CR> Well, that is beside the point (Sorry that Evans name got "autocorrected" to Evens in my post) The point is that, by botching the title, Mr. Evans shows a sloppiness that is abundantly evident throughout the article you called our attention to. Here's what TSE has to say about the title in a postscript to a 1928 letter to a Spanish translator, Angel Flores (from "Letters, vol 4"): =========================== To Angel Flores 22 February 1928 [London] . . . . . . main letter . . . Yours very truly, [T. S. Eliot] P.S. The title, by the way, is not 'The Wasteland' but 'The Waste Land'. The only exact translation of the title is one which my French translator, Jean de Menasce, discovered, although alas! too late to use in his version - 'La Gaste Lande'. This is absolutely the exact equivalent as it alludes to the same mediaeval fiction. =========================== Date: Wed, 7 Aug 2013 17:18:06 -0700 From: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Poem-A-Day: Experiment in Divination: Voice and Character by Rebecca Wolff To: [log in to unmask] Well, that is beside the point.CR From: Tom Colket <[log in to unmask]> To: [log in to unmask] Sent: Wednesday, August 7, 2013 7:49 PM Subject: Re: Poem-A-Day: Experiment in Divination: Voice and Character by Rebecca Wolff "The Wasteland"? Mr. Evens doesn't even know the damn title of the poem. --- Original Message --- From: "Chokh Raj" <[log in to unmask]> Sent: August 7, 2013 6:45 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Poem-A-Day: Experiment in Divination: Voice and Character by Rebecca Wolff Incidentally, The Blank Card: Meaning and Transcendence in T. S. Eliot’s The Wasteland Joshua Evans, Yale University an excerpt What is meaning and how do we find it? This question is a thematic thread that pervades the fragmentary lines of T. S. Eliot’s The Wasteland, a diagnosis of humanity in our crumbling, modern civilization. The poem is disjunctive in many ways: it is written in five parts, all with diverse subjects; a multitude of voices confuses regular distinctions of character and perspective; the poem spans the entire range of poetic styles, from lyrical to narrative; and the variety within each of these elements appears so chaotic and inexplicable that we are left to assume a complete dearth of unified themes or meaning in the poem as a whole. Nevertheless, it is precisely through this apparent disjunction and disconnection that Eliot means to convey his ideas on humanity and modern civilization. Through various images and episodes, Eliot explores the different ways we seek meaning in the world, in our lives, and in others, and how these usual ways all ultimately fail: ironically, only through recognizing the limits on our ability to discover meaning do we find any at all. http://www.agorajournal.org/2011/Evans.pdf CR Depends on how one takes it, Schlanger. Modes of apprehension, maybe. A raid on the inarticulate, as Eliot said. CR From: "[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]> To: [log in to unmask] Sent: Wednesday, August 7, 2013 11:58 AM Subject: Re: Poem-A-Day: Experiment in Divination: Voice and Character by Rebecca Wolff That, CR, does not inure to Eliot's credit. Sent from my iPhone On Aug 7, 2013, at 8:44 AM, Chokh Raj <[log in to unmask]> wrote: Now wasn't Eliot's poetry the provenance of these experiments? CR From: Poets.org <[log in to unmask]>; To: <[log in to unmask]>; Subject: Poem-A-Day: Experiment in Divination: Voice and Character by Rebecca Wolff Sent: Wed, Aug 7, 2013 10:39:30 AM Experiment in Divination: Voice and Character by Rebecca Wolff There is a curiosity that knows I know deathless ceiling of unknowing I know Querent, Who I ask is changing all the time changing now changed. How else is one to know How is one to know how to proceed the course of action a non-reflective surface a playing card on a wooden picnic table a knot of knowing on a node of playing How is one to know How else is one to know how to proceed How is one to make the motion against And there's forever and that's a mighty long time. Copyright © 2013 by Rebecca Wolff. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem "This is one of a group or series of 'Experiments in Voice and Character'; it is either the first or the last, I haven't decided, but so far it is the only one that announces its thematic material in its title. The divinatory practice it concerns itself with is the reading of cards; it concerns itself with longing for an answer when we cannot have an answer, the intense longing that provokes a certainty that there is a way of knowing if only we had it. And then we do." --Rebecca Wolff Most Recent Book by Wolff The King (W. W. Norton, 2010) August 7, 2013 Rebecca Wolff's third collection of poems is The King (W. W. Norton, 2010). Wolff is the founder and editor of the journal Fence. She lives in Athens, New York. 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