The Waste Land

On Tuesday, our local T. S. Eliot expert--Aaron, a fellow TA--will give the lecture on "The Waste Land." The poem is in the course packet, available at Student Print in the Memorial Union basement.

"The Waste Land" precedes As I Lay Dying by eight years. It was an immediate success, and is one of the most influential poems of the twentieth century. Read it carefully, and read it specifically with an eye to associating the problems Eliot raises with those of Faulkner. There are a few specific questions you might consider about AILD just to get a sense of the larger moral and social position it implies.

• What comment is Faulkner making on society in general in As I Lay Dying?
• What is Faulkner's attitude toward Christianity? How does he characterize its place in the modern world?
• Is Faulkner's pessimism fatalistic or is there a certain good-humoredness to it? How desperate does he feel humanity's position to be?

(Hint: you might ask these same questions of "WL.")