The Waste Land : The Micro- and Macropoetics of Multi-Rhythmicity
Résumé
Using methods of analysis drawn from beat prosody, this chapter draws a distinction between the anisometric poems of the first part of Eliot’s career, which are based on unpredictable combinations of loose accentual-syllabic metres, and the genuinely multi-rhythmic poems that, from “Gerontion” onwards, also include strong-stress and sustainedly non-metrical passages, as well as a stress-dense accentual metre. Some effects of multi-rhythmicity are then analysed through consideration of The Waste Land. The discussion begins by considering micropoetic effects, as instanced in the rapid changes of rhythmic base in lines 19-30 of “The Burial of the Dead”. It then examines the effects of multi-rhythmicity on the experience of reading The Waste Land as a whole, and argues that the poem offers, on a rhythmic level, a combination of sameness and difference that recalls the terms of arguments sketched by Eliot in two essays of 1921, “Prose and Verse” and “Andrew Marvell.” In this way, multi-rhythmicity creates consolatory counter-pressure to The Waste Land’s bleaker aspects. Other poems considered include "Portrait of a Lady", Sweeney Agonistes, "Journey of the Magi" and Coriolan.