Sin,Punishment And Salvation

Thomas Sterns Eliot is one of the most influential poets and critics in the twenties century. As one of the forerunners of modernism, he made innovations in the poetical creation. Some of his works are established as important milestones in modern English poetry, indicating the possibility to reestablish a new order once spoiled by the industrialization. In this new order, modernists attempts to find a new way to reconstruct the literature and re-present the complex reality of modern times. Eliot could use and innovate the traditions of literature delicately. His poems have a rich sense of history. His representative work The Waste Land combined the ancient with the modern perfectly. In The Waste Land, Eliot presented his realistic feelings about the postwar society by referencing classics of literature. The Bible, as a classic of western religion and literature, played an important role in The Waste Land.This thesis tries to study the intertextual relationship between Eliot’s The Waste Land and the Bible by using Gerard Genette’s intertextuality theory. In the Bible, sin, punishment and salvation are three important subjects. Eliot’s reference to the Bible cannot be alienated from these three categories. Based on these three subjects, this thesis will analyze how the Bible influenced The Waste Land under the view of intertextuality.This thesis includes six parts. The Introduction is mainly about Eliot and his achievements, his famous poem—The Waste Land and the literature review. In the Chapter One, the intertextuality theory and Eliot’s critic views related to the intertextuality theory will be introduced separately. Then in the coming three chapters, the intertextuality between The Waste Land and the Bible will be presented separately from the point of God’s and wastelanders’ attitudes towards the subject of sin, punishment and salvation. Chapter Two is mainly about the sins in The Waste Land, mainly from the aspects of the sins in The Waste Land and God’s warning against sins. Chapter Three mainly discusses the punishment in The Waste Land, mainly from the point of God’s punishment and people’s hope against punishment. Chapter Four illustrates the salvation in The Waste Land, mainly through the salvation by God and self-salvation of wastelanders.Ultimately, this thesis argues that there is an intertextual relationship between The Waste Land and the Bible. The Waste Land presents explicit and implicit references of biblical verses and stories. Therefore, some knowledge of the Bible is required to understand the deeper meaning of The Waste Land. The helplessness to change the modern wasteland is the soul of The Waste Land.