Why is T.S. Elliots the wasteland considered a modernist movement?

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Kaleidoscopic : An Analysis of The Wasteland ' by T .S . Eliot

T .S . Eliot 's The Wasteland ' is known for its kaleidoscopic and fragmented form , with the converging of different styles from different movements of poetry the employment of a wide range of metaphorical devices (from allusions to the decidedly Christian quest for the Holy Grail , to references about ancient Greece , and more pagan origins - the diversity of allusions from different cultures only serves to raise the universality of

the poem 's theme and the wealth of convolutions of the poem as a whole , jumping from one scene to another in an abrupt and disconcerting lack of traditional cohesion . There are rapid shifts not only in imagery and perspective , but also in setting , and in subject And yet the poem is unified by its overall theme of despair - despair and futility in the midst and at the inevitable end of man 's search for peace and contentment . Man subjects himself to a baffled search for spiritual peace , when , in the end , he must be resigned that the search is , after all that time , futile , even never-ending . It is this futility and despair that grounds the fragments ' of the poem , the so-called bigger picture ' making it into that which the poem strives to attain

A technique that Eliot employs is the deliberate scattering ' of connected passages that discuss one subject . As an exploration of the theme , he carries it further by dissecting ' the subject , offering hints and foreshadowing in earlier parts of the poem , then places the other divisions into a variation of sections

Malcolm Bradbury and James McFarlane , in their introductory essay Name and Nature of Modernism ' for Modernism , 1890-1930 , encapsulates the fragmented form of the poem : Modernist works frequently tend to be ed , then , not on the sequence of historical time or the evolving sequence of character , from history or story , as in realism and naturalism they tend to work spatially through layers of consciousness working towards a logic of metaphor or form (p .50 . The Modernist poem 's multiplicity in layers exploits the poetic form in that insights and epiphanies are not procured at face value , that the reader must take it upon himself to discover and explore the layers and exposition . Also the collage-like quality of this Modernist poem tore through the traditional forms of poetry and poetics , in its audacious experimentation . Jerome Rothenberg and Pierre Joris in their introductory essay for Poems for the Millennium say , A characteristic of modern art (and poetry ) so defined . has been the questioning of art itself as a discrete and bounded category (p .8 . The poet and the poem continue to push at the boundaries , insisting that the boundaries should not even be existent - an intention that The Wasteland succeeds in carrying out

Although the many convolutions and intricacies in The Wasteland evoke the initial impression of fragmentation , there are interlocking themes and content , if not passages reminiscent of others...