T.S. Elliot's The Waste Land

This book starts from the premise that The Waste Land demands close reading. The appearance of the poem in 1922 started a critical debate that continues to this day. Reviewers and critics, whether favourable or hostile, have written about it in terms of theme, form and content. Many have considered it formless and fragmented, or have attempted to find coherence in it with assumptions about unity and closed form, trying to fix the text, to locate hidden narratives, spiritual quests, or allegories of salvation. However, Gareth Reeves contends that the poem is resolutely open-ended, a view supported by recent developments in reader-response criticism and reception theory. He seeks to present a close reading that avoids formalistic assumptions, allusion hunting, paraphrase and thematic treatment.
The aim of this study is to draw readers into the text so that they can experience it anew. Gareth Reeves argues that its meaning comes largely from the way the poetry sounds, and his reading therefore concentrates on all the ways of sounding: syntax, lineation, intonation. It also brings out the presence of the muted voices of wronged women in a work often branded as misogynistic.