The Wasteland begins with a Latin and Greek quotation about a Greek myth. The subject of the legend, Sibyl, possessed leaves, which contained riddles of forbidden knowledge. The riddles had to be unscrambled and placed in the correct order before they could be understood. In some aspects, the Wasteland is like Sibyl's leaves. It is an episodic jumble of different images, cultures and allusions which combine to give Eliot's view of Post World War One Europe. The Wasteland was published in 1922, four years after the end of World War One and only three years after the Treaty of Versailles was drawn up. Europe was still recovering from the `War to End All Wars'. Europe had become, in essence, a wasteland.

Eliot's view of April in `Burial of the Dead' is ironic in that it reverses the popular view of spring. Instead of welcoming new life, April is described...