Part 1: Mythos definitions
I’ve been thinking about the human tendency toward mythos-building lately, the way we form ideas about who we are, how we form a mythos about people as we get to know them, how we are raised in a mythos about our society and grow up presented with each mythos of the roles within society that we can to step into. I’m going to talk about this in relation to a recent experience with T.S. Eliot’s "The Wasteland," but I first want to start with some definitions (feel free to skip them and jump down to Part 2).From the Mirriam-Webster online dictionary the following meanings apply to my thinking about mythos, which is the word’s singular form. The second definition of mythos is "a pattern of beliefs expressing often symbolically the characteristic or prevalent attitudes in a group or culture."
Mirriam-Webster redirects the first meaning of Mythos to the definition of myth. Here is the second definition of Myth:
2a. a popular belief or tradition that has grown up around something or someone, especially: one embodying the ideals and institutions of a society or segment of society
2b. an unfounded or false notion
2b is highly relevant since so much of any mythos we personally construct is unfounded or false simply because we don’t know the whole truth of a situation until we’ve taken a dive into the middle of it–or it starts to break down of its own accord.
I’m going to add to these definitions a statement about personal mythology by Dr. David Feinstein and Dr. Stanley Krippner: "A personal myth is a constellation of beliefs, feelings, images, and rules—operating largely outside of conscious awareness—that interprets sensations, constructs new explanations, and directs behavior. ...Personal myths speak to the broad concerns of identity (Who am I?), direction (Where am I going?), and purpose (Why am I going there?). For an internal system of images, narratives, and emotions to be called a personal myth, it must address at least one of the core concerns of human existence."
I don’t know who first said that one of our human characteristics is that of meaning-making but when I did an internet search I found a quote on Goodreads by Bessel van der Kolk, psychiatrist, researcher and author who focuses on response to trauma, who says “Because humans are meaning-making creatures, we have a tendency to create some sort of image or story.”
I have not read the work of any of those men, though I may have listened to a talk by van der Kolk on Youtube at some point. I bring all this up as a way to share how I’m currently finding my way into T.S. Eliot’s "The Wasteland."
What I surmise from my parsing of the poem, thoughts on mythos, and a list of sources provided below, was that Eliot was someone who’d been hit with a number of mythos disrupting strikes in a limited amount of time. Any hope of more travel in Europe before its being despoiled by war was erased, interrupting what appears to me to be a desire to establish himself as a cosmopolitan intellectual, having a foot in many cultural traditions. His marriage wasn’t going well, which could result in multiple hits to one’s personal and social mythoi–who she was, who he was with her, what marriage was and what it would continue to be with her. And of course there were the inhumane horrors of WWI and the mourning from the loss of life, which he may not have directly experienced but was certainly watching others deal with. To me his “Unreal City” is the mythos of the city. National mythoi were being adjusted as well during the course of the war. His work life took him into banking for a time, which, however it may have suited him in some ways, surely was not his initially intended trajectory in life. All of this happened within about five years and in the aftermath of his inhaling of a lot of mythologies within his formal education.
The collage of "The Wasteland" goes back and forth from everyday observations to myths. As he writes near the end of "The Wasteland," “These fragments are a shore against my ruins.” I don’t know if the ancient myths are a bulwark against the collapsing of personal expectations (that is, his crumbling mythoi) or whether they’re dramatic smokescreens in which to embed personal turmoil. Leaning on the ancient myths certainly makes the personal more grandiose. At least that’s the way I see it. Perhaps if you’re T.S. Eliot, bringing in Tristan and Isolde, Tiresias and Coriolanus (of those that come to mind as I type) is simply a form of “misery loves company.” They may have become part of his personal mythos and thus natural for him to include. I admit I often feel, when reading "The Wasteland," like a hapless speck aswirl in his personal mythos. It could be he thought if he brought in the ancient myths he was somehow making his personal crisis more universal. It didn’t have that effect on me.
The Wasteland will never become part of my personal mythos but as a result of my excursion into it, I’ve begun to see the parts more clearly and the pressures that may have contributed to it. I can definitely identify with Eliot somewhat because some of my own fundamental mythoi have been disrupted through time, mainly due to health issues, so I know how there can be a domino effect of rethinking assumptions even with only one mythos taking a hit. I can also identify with the emotional impact being delayed, as seems to happen in this poem.
As always after expressing something that is new (to me) and not the sort of thing I normally talk about, I suspect I may not have added any clarity about this poem and may even have cast more mists on a work already inclined toward smoke and mirrors. I may have stated the obvious that only now became obvious to me. I have no idea, but those are my thoughts at present on Eliot’s The Wasteland.
2a. a popular belief or tradition that has grown up around something or someone, especially: one embodying the ideals and institutions of a society or segment of society
2b. an unfounded or false notion
2b is highly relevant since so much of any mythos we personally construct is unfounded or false simply because we don’t know the whole truth of a situation until we’ve taken a dive into the middle of it–or it starts to break down of its own accord.
I’m going to add to these definitions a statement about personal mythology by Dr. David Feinstein and Dr. Stanley Krippner: "A personal myth is a constellation of beliefs, feelings, images, and rules—operating largely outside of conscious awareness—that interprets sensations, constructs new explanations, and directs behavior. ...Personal myths speak to the broad concerns of identity (Who am I?), direction (Where am I going?), and purpose (Why am I going there?). For an internal system of images, narratives, and emotions to be called a personal myth, it must address at least one of the core concerns of human existence."
I don’t know who first said that one of our human characteristics is that of meaning-making but when I did an internet search I found a quote on Goodreads by Bessel van der Kolk, psychiatrist, researcher and author who focuses on response to trauma, who says “Because humans are meaning-making creatures, we have a tendency to create some sort of image or story.”
I have not read the work of any of those men, though I may have listened to a talk by van der Kolk on Youtube at some point. I bring all this up as a way to share how I’m currently finding my way into T.S. Eliot’s "The Wasteland."
Part 2: My thoughts on mythos
I think we are constantly creating and maintaining stories. Mythoi (the plural of mythos), can perhaps be thought of as a web of stories that solidifies. And I think we construct them both consciously and unconsciously. For example, who we think a person is may shift and change for a while as we have more experiences with them and learn more about them. Over time we form a more consistent impression of them, beliefs about their character and some knowledge of their history. Some mythoi we create are minor, some are the core of our identity or comprise our understanding of the world around us. Having what we consider a well-developed mythos, that being a mythos we feel we have enough information and experience to be correct about, having that well-developed mythos disrupted may elicit anything from a shrug or personal collapse. For example if you think your boss is in a happy marriage and then you find out that a divorce is on the horizon, most of the time that won’t have a strong impact on your working relationship or your career, let alone your own identity. If you find out your boss has murdered someone and is going to prison, that may have you rethinking every interaction you ever had with him or her. But the impact is exponentially greater if we ourselves think we’re in a happy marriage and are suddenly asked for a divorce or even worse, if we discover that our spouse has been a serial killer on the side.We also develop what we consider reasonable expectations for the future based on the mythoi we’ve developed. We expect certain things of ourselves, the people we’re close to, and the world around us. But life often doesn’t have a lot of respect for our reasonable expectations and when our expectations are crushed it can cause real, jarring, emotional and psychological impact. Some of us are more adaptable and resilient than others, but even hardy people can be devastated. I suspect T.S. Eliot was not so adaptable or resilient.
Part 3: My approach to "The Wasteland"
Upon this particular rereading of T.S. Eliot’s "The Wasteland," which is a poem I’ve never felt much connection to, I was once again having difficulty making any sense of Eliot's use of collage construction. I resorted to slowing way, way down, making a copy of the poem and parsing every place it seemed to me there was a shift in perspective and jotting a note about the change.What I surmise from my parsing of the poem, thoughts on mythos, and a list of sources provided below, was that Eliot was someone who’d been hit with a number of mythos disrupting strikes in a limited amount of time. Any hope of more travel in Europe before its being despoiled by war was erased, interrupting what appears to me to be a desire to establish himself as a cosmopolitan intellectual, having a foot in many cultural traditions. His marriage wasn’t going well, which could result in multiple hits to one’s personal and social mythoi–who she was, who he was with her, what marriage was and what it would continue to be with her. And of course there were the inhumane horrors of WWI and the mourning from the loss of life, which he may not have directly experienced but was certainly watching others deal with. To me his “Unreal City” is the mythos of the city. National mythoi were being adjusted as well during the course of the war. His work life took him into banking for a time, which, however it may have suited him in some ways, surely was not his initially intended trajectory in life. All of this happened within about five years and in the aftermath of his inhaling of a lot of mythologies within his formal education.
The collage of "The Wasteland" goes back and forth from everyday observations to myths. As he writes near the end of "The Wasteland," “These fragments are a shore against my ruins.” I don’t know if the ancient myths are a bulwark against the collapsing of personal expectations (that is, his crumbling mythoi) or whether they’re dramatic smokescreens in which to embed personal turmoil. Leaning on the ancient myths certainly makes the personal more grandiose. At least that’s the way I see it. Perhaps if you’re T.S. Eliot, bringing in Tristan and Isolde, Tiresias and Coriolanus (of those that come to mind as I type) is simply a form of “misery loves company.” They may have become part of his personal mythos and thus natural for him to include. I admit I often feel, when reading "The Wasteland," like a hapless speck aswirl in his personal mythos. It could be he thought if he brought in the ancient myths he was somehow making his personal crisis more universal. It didn’t have that effect on me.
The Wasteland will never become part of my personal mythos but as a result of my excursion into it, I’ve begun to see the parts more clearly and the pressures that may have contributed to it. I can definitely identify with Eliot somewhat because some of my own fundamental mythoi have been disrupted through time, mainly due to health issues, so I know how there can be a domino effect of rethinking assumptions even with only one mythos taking a hit. I can also identify with the emotional impact being delayed, as seems to happen in this poem.
As always after expressing something that is new (to me) and not the sort of thing I normally talk about, I suspect I may not have added any clarity about this poem and may even have cast more mists on a work already inclined toward smoke and mirrors. I may have stated the obvious that only now became obvious to me. I have no idea, but those are my thoughts at present on Eliot’s The Wasteland.
Part 4: Resources
My recent background on the poem consisted of videos by Dr. Adam Walker of the Youtube channel with the same name:
https://youtu.be/PPdbXOYVcSU?si=yYERbq-rk6I0CTy7
https://youtu.be/ogGcm_0YpzE?si=XEmxLDpBIwbz3GGr
https://youtu.be/VoT3fRCrnF4?si=QJ4oTukEP2r3j_Md
I also watched the videos by Thomas at the Youtube channel Books, Art, Crime and Popular Culture and had some personal exchanges with him. He has established a TS Eliot playlist.
I also found a simple T.S. Eliot timeline and a webpage with translations for the foreign language sections. I was lucky enough to have a volume of his poetry that had his notes on "The Wasteland" included but the only one I found particularly helpful was him pinpointing the section of the poem featuring Tiresias as the most important part of the poem.
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