Verbal Transformation, Despair, and Hope in The Waste Land

(Hardback)

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Based closely in spirit upon the most recent development in prosodic studies, Verbal Transformation, Despair, and Hope in The Waste Land attempts another round of philosophical investigation. The book demonstrates how The Waste Land could be read afresh in terms of the hidden verbal transformation that reveals the overlooked performative and collocative nature of language. This verbal transformation makes The Waste Land flow naturally as truly rhythmical creation of [meaningful] beauty the way Poe defines poetry, especially through what Eliot calls auditory imagination or what Herder calls intermediary sensation that makes the poetry the first language of humanity or dictionary of the soul. The verbal transformation also serendipitously makes sounds of despair the sounds of hope.

Reviews

Despite its bleak title and its traditional, modernist interpretation as an expression of despair and perennial Angst, Shudong Chens book puts emphasis on Hope in The Waste Land and provides a new way of reading Eliots classic that is particularly stimulating and relevant to the world we find ourselves in at the present.

Author Bio

Shudong Chen is professor of humanities at Johnson County Community College, Overland Park, Kansas.