The Waste Land - Introduction

I will begin a section on T S Eliot's "The Waste Land". Beginning with the full text, then maybe adding various comments and quotes from various sources between sections or verses, as the thoughts arise.

As I understand it, the poem has much to do with the sense of a loss of meaning, when old forms of belief no longer seem credible. Maybe why the poem opens with April being called the "cruellest month" even though it heralds the presence of spring. The heart is taunted by the promise. Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" also begin with mention of April; tales of  another world, maybe a world more familiar.

However, I will just progress through the poem and move off at tangents, rambling and waffling. Whatever comes to mind. Not wishing to appear grandiose, I think of the words of William Blake:- 

I must create a system or be enslaved by another mans; I will not reason and compare: my business is to create.

Then again, "systems" are not my thing anyway - mine or anyone elses. Maybe systems are the problem.