Rick Seddon wrote:

> In Weston's "From Ritual to Romance" she uses the term "Waste Land" (two
> words) not wasteland (one word).  Where do you get the latter term?

The last two paragraphs were the quote from Campbell.  Besides, I don't
care much if the term that is used is Waste Land or wasteland as long as
the poem's title is gotten correctly. An exception is made for Kate
because she knows what the title really is  ;-)


> In TWL we have a wrecked Fisher King; no reason given but also no
> questor.  Do you have an analogue for the questor of the grail legend?
> It is the questor who with the correct question can restore the land.
> Is the questor the poem's poetic self?  Is the questor the reader? 

I see the Fisher King and the questor both as the poem's poetic self.
Since I see TWL as a personal poem that means Eliot.  But I don't see
much of the questor actually in the poem.  He faced some personal
problems that could be considered a wounding and he had to cope with
them.  The writing of TWL itself was one way of doing that.  It
certainly was a deluge of writing after what he must have considered a
drought.  And in the writing he had to face himself, a kind of asking a
question. 

Campbell said that by finally asking the question "What ails you?"
Perceval showed compassion and that overrode the rules of society, the
rules Perceval stood by the first time.  It was through compassion that
the Fisher King was healed.  Perhaps in TWL Eliot felt he was seeing
into his own heart of darkness and he could refine himself in the fire
of "The Waste Land" itself, in the end showing compassion for himself as
a fellow human being instead of as Tom Eliot, the tormented soul, le
Tenebreux. 


> Do you think that TSE is following modernist mythic method "rules"?

I've got absolutely no idea and I'm not even going to attempt to fake it.
Are there rules for this somewhere?

Regards,
   Rick Parker