e had the capability and maturity to express in a simple way. He asserted that in The Waste Land he wasn't even bothering to be sure he understood what he was saying. He was at least partly experimenting and trying to communicate things that he could not bring easily into language. In other words, he recognized that the poem was difficult to comprehend, and blamed his own insufficiencies as a poet, rather than the reader's (Hall, 1963). With those comments in mind, how do some critics and readers interpret the themes of The Waste Land?
Eliot himself noted that the title, the plan, and some of the symbolism of the poem were suggested by a book by Jessie Weston about the Grail legend. The Grail legend deals with the search for the Grail which is expected to restore vitality to the land. Without the Grail, the land will wither and die.
Fundamentally, then, the wasted land of Eliot's poem is analogous to the parched land of the Grail myth, in which the leader is unable to restore the land to fruitfulness. As a consequence, searchers go out and try to find the magical object that will bring back what has been lost.
What does this have to do with boredom? Perhaps the first thing to think about is the essence of boredom itself. Boredom is similar to ennui, or anomie, to states in which the individual lacks vitality, because he or she does not have an activity or object that engages interest or passion.
Edmund Wilson (1931) noted that Eliot's upbringing could be considered as takin
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