I thoroughly enjoyed reading this poem. I knew I would, having nothing but fond memories regarding The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock which I read years ago. However, one thing about Prufrock that was also true of this poem was that it was nearly incomprehensible to me upon first reading.

On the first readthrough of these first two sections of The Waste Land I just allowed myself to be immersed in the way the poem made me feel without worrying much about understanding what the purpose was. There's a special kind of feeling to this poem, I suppose it's a type of melancholy, that I really enjoying allowing myself to indulge in sometimes. I think this is the effect of the shifting perspective, the odd imagery (line 30, "I'll show you fear in a handful of dust), and the references to death or darkness without being overly macabre. I can't help but compare it to the melancholy tone of the romantics, but I feel like there wbias something a bit more poignant and human in that. This feels, to me, like I'm being taken by the hand by some benign ghostly thing and allowed to float through a series of images and situations. Though, this is my own personal experience and I am not sure whether this is a common sort of sensation or at all the intention of Elliot upon writing it. The title, The WasteLand, leads me to believe that I am not entirely off base.

When I went back and read these portions of the poem again, I was still a little murky on how to interpret them. However, I did notice a few things that interested me. Firstly, the poem includes a great number of biblical allusions. I don't actually remember discussing anything biblical when we studied Prufrock so it seems odd to me that they would be so prevalent here. Additionally, the clairvoyant in the first portion interests me greatly because she does not seem to fit with any other the other scenes within the poem and also because this inclusion of mysticism among so many biblical references is somewhat of a curiosity to me.