The Wasteland Allusions

Question 1

The Burial of the Dead

Answer 1

ashes to ashes - resurrection - funeral service

Question 2

April is the cruellest month

Answer 2

Chaucer subversion - When in April the sweet showers fall.

Question 3

Frisch weht der Wind
Der Heimat zu
Mein Irisch Kind,
Wo weilest du?

Answer 3

Tristan and Isolde - A sailor is singing about the love he is leaving in Ireland

Question 4

The Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne…

Answer 4

Shakespeare - Antony and Cleopatra

Question 5

The change of Philomel

Answer 5

The beautiful Philomela is kidnapped, raped, and imprisoned by her sister Procne’s husband, King Tereus. To prevent Philomela from revealing what he has done, Tereus then cuts out her tongue. Eventually she was turned into a nightingale

Question 6

Those are pearls that were his eyes

Answer 6

The tempest

Question 7

I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,

Answer 7

This references Dante’s experience in Hell (when he saw Satan) that he was neither living nor dead.

Question 8

Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night

Answer 8

Ophelia’s farewell before she drowns herself

Question 9

The fire sermon

Answer 9

The Buddha’s fire sermon - the Buddha preaches about achieving liberation from suffering through detachment from the five senses and mind.

Question 10

Gentile or Jew

Answer 10

“there is neither jew nor gentile…we are all one in faith in jesus christ”