The phrase “April is the cruelest month” was first printed over 100 years ago and has been in public circulation for almost as long. People can easily know it without knowing anything about its source or meaning. Of course, this isn’t about TS Eliot. wasteland An ambiguous work. Despite its initial derisive and even hostile reception, the work continued to receive acclaim as one of the central English poems of the 20th century, not to mention its status as an achievement in the modernist movement. But how can we read it anew in the 21st century?
A new approach wasteland teeth This comic version by Julian Peterspreviously featured on Open Culture about graphic representations of other poems like Edgar Allan Poe. Annabelle LeeW. B. Yeats’s “When You Are Old,” and Eliot’s own “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.”
it is adaptationto be exact, the first of wastelandThe five sections of “Burial of the Dead” begin on a World War I battlefield — at least in Peters’ adaptation, the first line “April is the cruelest month” is a nightmare of bloodshed and gore. I’m putting it in the context of an image like this. Death — and ends in a weekday in London that has been likened to Dante’s Inferno.
wasteland This work presents a fascinating but daunting opportunity for illustrators, with vivid depictions of locations and appearances by fascinating characters (including, in this section, the famous clairvoyant Madame Sosostris). It is filled with evocations and features extensive literary references and features. Sudden change of context. But Peters started it off boldly, and anyone who reads His adaptation “Burial of the Dead” He’ll be waiting for adaptations from “A Game of Chess” to “What the Thunder Said.” Despite coming under scrutiny over the past century, Eliot’s modernist masterpiece (you can hear Eliot reading it here) still tends to confuse first-time readers. I always advise them to think of poetry as a visual medium, an idea with possibilities. Peters continues to explore on a more literal level. Let’s explore here.
Related content:
Read the entire comic version of TS Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”
A comic adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s moving poem Annabelle Lee
Japanese manga adaptation of WB Yeats’s poem “When You Are Old”
TS Eliot will illustrate the letter and draw the cover. Old Possum’s Practical Cat Book
TS Eliot reads modernist masterpieces “The Waste Land” and “The Lovee Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”
Based in Seoul, Colin Mbemust write and broadcastIt’s about cities, languages and cultures. His projects include the Substack newsletter books about cities and a book Stateless City: A Stroll Through Los Angeles in the 21st Century. Follow him on Twitter @Colinbemust or facebook.
