Eliot portrays two types of characters in accordance with the two fundamental ways in which human beings relate life and death to each other

The Cultures of Life and Death in Poetry

by Donald DeMarco

We are all familiar with Blessed John Paul II’s description of the Culture of Death in his 1995 encyclical, Evangelium Vitae. The good Pope, of course, was not the first to notice and give expression to this phenomenon.

In 1922, T. S. Eliot released to the world his account of the Culture of Death in the form of a modernist poem of 434 lines. He called it “The Waste Land.” Despite the fact that its message is cloaked in obscurity, scholars regard it as perhaps the most important poem of the 20th century.

The epigraph (though written in a mixture of Latin and Greek) makes plain the essential meaning of the poem. It refers to a prophetess known as the Sybil who had been granted any wish she desired. Unfortunately for her, she made the mistake of choosing not to die rather than for eternal youth. This poor creature continued to shrink as she aged until she was small enough to fit into a jar. In this tiny, confined environment, she was crying out in a barely audible voice. When asked what she wanted, she replied, “I want death.”

The Sybil’s predicament mirrors what Eliot sees in the form of a decaying 20th century culture that is withering, but has not yet expired. His vision is made all the more poignant because he can recall glories of the past that the “Waste Land” has now buried.

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We should live out our lives with the full understanding of how infinitely valuable life is. Then, when we have completed our lives and the preacher concludes his eulogy, members of his audience will not think 

that they have attended the wrong funeral.

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