Another thought brought to me by The Waste Land is what is a classic. Classics are things that we need to reread constantly, and classics are things that are often read and often new. For example, The Waste Land has been written for more than 80 years, but it is not out of date. In many ways, we still live in Eliot's The Waste Land, just as Eliot himself felt that he was still living in Dante's hell when he walked through London.
What is wasteland? In my opinion, the wasteland in Eliot's sense is a stage in which the old century has died and the new century has not yet been born, or a new meaning system and belief have not yet been born. The wasteland can be said to be the poor and boring state of human life itself after the disappearance of divinity.
When I reread Eliot's The Waste Land, I felt strongly that I was living in a waste land. I feel Eliot's great insight into life, and I feel that I am living under Eliot's gaze.
There are many criticisms about the poet Eliot. People often ridicule Eliot with words such as "dropping the book bag" and "showing off", which obliterates the ideological connotation and artistic charm of his creation. Williams, an American poet, said, "The appearance of wasteland is the disaster of American poetry", but I think all this does not detract from Eliot's greatness.
More than 80 years later, let's look at The Waste Land again, and its classic significance is increasingly evident. Eliot's concern for human civilization and human spirit, his lyric beyond narcissism and romanticism, and his questioning about the meaning of human existence are still what we should do today and avoid doing it repeatedly. I feel that as a writer, I am still in the direction pioneered by great pioneers in the first half of the 20th century. For some people, the 20th century is out of date, but what happened in the 20th century is enough for me to write for a lifetime. (Wang Jiaxin)