faber, London, 1970, pp. 56 and 115.

[27] Eliot, T. S. Selected Essays, Faber, London, 1961, p. 289.

[28]The manuscript referred here is that of the Assamese translation of ‘The Waste Land’.

Works Cited

Barua, Ajit, Chan Mati, An Assamese Translation of T S Eliot’s ‘The Waste Land’, Journal 
Emporium, 1st edition, October, 1998.