Characters

T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land 
(TWL), Section 1





          The Burial Of The Dead

                    See The Order for the Burial of the Dead in The Church of England, 
                    The Book of Common Prayer (1662). The order of service begins with 
                    a passage from John 11:26 (King James Version, 1611), and 
                    specifically from the story of Lazarus being raised from the dead: 

                    ...whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die.

                    The poem, meanwhile, proceeds with a series of character introductions,
                    beginning with Countess Marie and followed by the Son of Man, the 
                    Hyacinth Prince, the Clairvoyante and, obtusely, the Reader’s Brother. 
                    The characters generally seem eager to live, to speak and be heard, but 
                    death lingers around them.  

                    This is sometimes called the “earth” section, the first of the poem’s five 
                    sections using the CLASSICAL ELEMENTS of earth, air, fire, water and 
                    wind as themes. Eliot would later repeat this structure with the first four 
                    elements and the quintessential wind in Four Quartets (1943). 

                    Designation of the classical elements can be found in early Babylonian, 
                    Indian, Greek and Chinese philosophies. See Anon., Enuma Elis (ca. 
                    1800 BC, tr. as The Seven Tablets of Creation by E. A. Wallis Budge, 
                    1921), a Babylonian cuneiform text which describes creation through 
                    personifications of water, earth, sky and fire. See also Upanishads, 
                    Shvetashvatara Upanishad 2:12 (ca 400-200 BC, tr. Robert Ernest 
                    Hume, 1921): 

                    When the fivefold quality of Yoga has been produced,
                    Arising from earth, water, fire, air and space,
                    No sickness, no old age, no death has he
                    Who has obtained a body made out of the fire of Yoga.

                    See also Plato, Timaeus 48b, (ca. 360 BC, tr. W.R.M. Lamb, 1925): 

                    We must gain a view of the real nature of fire and water, air and earth, 
                    as it was before the birth of Heaven.

                    Finally, see Anon., Mawangdui Silk Texts (ca. 168 BC), presenting the 
                    Chinese philosophy of Wu Xing and the five phases of wood, fire, earth, 
                    metal and water.


from T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, with annotations (and other explanations)