The Waste Land - La Terre vaine

[epoh]

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

Avril est le plus cruel des mois, il engendre
Des lilas qui jaillissent de la terre morte, il mêle
Souvenance et désir, il réveille
Par ses pluies de printemps les racines inertes.

T. S. Eliot

[epoh]

"The Waste Land" was published in 1922, only a few years after the First World War had ended. Europeans were shocked and horrified by what had happened. They had believed that they had attained a certain level of enlightenment, culture, civilization--but the war had killed off a generation of young men and had left the landscape barren and pocked with shell holes

Everyone in England has been touched by the war.

Eliot suggests that people did not want to talk about the past or present and did not even want to think about it because it seemed terrifying in its meaningless horror.

With the return of another spring, nature and humanity struggle to return to life.

Memories are "cruel" because they are typically memories of a world that has been destroyed by war as well as memories of inhuman behavior on both sides. People had been behaving like madmen for years, using new inventions, including poison gas, to kill and maim soldiers and civilians.

The opening lines of "The Waste Land" are strikingly beautiful as well as paradoxical. Spring should be a delightful time of the year, just as winter should be a period to endure. Yet, Eliot says:

April is the cruellest month

And:

Winter kept us warm . . .

William Delaney (Source Internet)