The Tarot Fortune in The Waste Land
1982; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 49; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/2872904
ISSN1080-6547
Autores Tópico(s)Poetry Analysis and Criticism
ResumoWhile Madame Sosostris' Tarot fortune has increasingly been recognized as a significant structural and symbolic aspect of The Waste Land, analyses of fortune and of its relation to rest of poem have been impeded by a number of critical blind spots. Among those that might be cited are biographical uncertainty about Eliot's knowledge of Tarot, incorrect provenance of cards provided by Jessie Weston in From Ritual to Romance,' relative obscurity of work of Arthur Edward Waite and Pamela Colman Smith, and a general disregard for significance of a Waitean influence on part of those Eliot scholars who are aware of probable source of Eliot's knowledge. Robert Currie, expanding and improving upon theories advanced by Gertrude Moakley, has demonstrated that Eliot's knowledge of Tarot was derived from a manual published by Arthur Edward Waite in 1910 as an explanatory adjunct to rectified Tarot pack of cards drawn by Pamela Colman Smith to his specifications. Currie also argues convincingly that Eliot's knowledge of Waite's Christianized and symbolic (rather than emblematic) Tarot was more than cursory and that Tarot fortune is more than incidental to meaning and movement of The Waste Land. However, Currie stops short of attempting to explicate a coherent fortune, which would justify serious scholarly attention to Tarot as an essential symbolic or structural element of The Waste Land. In dealing with Madame Sosostris' references without postulating an overall framework in which they relate to each other and to poem, Currie may have been led astray by Moakley, or he may have failed to heed passage he cites from Waite indicating that individual reflection provides meaning for cards, since the pictures are like doors which open into unexpected chambers or like a turn in open road with a wide prospect beyond.2 Such a fortune is, however, told by Madame Sosostris, and poem reflects-and reflects upon-the fortune.
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