![]() ![]() In case we’re in any doubt about what Eliot is driving at here, he ends this particular passage with a quotation from the French poet Verlaine and his poem Parsifal: ‘And O the voice of the children, singing in the cupola!’ (A cupola is a little round tower, such as is found in palaces.) Parsifal (or Perceval) was, in some versions of the Arthurian legend, the one who went to find the Holy Grail – but only the pure and chaste would be able to find it. In this classical myth, even gaining sexual gratification (however nascent) from the sight of a beautiful chaste woman (a divine one, no less) was enough to get you executed in the most horrifically violent way.Ĭontrast that view of sexual chastity, Eliot seems to be saying, with what we have nowadays: if you want to look at naked women (or even do more than look), all you need to do is bring your wallet with you, like Sweeney. ![]() Actaeon was torn apart by his own hounds because he dared, Peeping-Tom-like, to gaze at the naked body of the beautiful goddess Diana while she bathed. It’s worth analysing the significance of any allusion in The Waste Land, and this one is no different. ![]()
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