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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 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.

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

This is the greatest thing on KZfaq.

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

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.

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..

"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.

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

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.

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 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

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'

Michael Gough's reading is simply sublime

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.

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.

I barely breathed while listening to this. Wonderful!

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Another Fantastic Melvyn Bragg Production!

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

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

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

Wonderful! Not seen this for over 30 years.

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.

Fantastic documentary, so glad I found it..

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

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

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

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!

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?

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

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

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

I so love the plummy RP tones of the readings.

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.

I absolutely love your channel

Beautiful. Thank you,

Can never get enough of Eliot’s beautiful mind

Wonderful presentation!

Fabulous. Thank you.

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

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.

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!

*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.

What a masterpiece!

How I loved this Thank you

So fantastic! Brilliant!,,

Most excellent doc.

Thank you!

Excellent stuff.

This is brilliant.

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

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

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

Superb.

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,

One of the best.

Superb

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.

Yes, Atkins is truly great ❤

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

A great pleasure.

Prufrock still blows this away.

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 !

Awesome

great stuff

I much appreciate this

I adore YT for this ✨

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 ' .

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

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.

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.

a jewel thank you

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

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

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."

That was very good.

Read well, for the most part; well interpreted, with only a few quibbles.

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

After listening to this documentary and reflecting for a moment on the relevance of the whole poetry game and the big gamble and importance so many poets as well as readers of it find it so compelling I suppose is this. Poetry and the poets who write poetry are determined to do it well for starters. So much time , effort and reflection goes into it. Some poets would even say that it’s not really them writing but some other force or entity has taken over them , directing them as it were to put down so many important ideas that nothing else matters than this. To do it well for after all anybody can see the importance of what they have to say. So very important. Surely we all can see this.Yes the people who write poetry are committed to doing it well. And they do do it well, writing poetry. Yes the poets and poetry they write is a task that must be done well so important are these words they have to say. Which is why the majority of poetry through out the ages is so god awful boring I wouldn’t wish it on anyone who’s concerned with a decent life. There are a few , Charles Bukowski, Robinson Jeffers who didn’t give a damn about doing it well but more concerned about getting the word down and talking and describing real life than worry about some college professor who probably needs to get laid rather than thinking that it’s really about reading a good poem that makes it all worthwhile. You need to go to a cat house and get your monkey spanked or maybe become homeless and living out of your truck while detoxing off heroin before you start describing the beauty of goats coming down the mountain trail.

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

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

I saw Fiona Shaw's performance of the Waste Land at Wilton's, as close to Rat's Alley as you can get. It was very atmospheric.

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.

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.

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.

The greatest thing I've ever heard.

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