Surrealism must have influenced myriads of authors, artists and musicians as it was commonly expected as one of the most socio-culturally influential movement ever. However, it is seldom noted that T. S. Eliot may have close connection with Surrealism. Surrealism was originally an artistic movement that was conducted mainly by the works of artists and poets. Even though surrealism had been mainly regarded as the name tag for those who chiefly worked on paintings, it was originally initiated by a group of poets such as Louis Aragon, Paul Eluard, Guillaume Apollinaire, André Breton, Stéphane Mallarmé, Arthur Rimbaud, and Charles Baudelaire. Considering the culture atmosphere of the time when it was written, The Waste Land, in this respect, may possibly be read as the outcome of surrealistic influence upon T. S. Eliot. As a matter of fact, it must be a mixture of Freudian theory and the aesthetic spirit of rebellion against the traditional concept of art. Even though there was unbridgeable gap between surrealism and Freudian theory, they resonate with each other in their burgeoning period. The surrealist movement was first publicly announced in 1924 by André Breton in his famous “Surrealist Manifesto.” The nascent period was overlapped with that of The Waste Land. That is to say, the formation of surrealism had already begun after the world war I, which gave Eliot the sense of horror and emptiness and got him disillusioned from the hypocritical western civilization which found the elemental frame of The Waste Land.

• 김성현(서울과학기술대학교) | KIM Sung-Hyun Author