In what ways are literary texts shaped by the time at which they were written?
One cannot deny the inevitability of a postwar culture shaping the tone and thematics of a literary text. In the case of T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land (1992) the fragmented post World War One society in which Eliot lived and the poem’s tone are intrinsically intertwined: ‘The Waste Land evoked the waste and sterility of a Western world ravaged by the horrors of World War I… The Waste Land is not a poem about the war, but the war’s trauma informs it from beginning to end’ (Leich, 953). It is important to acknowledge the influence of contemporary writers and literary movements in addition to their postwar context. It is also inevitable that they are shaped by the writer’s personal experiences and ideologies. In Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot (1953) the influences on his writing are more ambiguous, but one can see clearly the impact of World War Two in Beckett’s works. Paralysis infects all of the protagonists in Waiting for Godot and Beckett seems to reflect the idea of degradation and uncertainty on a devastated society: ‘This dust will not settle in our time.’ (Beckett, All That Fall, 1986, 176.) One can see clearly the contemporary affairs in the subtext of Eliot and Beckett’s writing, the aftermath of the two respective World Wars is particularly prominent in shaping the tonality of The Wasteland and Waiting for Godot. It is also evident that Beckett and Eliot looked to previous periods and literary movements to discuss contemporary issues and and affairs.
The modernist fragmented aesthetics of the poem demonstrate its close relationship to the time at which it was written. Eliot uses these modernist ideas to represent the anarchic and futile nature of life after the demolition of war. The paradoxical comparison between spring and death in the first stanza of The Waste Land ensures that the narrator introduces paralytic qualities from the outset: ‘April is the cruellest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land,’ (1-2). He shows the compliance of society to remain in a comatose state where rebirth is unwanted. Eliot creates a modernist antithesis to Romanticism by corrupting the vivacity of Spring as a time of rejuvenation with a corrupted and ‘dull’ (4) April. Eliot forms a semantic field using arid language to demonstrate the universal sentiments of a broken post-war society: ‘dead…dull…winter…dried.’ (2-7) Harold Bloom suggests that ‘A cornerstone of the modernist movement, T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land reflects the profound sense of disillusionment that emerged in the wake of World War I,’ (Bloom, T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land). Bloom demonstrates that this ‘disillusionment’ infiltrated every aspect of Eliot’s writing. The distorted structure of The Wasteland emanates this sense of bewilderment in the wake of World War One. Eliot uses enjambment to create a circularity of narrative and therefore hopelessness in this stagnant society: ‘Winter kept us warm, covering/ Earth in forgetful snow, feeding/ A little life with dried tubers.’ (5-7) Eliot’s use of dramatic monologue also devotes the sense of fragmentation. The shifts in speaker asserts an unclear narrative voice giving the poem a stream of consciousness texture: ‘They called me hyacinth girl. Yet when we came back, late, from the hyacinth garden. Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not speak, and my eyes failed.’ (35-9). Without an omniscient narrative the reader feels blinded by such seemingly erratic text. And thus such ‘disillusion’ is created. Eliot also uses techniques such as sibilance to give the notion of falling asleep: ‘the deep sea swell,’ (313) To establish this idea of an inert post war society. Furthermore Eliot does not simply criticise his contemporary culture for their impotence, he suggests that they have no desire for the renaissance that Eliot so desperately seeks: ‘There is shadow under this red rock (Come in under the shadow of this red rock),’ (25-26). This suggests that humanity want relief from the sunshine that rebirth will bring. That the paralysis that binds them is intentional. Thus one can see that the postwar context is crucial in The Wasteland as it informs the tone of thematics of the poem, which aim to enlighten a society overcome by grief and disillusion.
Furthermore Eliot’s modernist preoccupations Allusion – important modernist idea – especially to the renaissance/ classical period.
Similarly it has been suggested that Waiting for Godot is a product of contemporary politics. One could draw a parallel between Beckett’s involvement in La Maquis during the Nazi Occupation and Vladimir and Estragon’s willingness to wait for Godot. Whilst the true identity of Godot is never revealed, one would argue that his identity is unimportant and that he serves his purpose by giving the characters purpose and something to live for. Beckett stated that, ‘All I have to lose is arms, legs, balls etc and I owe them no particular debt of gratitude, as far as I know’ (Beckett, 1938). Thus it would appear that Beckett was similarly motivated by the Occupation and we see a similar attitude towards the self to that of Vladimir and Estragon. History and the Novel shows that , ‘In Becketts novels and plays it ends as a state of nullity, the self-erased or reduced to waiting’ (Leich, 1393). It is clear that the circular movements of the play establish a sense of paralysis emanating the stagnant postwar society about which Beckett wrote.
Whilst Eliot seems to be heavily influenced by the time at which he is writing, Beckett seems more influenced by the people around him. Nicholas Johnson suggests that ‘"There's the image, for example, of Didi and Gogo in Godot who are a sort of pseudo-couple that reflect the domestic environment that Samuel and Suzanne Beckett established with each other. (Jonathan de Burca Butler, 2014). The intimacy between Vladimir and Estragon creates a tenderness to the play, ‘There you are again at last…Where were you? I thought you were gone forever.’ (Beckett, 2662). This intimacy provides substance for the otherwise comedic jokers. It is also evident that Beckett’s relationship with Joyce was of importance when analysing how Waiting for Godot was shaped. Ramazani and Stallworthy suggest that ‘Joyce’s artistic integrity and and stream of consciousness technique influenced him but the minimalism of Beckett’s plays and fiction contrast with the minimalism of Joyce’s Ulysses’ (Greenblatt, 2620). Eliot’s relationship with Ezra Pound had a profound affect on his modernist writing Glennis Byron asserts that ‘Both Eliot and Pound can be said to create multiple fragmented voices which become a composite voice, a voice which is, ultimately, the voice of the poet,’ (116). Indeed the dedication of The Wasteland to Pound defines the influence that Pound had on Eliot’s poetry. Thus it is important to accredit the writer’s relationships with shaping their literary masterpieces.
Furthermore the intertextuality of these works demonstrate a wider influence than the time at which they were written. The Wasteland has an abundance of allusions to various works which enriches the voice of the narrator. Eliot claimed that ‘we shall often find that not only the best, but the most individual parts of his work may be those in which the dead poets, his ancestors, assert their immortality most vigorously’ (Tradition and the Individual Talent, 2). Eliot refers to works such as Anthony and Cleopatra: ‘synthetic perfumes’ (87) to criticise the acquisitive society in which he believed himself to be surrounded. Andrew Green elucidates that ‘Eliot's extensive use of allusion has a profound impact both upon the reader and upon his poetry. With its vast array of literary voices, the certainty of the narrative or authorial persona is removed’ (Green,Critical Essay, The English Review). Whilst allusion in Waiting for Godot is less obvious, religious symbolism is present throughout the play. Whilst Beckett has denied that Godot himself should be recognised as a form of biblical representation, the scriptural allusions present throughout give the coming of Godot a similar quality to that of the return of Christ, ‘Our Saviour. Two thieves. One is supposed to have been saved and the other… (he searches for the contrary of saved)…damned’ (Beckett, 2624). It has also been suggested by Caselli that ‘Dante is assumed as an external source of literary and cultural authority in Beckett’s work, and also participates in Beckett’s texts’ sceptical undermining of kinds of authority’ (Caselli, Beckett's Dantes: Intertextuality in the Fiction and Criticism). One must assess all potential influences upon a literary text before assuming one to be more significant than another. It is clear that religion and intertextuality were important components for Beckett and Eliot, however one would argue that their contemporary societies had a more profound impact on their texts.