(1) Account for critics who reject abstruse, densely referential poetry like Eliot’s The Four Quartets and The Waste Land as self-consciously pedantic and too obscure for most readers. Summarize contrasting opinion that lauds the intricate allusions, exacting logic, and multiple meanings of Eliot’s work.
(2) List significant lines from The Waste Land along with their literary influences. Account for the fruitlessness of human strivings and potential for chaos that Eliot stresses in his vignettes of failed love.
(3) Compose an extended definition of mock-heroic with elements drawn from Eliot’s “Sweeney Among the Nightingales.”
(4) Compare “Gerontion” to the cynical old Roman in Joseph Heller’s novel Catch-22. Determine why the characters neglect virtue and embrace a slow drift toward oblivion.
(5) Discuss religious images in “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” How do such images function in the poem? Does Eliot treat religion seriously?
