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This is great! I do take issue with that academic who summarily dismisses Yeats. Yeats could never have written The Wasteland; but Elliot could never have written Among School Children. That does not mean that one was “better” than the other. They were simply different poetic geniuses with different poetic concerns.

I have been teaching AP Literature for eight years. It all comes down to a sensitivity to language, tone, etc. and critical thinking and reading which leads, if successful, to critical writing. I’ll never retire because I get the honor of teaching Eliot, Yeats, Shakespeare, Faulkner. My students discuss the texts and I love the give and take. I know no one, including my fellow teachers, who can or want to discuss these authors

I truly wish I had friends who appreciated such things, someone I could discuss this with. This poem may have possibly changed my life tonight. If only I were more intelligent, how I’d love to write this well.

These narrators are highly educated and cultured. But I was a Kansas farm girl in the1950s when i first read Prufrock and The Wasteland, and they spoke directly to me. This, I think, is the measure of Eliot's genius. What the thunder said -- words beyond this finite world..

This is the greatest thing on KZfaq.

I felt so moved watching this again after 30 years. Eliot's voice will be present there in the mountains whenever I go visit a cousin.

_"I will show you fear in a handful of dust..."_ One of the most muscular lines of poetry I've ever read...

This was a fantastic experience! So many years later and still so relevant. Edward Fox is really superb and embodies the poem. HIs is a musical and rhythmic rendition which makes the lines luminously intelligible.

Michael Gough, Edward Fox, and Eileen Atkins were absolute treasures. Listening to them is a magnificent experience.

As a Minnesotan, I'm pleased to see that Eliot could attract 13,700 fans to Williams Arena at the U of MN, almost as many as show up there for a basketball game.

"I had not thought death had undone so many." Just an amazing line. I think of this line everyday when I watch crowds I belong to (very Whitmanesque) joining me on the subway.

I just discovered this channel and I’m grateful that the first video I’ve watched was about T.S. Eliot, one of my favorite poets. The view of humanity of “The Wasteland” seems particularly resonant during these times.

Great to hear Stephen Spender. One of his poems opening lines has become a constant mantra for me since I first read it in my early twenties - 'we must live through the time when everything hurts'

I am 71 years old and I've loved Eliot since I was a small boy. The dry Sauvages,little Gidding and others were what I loved to read in silence and at night. I always have had a deep feeling that there was prophesy among his words. There are wordlers of which I'm one and then there's Eliot

Oh, but what an immensely beautiful and most welcome surprise to greet one’s day! Thank you a million times over!

I could read this poem every day for a year and still not come to its end.

What a lovely programme! Thoroughly enjoyed it... Some excellent personalities here whilst Eliot is just so utterly brilliant. Full stop.... Thank you to whoever posted this gem.

I’m beginning to love Mr. T.S. Eliot more and more as I am ageing. It is astonishing to see the amount of rationality and thoughts Mr. Eliot was loaded with from such an early age.

Michael Gough's reading is simply sublime

Wonderful presentation. I read T.S.Eliot in college, 40 years ago, together with other stuffs and the only poet from the 20th century that I still read time and again, is T.S.Eliot. The rest is gone.

Eliot is one of the most wonderful poet in the history of English Literature.

I barely breathed while listening to this. Wonderful!

Absolutely beautiful. I loved hearing Thomas Stearn Eliot’s voice. What a true treasure. Thank you

I should have been a pair of ragged claws, scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

How do I thank, youtube, for such wonderful variety! ❤

I've met fully qualified college professors who say The Wasteland is NOT about the world after WW1. They have the stones to suggest it is more than that. Of course there are layers, it has depth, but it is a vision of life after the first, most devastating event in human history.

16:10 Vorticism 21:00 best explanation - underneath the surface exist murmerings of past poets 22:57-26:26 Game of Chess narration 27:25 Range of characters 27:31 Conversation in pub discussed 29:42 River Tent is broken 30:58 Personal life of Eliot - Marriage Unreal city 35:06 Key figure - Tiresias

Lots of reading Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock. Also amazing poem.

Wonderful in every way. I especially appreciated Peter Ackroyd, as I have read some of his novels.

Such an amazing poem, Burroughs mentioned it as an example of the cut-up technique.

I so love the plummy RP tones of the readings.

I love this so much and couldn't thank you more for this while living in the wasteland!

Eileen Atkins is so young! A great reader & lovely looking. 😍

"Fear, in a handful of dust." A perfect line.

What a wonderful film, Eileen Atkins is superb too. Yes,I am very impressed with this measured piece of work.

Another Fantastic Melvyn Bragg Production!

Oh this is so powerful! To describe bleakness of spirit so well. What a genius.

I read a story once - maybe reported by Princess Margaret - that T S Elliot once gave a private reading of ' The Wasteland ' to the Windsors at Buckingham Palace . Now we may have cause to thank the late Queen , and her parents , for contributions to Britain , but we could never accuse them of being overly intellectual. Apparently they thought the reading hilarious and had a barely restrained fit of the giggles . I say this to point out that appreciation of poetry is a matter of sensitivity rather than ' breeding ' .

Enjoyed this, especially the actors. Thank you for posting.

TS Eliot is one of my very favorite poets, but I just can’t listen to him perform 😸😹❤️ Wonderful documentary, I didn’t know this existed! Thank you so much for sharing it!

Can never get enough of Eliot’s beautiful mind

This was a fascinating documentary about a poem that I have loved since I first read it at the age of 20. And the actors reading the excerpts are absolutely marvellous - especially Eileen Atkins, in my opinion, but the two men too. With one bizarre exception, in the scene on the Thames, where the Rhinemaidens are quoted: Weialala leia, Wallala leialala. Never heard anything so bizarre in my life. Could he not have listened to a recording of Rheingold, to find out how it's supposed to be pronounced?

Michael Gough is sublime, his subtlety spellbinding...👍

Fantastic documentary, so glad I found it..

Beautiful and prophetic. These fragments I have shored against my ruin. I will show you fear in a handful of dust. Lips that would kiss form prayers to broken stone.

I remember this poem from 10th grade English class. So glad my school covered this work. I can't imagine that happening now.

So good to see these documentaries on youtube I've had them on my old video cassettes for decades and would watch them from time to time but I see you haven't got the Proust documentary which to my mind is the best one and I still have it but it's getting grainy and unclear love to see the Proust documentary on your channel.

A wonderful document…Cannot thank you enough for making it available for our viewing….

In the mid 1970's i ended up as a student at the Royal Sea Bathing Hospital Margate . It was a difficult time for me and i recall sitting in a shelter on Margate seafront ,on many occasions, contemplating life and my place in it . This was most often in winter when english coastal towns can be particularly bleak . As part of my contemplations i had started reading about Eastern Philosophy. Later on i cane to know if T S Elliott and The Wastekand and noticed the vedantic references therein . A couple of years ago i had a rae visit to Margate and discovered a Blue Plaque on that seafront shelter informing that Elliot had written some if ' The Wasteland ' there !

According to poet Craig Raine 46:04, there are three main strands in the poem: fertility myths, Christ & the resurrection, and buddhist reincarnation.

Wonderful! Not seen this for over 30 years.

Prufrock still blows this away.

My Gen Z student deeply connect with "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." They connect with this overthinking and his self-loathing.

Intento comprender algo, lástima que mi inglés sea tan pobre pero la fascinación que ejerce la poesía de T S Eliot es inmensa y me "obliga" escuchar todo lo escuchable (aunque poco o nada entienda) para conocerle lo más posible!

Beautiful. Thank you,

Yes, Atkins is truly great ❤

When you read Eliot's Criticism of Shakespeare, you get the feeling he secretly felt not thought, that he could do better than the latter,at certain intervals. But of course he wasn't going to mention it.

I don't get it

The only one single poem which has the status of a classic; a classic of epic proportions, I remember how e I electrified we were when this poem was taught to us by our English professor way back in the early 70s,

Thank you for uploading this. It explains a lot about Eliot's insights to life during his time and his predictions for the future to come based on his experiences at the time.

I absolutely love your channel

Eileen Atkins reading T.S is the best thing I have heard in my life. 🔥💪 And also La Muerta from Juliet Stevenson.

Wonderful presentation!

What a masterpiece!

bits of Dante , bits of Baudelaire, bits of Villon, bits of Laforgue...

The poem was published exactly 100 years ago in the October issue of _The Criterion_ #TheWasteLand100

Fabulous. Thank you.

I’m reading “From Ritual To Romance” now and this compliments.

We did this for A level, hadnt got a clue what it was all about !

*Thank you* for sharing this with us all! Great contributions from all involved made it a delight indeed to help further explore and celebrate that work of art.

Look for "He do the police in different voices," a line from "Our Mutual Friend" by Dickens. This is apparently where Eliot got the idea and title for the original version of "The Waste Land."

“Much much better than Yeats”… not sure I would go that far!

Let's not forget the narrator Melvyn Bragg . He has contributed much himself to English cultural life .

A hard read but he brings out the meaning through the sprung rhythm. Well done.

21:35 "...echoes of Villon, " For Francois Villon, XV C. french poet.

Poor Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead...they just panned right over the part that was immediately accessible, recognizable, and touchingly simple. I love the polyglot international references and character shifts in the poem's entirety, but that lovely short section is so universal, it seems a shame to not at least tip at hat towards it.

What splendid explanation though I had this poem in my M.A couse.I found " the waste land " very difficult to understand. It is now that I have understood it a bit. Now also I find the poem abstruse. Thanks for uploading this video.

April is the cruelest month. Indeed..

Eliot was a fine poet and an important one, but there were others who didn't wear their learning on their sleeve as Eliot and Pound did. Robert Frost once said "Eliot and Pound were into bric-a-brac. They studied that." He was alluding to their allusions to works of literature that few had read, certainly not the common reader. Other poets such as Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, E.E. Cummings, Elizabeth Bishop, Marianne Moore, and many other poets. Some poets are not well-known, but their works are considered important by some who are aware of their work. Poets such as Josephine Miles, Louise Bogan, Edna St. Vincent Millay; but there are others who go unrecognized whose poetry is remarkable. Bert Meyers comes to mind as do poems by Benjamin Saltman, Ann Stanford, and a plethora of others whose poems few have read. There is much to like beyond Eliot and Pound. Is Eliot's contribution to poetry really more important than Robert Frost's poetry, or sundry others whose is far less known? A professor of mine once asked me who I thought was a fine poet. I mentioned Carl Sandburg. He replied, "Don't be so typically bucolic, Mr. Campbell." I thanked him and he said, "It was not intended as a compliment." I said, "I receive it as one, Dr. Williams, I am a bucolic." Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is one of my favorite poems, It is a strikingly beautiful original work. Personally, I prefer the poetry of William Stafford to Eliot. There are books of poems such as James Wright's "The Branch will not Break" that are lyrically stunning; Robert Francis' "The Orb Weaver" also published by Wesleyan University Press, is another collection of poems that is quite memorable. Recently, I have come to appreciate the poetry of Dana Gioia. His collected poems in his book, "99 Poems" is excellent. A poet can write great poetry and not be known. How many readers, college students among them, know Eugenio Montale's poems. How many discuss the poems of French poets Jacques Prevert or Francois Dodat; Was not Charles Baudelaire as original a poet as Eliot or Pound? One of the annoying things about such documentaries is there is so much more to appreciate than is represented here. One should also include the lyrics of songwriters such as Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Gordon Lightfoot, Leonard Cohen, Cat Stevens, and countless others. If one is honest, much of Eliot's work is enigmatic. That said, we are better having gone there.

A Dash Of Hope Sometimes I wake up Listen to the birds And my heart is glad My spirit elevated 'Oh' says a part of me An impulse crying out 'I've got to share this With my mom!' Deep down A younger me imagines He will make a call And mother will be there To answer And enjoy my good news To share our love For nature But soon A bitter scythe Cuts shorr My hope My naive daydream And I fall A thousand miles Im a split second To a place Where my mother is not To the everpresent now Where my lovely old mom No longer exists Eric Christen 2020 (Nobody Famous - a book of 150 poems dedicated to a mother)

So fantastic! Brilliant!,,

How I loved this Thank you

This is brilliant.

Ackroyd speaks of Eliot's "music," which recalls Ackroyd's novel "English Music".

Superb

Thank you!

16:57 Every time they show this guy I picture Alex and his droogs rushing in, toppling his bookshelves and having at him and his wife.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock was written after he'd left America, Eliot had began the work whilst in Paris on his foreign scholarship.

Most excellent doc.

The comments by Mr.Raine that Eliot is “ greater than Yeats”and that “ every thing in twentieth century poetry is founded “ on him are laughable on their face to anyone who has read and understood early twentieth century poetry in English and the modernist movement, about which Mr. Raine should educate himself. Pound( who isn’t even mentioned,a sure sign that Mr. Raine doesn’t know what he’s talking about),Yeats and Eliot …all three… are the triumvirate of poets upon whom twentieth century poetry in English is founded. There is a substantial body of scholarship and criticism which attests to this , which Mr. Raine might profit from reading, beginning with Hugh Kenner’s The Pound Era . He might take a look at Pound’s revisions of the Waste Land in manuscript at Yale’s Beinecke Library; I, for one, have read them.

Great readers. Fox is utterly magnetic. Gough too. Not forgetting Eileen Atkins.

A banker, a burglar: I sat by the waters of Meribah and wept. Ex 17; Nu 20.

Superb.

The poem with notes and editing by pound was available at one time.

The greatest thing I've ever heard.

No comments because it's great poetry with fantastic metaphor allegory and beyond laymans fancy. Sky

One of the best.

Thanks for posting this. He was, of course an American and I would assume that his English accent is an affectation given that he didn't move here until he was 27. It is so far back (although presumably of its time) that he's hard to follow at times. Fortunately, we've got Jeremy Iron's masterful interpretation.

I think Elliot was right in his ambivalence about his evolving work for both the confidence, command, and wallop of its powerhouse lines and its clang of hodgepodge associations and singsong. English is not a rhyme rich language. Repeat. Giving Elliot the benefit of his own doubts, I wish he'd had the confidence to resist Pound's meddling. If a work in progress, it had been best left at that hopefully to mature over time. The distillation encouraged by Pound devolves into both nursery rhyme and obsession bordering on the trite. The exploration of Elliot as a man savaged by inequities yields insight and compassion more valuable than the evaluation of his poetry. Art after all is at best an offering of human size. A life bears divine imprint and inspiration. For that I thank this effort most.