(Urban) Sacred Places and Profane Spaces—Theological Topography in T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land

Research output: Contributions to collected editions/worksChapterpeer-review

Authors

  • Verena Keidel

This paper investigates the interconnectedness of space and sacredness in T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land by drawing on Augustine’s understanding of the city as spiritual entity as well as more recent sociological readings of sacred space being produced through religious practice. I argue that London’s cityscape in Eliot’s poem recalls the Augustinian idea of urban space as a spiritual state, while it also points to the social dimension of material sacred sites: The poem’s portrayal of ecclesiastical buildings demonstrates the social effects of the negation of communal (church) ritual, but it also stresses the benefits of a successful production of sacredness and numinous beauty by social practices in an otherwise spiritually depraved environment.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationGeocriticism and Spatial Literary Studies : Narrating Spaces, Reading Urbanity
EditorsMartin Kindermann, Rebekka Rohleder
Number of pages20
Place of PublicationCham
PublisherPalgrave Macmillan
Publication date2020
Pages45-64
ISBN (print)978-3-030-55268-8
ISBN (electronic)978-3-030-55269-5
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2020

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