The Waste Land
A Biography of a Poem
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The Waste Land
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Narrated by:
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Matthew Hollis
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By:
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Matthew Hollis
About this listen
The Waste Land has been called the 'World's Greatest Poem'. It is said to describe the moral decay of a world after war, to find meaning in a meaningless era. It has been labelled the most truthful poem of its time; it has been branded a masterful fake. A century after its publication in 1922, T. S. Eliot's enigmatic masterpiece remains one of the most influential works ever written, and yet one of the most mysterious.
In a remarkable feat of biography, Matthew Hollis reconstructs the intellectual creation of the poem and brings the material reality of its charged times vividly to life. Presenting a mosaic of historical fragments, diaries, dynamic literary criticism and illuminating new research, he reveals the cultural and personal trauma that forged The Waste Land through the lives of its protagonists - of Ezra Pound, who edited it; of Vivien Eliot, who sustained it; and of T. S. Eliot himself, whose private torment is woven into the seams of the work. The result is an unforgettable story of lives passing in opposing directions and the astounding literary legacy they would leave behind.
©2022 Matthew Hollis (P)2022 Faber AudioCritic Reviews
"With elegance, wit and...warmth, [Hollis] tells the story of The Waste Land’s difficult birth... At times the book reads, delightfully, as a group biography of modernism’s bright lights." (Susannah Goldsbrough, The Times)
"Hollis succeeds brilliantly in bringing the literary landscape of the 1920s to life… [He] turns a complex process of literary composition into a rattling good story...wonderfully compelling." (Tristram Fane Saunders, Sunday Telegraph)