Plot Summary

Read by actors Michael Gough, Edward Fox, and Eileen Atkins, T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land expresses the disillusionment and disgust of the post–World War I era in Europe. In this documentary, professor Frank Kermode, biographer Peter Ackroyd, and poets Sir Stephen Spender and Craig Raine examine the complex nature of Eliot’s influential poem, analyze its appeal, and trace the reasons why it became one of the best-known emblems of the 20th century.