i wonder how much damage critics have done to this poem by being so insistent about its difficulty. i'm convinced that if you just listen, you will find something. this is a poem of incredible warmth and deep sorrow, and those come across so wonderfully in this reading. you don't have to know who tiresias is; just listen to the nightingale and her inviolable voice.

I have spent 50 years with this poem. Trying to memorize it and amazed at my "new" favorite part. "The Golden Bough " revieled itself and The Upishandis ripped open a bottomless rabbit hole. I learned german and why there is always more than expected on this trek. It wants you to know . Its has no secrets. The thin volume fits great in back pocket of my work pants

Nobody talked about sir alec guiness…such superb performance, bring the poem to life

What a wonderful interpretation by the late Sir Alec Guinness! In my view it is far superior to Eliot's own reading. At the age of 82 I am a latecomer to Eliot, and to poetry generally and whilst I don't profess to understand everything in what is generally accepted as a difficult poem to get to grips with, this reading certainly helped.

April is the cruelest month.... enjoying this under COVID lockdown

‘These fragments I have shored against my ruins.’ His ruins, the ruins of his passing life, the ruins of his country...

0:06 I. The Burial of the Dead 4:54 II. A Game of Chess 10:11 III. The Fire Sermon 17:33 IV. Death by Water 18:10 V. What the Thunder Said

I wrote my undergrad capstone and my graduate thesis on The Waste Land, and I'm still gleaning new tidbits every fifth listen/read-through.

1:43 - And I will show you something different from either Your shadow at morning striding behind you Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you; I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

>Who is the third who walks always beside you? >When I count, there are only you and I together >But when I look ahead up the white road >There is always another one walking beside you Matthew 18:20 “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them”

Utter bliss. The poem and the reader. This in my view is the definitive recording of The Waste Land. I prefer it to Eliot's own reading. And it's not such a hard understand. It's just about life. Thank you so much for putting this up here.

i'm so happy to have found this! "the waste land" is such a beautiful, personal poem and guinness does a masterful job in conveying all those themes of sorrow and loss and life in his reading of it.

Love the opening thumbnail of Sir Alec behind an imposing pocketbook. Might be time to rewatch his turn as George Smylie. Rest in paradise.

Eliots words evoke intense emotion because he suffered terribly in his life. In his poetry is his gift of sharing his grief and his joy. The four quartets are a lifetime of reading and contemplating in and of themselves. How I wish I could have met him.

If you like this, make sure you read Four Quartets as well. His poetry is simply beautiful and captivating Xxx

The real kick in the balls is he was thirty-four when he wrote this. At least we know what can happen when natural talent, great influences and timing work together. You could shoot for this level of quality and still miss beautifully. New voices for new times.

I have yet to find a bigger Eliot fan than myself, and as far as I'm concerned he reads it better than TSE did.

When I first read this poem as a teen, I didn't get it. It did nothing for me. Now, after revisiting it several times over the years, and with the help of performances like this and Fiona Shaw's, I think I get it, or at least bits of it. Poetry is one of those things that does grow on you, and with Eliot, especially, there are always more shades of meaning to be found.

I had to swing by this video in case my depression went away.

I never used to like this poem, but it's grown on me. Particular moments are extremely evocative.

By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept . . . Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song, Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long. But at my back in a cold blast I hear The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear.

The way this starts, “April is the cruelest month” always made me so confused when I was younger. How could someone in their twenties juxtapose the revitalization of spring with winter hiding a wasteland of damage. I don’t pretend to understand most of this poem, but I’m starting to see fragments of clarity.

First class. A masterclass in spoken English.

"Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead, Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell And the profit and loss. A current undersea Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell He passed the stages of his age and youth Entering the whirlpool. Gentile or Jew O you who turn the wheel and look to windward, Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you." 22:28 "The awful daring of a moment's surrender Which an age of prudence can never retract"

" I will show you fear in a handful of dust." This line was first brought to my attention in Stephen King's, "The Dark Tower" series. The same line being in Neil Gaiman's, "The Sandman" only solidified my necessity to seek out the original source of this material, and I am thoroughly pleased with it.

Of course I know him. He's me.

I have read The Wastelands many times since I first heard it as an angst filled teen, living in a small, coastal, Welsh village and I thought I loved it Having just listened to this reading, I am transported. I don't think I have ever been so moved...

These are not the dried tubers you are looking for ✋️

A poem wretched in substance. The perceived beauty of the individual lines is what keeps it going.

A wonderful reading of a great poem. Thank you for uploading it. I find it interesting that TS Eliot referred in this piece to Petronius, Satyricon Chapter 48: “Yes, and I myself with my own eyes saw the Sibyl hanging in a cage; and when the boys cried at her: Sibyl, Sibyl, what do you want?' 'I would that I were dead,' she used to answer.” Also, that Isaac Asimov in his short story about the omniescent, problem solving computer MULTIVAC "All the Troubles of the World" uses this quote from the Sibyl. 😎 Adam Neira Founder of World Peace 2050 Founded in April 2000 Paris - Jerusalem - France

Imagine a reading of the couple’s conversation in “a game of chess” read by Frank and Estelle Costanza at their most exasperated

I think the proudest moment of my high school life was when I could read the Wasteland without needing any translation.

Beautiful words read with exquisite beauty and grace by a consummate professional.

I love this poem, and wrote my senior capstone on it. So much of this has to do with death and rebirth, from the references to many vegetation gods, to the rise and fall of great cities, to the references to the Golden Bough and the Fisher King. Too much for one comment to contain, but every time I listen to this or read it I always wind up unpacking a little bit more. Truly a masterpiece, even if its meaning remains elusive to the average reader.

A wonderful treat - cannot believe this only has a few thousand views.

Awesome rendering. Took me through the life of the lines. The journey around the world in 24 minutes.Thank you.

Unreal City, Under the brown fog of a winter dawn, A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many, I had not thought death had undone so many.

wonderful.. , amazing reading by Alec Guinness

To say this is a beautiful reading does not convey what beautiful encapsulates when so much of lesser beauty occupies the same. This is exquisite. Alec Guinness has brought Eliot alive like Richard Burton brings alive Dylan Thomas in his KZfaq uploaded recordings. Thank you so much for sharing.

Far too may words. Like any good sauce, Condense Eliot into a word, Not a sentence. A paragraph, Nor a tome. There’s a whisper down the field where the year has shot her yield, And the ricks stand grey to the sun, Singing: ‘Over then, come over, for the bee has quit the clover, ‘And your English summer's done.’ Kipling nails it.

I who have sat by Thebes below the wall. And walked among the lowest of the dead.

So grateful for this upload ✨❤️💕

GUINNESS GIVES YOU STRENGTH! The " velvet voice " of a great knight in harmony to the singular inner voice of " the man ".........T S Eliot 📃 📝📖📄📓📕🖍🖋🖊

How many times did I listen to this before I realized he says "schled" at 0:55? 😂😂😂

A passionate cry against absence of passion

This guy sounds just like Prince Faisal- "No Arab loves the desert. We love water and green trees. There is nothing in the desert and no man needs nothing." His cadence and accent are so close to what you hear in Lawrence of Arabia. Wow, to have command of language, speaking, tone like this.. . . . . Thanks for posting this. First time I have heard it read aloud.

Thank you for this incredible treat.

this is downright ASMR

Probably my favorite poem and one of my favorite readings of it, Alec kills it

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

“This music crept by me upon the waters.”

This is absolute magic it's going to be really hard to play chess with this playing.

Quality. Absolutely top drawer. Found a copy of this in perfect nick in a London skip along with some Dylan Thomas, Ralph Richardson readings and the Burton Under Milkwood. Beautiful recording on the vinyl although this upload is a bit boomy. A good lesson for actors in how to read poetry; it's a different kind of use of the voice from stagework - it's about carving and polishing the words out of the air and making as much use of silence and sustain as an instrumentalist.

Great reading of a great poem, I can listen to this over and over again. Thank you so much for posting!

T.S. was born in St. Louis, Misery. He went to Harvard and got a doctorate in literature. He made his living as a banker and dressed like one. He emigrated to Britain and became a British subject. "The Wasteland" was first published in "Criterion" , the magazine he edited. It has been 100 years since October, 1922. Elliot's nightmare goes on. Who better to tell the tale than a well educated bourgeois financier?

Love the start to Thunder, how his voice changes. lost, out of place, desperate feeling, no water, dry, otherworldly. Me and my husband have also been discussing the 'da' s. I still feel the da is loud and the dhatata (etc) is like a rumble after, an echo....my husband has always read the da and dhatata (etc) as all loud, like an interruption

He do the characters in different voices!

Fantastic poem and performance. It really shows how devastated the world was by WW1.

I love this so much I'm speechless.

Elliot is brilliant and so natural

gives me goosebumps

This is an otherwise magical reading, but his German accent does sound a bit like Dracula...

I go back to this poem time and time again. One of the best. Read out aloud and feel the language slip from your mouth, simply beautiful. Thank you Elliot you have made your mark on literature 👍

Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks, The lady of situations. Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel.

This is like if Oswald Spengler’s “The Decline of the West” was a poem. Eliot was 100% inspired by his favorite historian.

thank you for this masterpiece

The chemist said it would be all right, but I’ve never been the same

interesting how alec's various character voices betray his particular interpretations of when exactly the speaker changes throughout the poem, which isn't always made obvious by the text. like how in the first stanza he switches from his default english accent to a mock-german one only once he gets to "summer surprised us..."

thank you so much for your performance

The jungle crouched, humped in silence

April is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain. Winter kept us warm, covering Earth in forgetful snow, feeding A little life with dried tubers. Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade, And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten, And drank coffee, and talked for an hour. Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch. And when we were children, staying at the arch-duke’s, My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled, And I was frightened. He said, Marie, Marie, hold on tight. And down we went. In the mountains, there you feel free. I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter. What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man, You cannot say, or guess, for you know only A heap of broken images, where the sun beats, And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief, And the dry stone no sound of water. Only There is shadow under this red rock, (Come in under the shadow of this red rock), And I will show you something different from either Your shadow at morning striding behind you Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you; I will show you fear in a handful of dust. Frisch weht der Wind Der Heimat zu Mein Irisch Kind, Wo weilest du? “You gave me hyacinths first a year ago; “They called me the hyacinth girl.” -Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden, Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither Living nor dead, and I knew nothing, Looking into the heart of light, the silence. Oed’ und leer das Meer. Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante, Had a bad cold, nevertheless Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe, With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she, Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor, (Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!) Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks, The lady of situations. Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel, And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card, Which is blank, is something he carries on his back, Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find The Hanged Man. Fear death by water. I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring. Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone, Tell her I bring the horoscope myself: One must be so careful these days. Unreal City, Under the brown fog of a winter dawn, A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many, I had not thought death had undone so many. Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled, And each man fixed his eyes before his feet. Flowed up the hill and down King William Street, To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine. There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying: “Stetson! “You who were with me in the ships at Mylae! “That corpse you planted last year in your garden, “Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year? “Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed? “Oh keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend to men, “Or with his nails he’ll dig it up again! “You! hypocrite lecteur!-mon semblable,-mon frère!”

>I read much of the night and go south in the winter WTF I love T.S. Eliot now

This is the first time I have heard this recording. I don't how well read it was, but will guess because it was Sir Alec Guinness reading a poem by T.S. Eliot it must be something well done. Did I enjoy the different sections? They were interesting. I have read this poem to myself before in my head and out loud several years ago. I get some of the cultural and mythological allusions. I get the poem is working on multiple levels, but am guessing as to what those levels are. One day I may study it carefully. Thank you for posting the video.

I cried the whole time, I don’t know why

One of the most beautiful poem in English Literature.

absolutly delightfull

Thank you, Sir..

Beautifully spoken, but I'm still lost. Eliot goes over my beanie.

You cannot say, or guess, for you know only A heap of broken images, where the sun beats

Where fishmen lounge at noon: where the walls Of Magnus Martyr hold Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold

This poem became in big parts my life, its like a precise description of big parts of my life, the guy was magic. Magic like cg jung writings. Their writing is a living thing, Like only some religious writings Can be magic. Every time i carry my water up a dry, dusty mountain road in spain I am still amazed how he described in what i read in 1991, written longtime before, would be my life in 2021. ❤️

April is the cruellest month

.......in the mountains, there you feel free. A soooo wonderful mixture of a childhood immersed in the large expanse of nature (the mountains) intwined in the fear and abandonment of a childhood experience of the thrill of a journey by sled down a snow covered mountainside. WOW !!!!!!!!

I like Joyce's parody----"November is the wettest month, getting through all impermeables...."

Ringed by the flat horizon only.

sublime!

My friend, blood shaking my heart.

Those are pearls that were his eyes.

Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante, Had a bad cold, nevertheless Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe, With a wicked pack of cards

Brilliant!

T.S Elliot read by Alec Guinness? Fuck yeah

Game of Chess The Chair she sat in, like a burnished thone, Glowed on the marble, where the glass Held up by standards wrought with fruited vines From which a golden Cupidon peeped out (Another hid his eyes behind his wing) Doubled the flames of sevenbranched candelabra Reflecting light upon the table as The glitter of her jewels rose to meet it, From satin cases poured in rich profusion; In vials of ivory and coloured glass Unstoppered, lurked her strange synthetic perfumes, Unguent, powdered, or liquid-troubled, confused And drowned the sense in odours; stirred by the air That freshened from the window, these ascended In fattening the prolonged candle-flames, Flung their smoke into the laquearia, Stirring the pattern on the coffered ceiling. Huge sea-wood fed with copper Burned green and orange, framed by the coloured stone, In which sad light a carvèd dolphin swam. Above the antique mantel was displayed. As though a window gave upon the sylvan scene The change of Philomel, by the barbarous king So rudely forced; yet there the nightingale Filled all the desert with inviolable voice And still she cried, and still the world pursues, “Jug Jug” to dirty ears. And other withered stumps of time Were told upon the walls; staring forms Leaned out, leaning, hushing the room enclosed. Footsteps shuffled on the stair. Under the firelight, under the brush, her hair Spread out in fiery points Clawed into words, then would be savagely still. “My nerves are bad tonight. Yes, bad. Stay with me. “Speak to me. Why do you never speak. Speak. “What are you thinking of? What thinking? What? “I never know what you are thinking. Think.” I think we are in rats’ alley Where the dead men lost their bones. “What is the noise?” The wind under the door. “What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?” Nothing again nothing. “Do “You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember “Nothing?” I remember Those are pearls that were his eyes. “Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?” But O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag- It’s so elegant So intelligent “What shall I do now? What shall I do?” “I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street “With my hair down, so. What shall we do tomorrow? “What shall we ever do?” The hot water at ten. And if it rains, a closed car at four. And we shall play a game of chess, Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door. When Lil’s husband got demobbed, I said- I didn’t mince my words, I said to her myself, HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME Now Albert’s coming back, make yourself a bit smart. He’ll want to know what you done with that money he gave you To get yourself some teeth. He did, I was there. You have them all out, Lil, and get a nice set, He said, I swear, I can’t bear to look at you. And no more can’t I, I said, and think of poor Albert, He’s been in the army four years, he wants a good time, And if you don’t give it him, there's others will, I said. Oh is there, she said. Something o’ that, I said. Then I’ll know who to thank, she said, and give me a straight look. HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME If you don’t like it you can get on with it, I said, Others can pick and choose if you can’t. But if Albert makes off, it won’t be for lack of telling. You ought to be ashamed, I said, to look so antique. (And her only thirty-one.) I can’t help it, she said, pulling a long face, It’s them pills I took, to bring it off, she said. (She’s had five already, and nearly died of young George.) The chemist said it would be alright, but I’ve never been the same. You are a proper fool, I said. Well, if Albert won’t leave you alone, there it is, I said, What you get married for if you don’t want children? HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME Well, that Sunday Albert was home, they had a hot gammon, And they asked me in to dinner, to get the beauty of it hot- HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME Goonight Bill. Goonight Lou. Goonight May. Goonight. Ta ta. Goonight. Goonight. Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night.

An amazing treat... Thank you

He who are living are dead, we who are living are dying, with a little patience.

I like Guinness too

By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept . . .

But at my back in a cold blast I hear The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear

Here is no water but only rock Rock and no water and the sandy road The road winding above among the mountains Which are mountains of rock without water If there were water we should stop and drink Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand If there were only water amongst the rock Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit There is not even silence in the mountains But dry sterile thunder without rain There is not even solitude in the mountains But red sullen faces sneer and snarl From doors of mud racked houses If there were water And no rock If there were rock And also water And water A spring A pool among the rock If there were the sound of water only Not the cicada And dry grass singing But sound of water over a rock Where the hermit-thrush sings in the pine trees Drip drop drip drop drop drop drop But there is no water (Edit:when I read through, I discovered that Auto correct had changed CARIOUS to VARIOUS. Chortle)

Very nice - beautifully read and communicated. Had thought Eliot a cold fish and great to be deceived in that thought.

Marvelous!