T.S. Eliot's Use of Myth in “The Waste Land”.

T.S. Eliot was the most eminent poet of modern age. He handles the theme of his poem masterly. In “The Waste Land” he uses mythical method to show the relationship of the present with the past.

Accordingly, Eliot uses a myth as the organizing principle in structure in “The Waste Land”, and he draws the myth from two sources: Sir James Frazer's book, The Golden Bough, and Miss Jessie Weston's book, From Ritual to Romance. He takes his mythical matter from Frazer's cultivation rituals and Miss Weston's Fisher King and Grail myths. 

Use of Myth in “The Waste Land”:

In ancient Egypt the effigy of the vegetation god, Osiris, was field with grains of corn and buried under the earth. This meant that the vegetation god was dead. After sometimes the grains sprouted from the earth indicating the re-birth of the god. This myth has been referred to in the Burial of the Dead.

Fisher King was a very sensual and sinful King. Therefore he became sick and his kingdom suffered from drought and famine. According to another legend the soldiers of the King raped the nuns attached to the chapel of the Holy Grail. As a result of the sin his kingdom suffered from famine. The King Fisher hoped that one day a knight would go to Chapel Perilous and thereafter, he would get well and his land would get fertile. "The waste land of the Fisher King stands for the waste-land of the modern land. The sick King stands for the sick humanity, and just as the sickness of Fisher was due to sexual orgies in the same way the sickness of the modern men is due to their sexual perverties. The modern sick world can be restored to help through penance and pursuit of virtue.

It has a reference to the land of Ammaus mentioned in the old Bible. The land became barren and dry on account of the idolatry of the dwellers. Prophet Ezekiel told them to worship God and to give up idolatry so that the waste land may become fertile. There are references to the Biblical Waste Land in the words like the rock, the dead free, the dry grass mentioned in the section I of “The Waste Land”.  

Another legendary figure in the poem is Tiresias, the protagonist of the poem. Once Tiresias saw two serpents mating together. He was cursed by them and transformed into a woman. After seven years he saw the same scene and was cursed and was transformed into a man. So he has the experience of life both as a man and as a woman. Later on, he was questioned by Zeus and his wife Hera, as to whether man is more passionate than a woman. He declared that woman was more passionate than man. For this Hera cursed him with blindness and Zeus granted him prophetic power for compensation.

By means of his prophetic power, Tiresias declared that the King Oedipus was responsible for the epidemic and famine of his country Thebes. Thus Tiresias is a link between the Waste Land of King Oedipus and the Waste Land of modern civilization. He is an enlightened commentator on the modern waste-land. He is an embodiment of human conscience and of higher humanity which deplores the loss of faith and moral values in the modern world.

Thus in “The Waste Land” Eliot handles myth very successfully to connect the modern waste-land with other waste-lands of ancient times.