‘The Burial of the Dead’ establishes some of the core themes of The Waste Land: death, burial, rebirth. Normally, we think of burying the dead in order to get them out of sight. The lovely image of lilacs in the spring is here associated with “the dead land.” Winter was better; then, at least, the suffering was obvious, and the “forgetful snow” covered over any memories. Your 'Having Recurring Dreams: The Burial of the Dead' Quality has gone! The passage translates as: “Fresh blows the wind / To the homeland / My Irish child / Where do you wait?” In Wagner’s opera, Isolde, on her way to Ireland, overhears a sailor singing this song, which brings with it ruminations of love promised and of a future of possibilities. "The Burial of the Dead" ends on a pretty gruesome note, in which the speaker claims that he saw someone he knew from an ancient war (named Stetson) in the flowing zombie-crowd and asked him if the "corpse [he] planted last year in [his] garden" has begun to sprout" (72). This is usually accomplished by excavating a pit or trench, placing the deceased and objects in it, and covering it over. In this case, Eliot describes a vision of youthful beauty in a piece of writing that seems at first to stem more from English Romanticism than from the arid modern world of the rest of the poem: “Your arms full, and your hair wet.” Water, so cherished an element and so lacking in this desolate wasteland, here brings forth flowers and hyacinth girls, and the possibility of happiness, however fleeting. The experience was, like many in The Waste Land, difficult for the speaker to analyse or put into words. Ignorance is bliss; the knowledge that better things are possible is perhaps the most painful thing of all. What relevance this has to the rest of ‘The Burial of the Dead’ is troubling, and shows how many parts of The Waste Land don’t seem to fit with each other, with sudden gear-changes and changes of setting, speaker, and subject. Here that surprising opening line begins to make even more sense: there is a sense of fear and uncertainty regarding the future, about what is going to grow out of the blasted land. The second stanza returns to the tone of the opening lines, describing a land of “stony rubbish” – arid, sterile, devoid of life, quite simply the “waste land” of the poem’s title. The same paradox is there at the very beginning of the poem: April is the cruelest month. Looking upon the beloved girl, he “knew nothing”; that is to say, faced with love, beauty, and “the heart of light,” he saw only “silence.” At this point, Eliot returns to Wagner, with the line “Oed’ und leer das Meer”: “Desolate and empty is the sea.” Also plucked from Tristan und Isolde, the line belongs to a watchman, who tells the dying Tristan that Isolde’s ship is nowhere to be seen on the horizon. This criterion for existence, perhaps an antecedent to Existentialism, holds action as inherently meaningful. To bury the dead has always been seen as a corporal work of mercy for Christians. From this thicket of malaise, the narrator clings to memories that would seem to suggest life in all its vibrancy and wonder: summer rain in Munich, coffee in a German park, a girl wearing flowers. When martyrs were murdered in the streets and circuses of ancient Rome and their bodies left on display or piled in a heap, Christians would (at great personal risk) gather up the corpses and piously bury them. A PRIL is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain. (Sets Transformed by Stairs to 200) You've gained 1 x Diary of the Dead ^ The following Psalms are appropriate: 42:1-7, 46, 90:1-12, 121, 130, 139:1-11. What is crucial to the poem’s sensibility, however, is the recognition that even these trips to the past, even these attempts to regain happiness, must end in failure or confusion. Dull roots with spring rain. 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