The Waste Land is Eliot's masterpiece, a milestone in modernist poetry and an epoch-making masterpiece in western literature.
-History of foreign literature
Eliot is the most important poet in the 20th century and the founder of modernist poetry. As a poet, he is of great significance. His literary creation and critical works played a pioneering role in British and American modernist literature and new critical theory in the 20th century. He is known as the "master of modern literary criticism" and even once became a leading figure in British and American poetry circles. When he was a college student, he wrote a landmark poem, The Love Song of Alfred Pruefer Locke. The theme of this poem obviously belongs to modernist poetry, and its form is quite different from that of19th century poetry. When the famous poet Pound later read this poem, he was surprised that Eliot stepped into modernism alone. 1948 won the Nobel Prize in Literature for its outstanding contribution and pioneering role in contemporary poetry. All these provide a paradigm for young poets who are moving towards modernism. The poetic circles in the 1920s and 1950s were called "Eliot's era".
In The Waste Land, Eliot diagnosed the decline of western civilization in his time and even in the whole 20th century. The whole poem embodies the beauty of rhythm and color: the west of the 20th century is a wasteland, and it can't be produced without water. In fact, rivers and oceans, real and imagined, are all forming an undercurrent of meaning through rhythm, imagery, association, music and pictures. In these places, we can see the richness and profundity of Eliot and the new principles of composition and composition he learned from modern art. Alan tate, a famous contemporary poet and critic, said that when he first read The Waste Land, he didn't understand a word, but he realized that it was a great poem.