The design of The waste land

The Design of The Waste Land offers a detailed, comprehensive explanation of T.S. Eliot's enigmatic poem. It relates The Waste Land to earlier and later poems by Eliot, demonstrating that the major poems describe a continuous spiritual odyssey or quest undertaken by the same individual, initiated by the moment of ecstasy in the Hyacinth garden. Blistein's analysis of Eliot's sources reveals that the protagonist's glimpse of "the heart of light" is equivalent to drinking from the Grail or communing with God. The incarnate deity momentarily transforms the Hyacinth garden into the likeness of the Edenic paradise. With the inevitable passing of the moment of communion, the protagonist is in effect expelled from the paradisiacal garden as mankind was from Eden. By contrast, the familiar world appears to him a wasteland. The protagonist seeks to drink again from the divine Source and return again tsos the garden as it was when transfigured by the divine presence. His is a quest for Grail and Homeland.