The Waste Land, in The Dial, November 1922 Volume LXXIII, Number 5.
"T. S. Eliot's masterpiece, is not only one of the key works of modernism but also one of the greatest poetic achievements of the twentieth century": The First Appearance of T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland; In exceptional condition
The Waste Land, in The Dial, November 1922 Volume LXXIII, Number 5.
ELIOT, T.S.
$2,500.00
Item Number: 147874
New York: Dial Publishing, 1922.
First edition of the influential literary journal containing the first appearance of Eliot’s masterpiece, “The Waste Land” in the United States. Octavo, original wrappers as issued, illustrated throughout. In very good condition with light bumping and wear. An attractive example of one of the first appearance of the poet’s masterpiece, easily one of the nicest ones we have seen.
The Waste Land expresses with great power the disillusionment and disgust of the period after World War I. In a series of fragmentary vignettes, loosely linked by the legend of the search for the Grail, it portrays a sterile world of panicky fears and barren lusts, and of human beings waiting for some sign or promise of redemption. The depiction of spiritual emptiness in the secularized city--the decay of urbs aeterna (the "eternal city")--is not a simple contrast of the heroic past with the degraded present; it is rather a timeless, simultaneous awareness of moral grandeur and moral evil. The poem initially met with controversy as its complex and erudite style was alternately denounced for its obscurity and praised for its modernism.
