Death by Water

Authors

  • Giuseppe Massara Università di Roma Sapienza

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.13133/2239-1983/13688

Abstract

The essay focuses on T.S. Eliot’s “Death by Water”, the fourth section of The Waste Land, retracing the complex net of intertextual references and tropes forming its structure. The “body” stands as a major image and a powerful vehicle through which the characters – and the readers with them – look at the scene. The dynamic relationship the characters create with what surrounds them determines their consistency, i.e. their presence. In The Waste Land, presence is determined by an absence of consistency: the body is pure voice, a “poetic” voice asserting itself in absence.

Published

2016-07-17

How to Cite

Massara, G. (2016). Death by Water. Status Quaestionis, 2(9). https://doi.org/10.13133/2239-1983/13688