Professor Sir Christopher Ricks: More Than One Waste Land

A video cannot do justice to the brilliance of Christopher Ricks' lectures. He captivates every single member of the audience right till the very end, and his recent lecture on The Wasteland was no different.
What attracted me particularly to this lecture was Ricks' exploration of how we see and interpret the first line of the poem. The Wasteland begins with 'April is the cruellest month, breeding'. Ricks states depending on how one emphasises this sentence can dictate how we interpret it.
Same, then, in how we read words. My own example: 'he was a good man, on weekends'. Up till 'on weekends' we see the man as 'good'. Yet, on reading 'on weekends' we understand that the man is not so good on weekdays. Then, our interpretation and evaluation of the man has changed from what it was at the beginning of the sentence.
Careful interpretation is essential in all work, not just in Ricks' forte of literary criticism. One can only see the complete idea by re-evaluating what we already understand, and as Ricks shows, without it we have but half the story.
Written by Lizzie who is studying for the English BA with Art History at New College of the Humanities. Find out more about studying English at NCH at: www.nchlondon.ac.uk/english-a...

[@JoachimderZweite]

I listened to many lectures like this when I was at university many years ago. It was like water off a duck's back. I recommend taking the time to memorize countless pieces of poetry and prose because that is something you can take with you in life.

[@DuanePostum]

"... you take the responsibility for the response you have..." 8:38. Such a Ricksian way of putting it. Listening closely to this man is like cranking up the volume on the stereo amplifier of literary beauty.

[@JeffRebornNow]

DuanePostum There's a "Ricksian" way of putting things? Like a Dickensian way? Or a Shakespearean way? Ooooooooo that Ricksian rag, it's so elegant, so intelligent.

[@sattarabus]

+DuanePostum I hope you last sentence is complimentary. Or is it a poke in the rib?

[@JeffRebornNow]

Prof Sattar Basra I hope you aren't an English teacher who publishes journal articles as badly written as, "+DuanePostum I hope you last sentence is complimentary."

[@DuanePostum]

+Prof Sattar Basra It was complimentary if not laudatory. I meant that Ricks helps one appreciate deeper levels of poems, if nothing else.

[@sattarabus]

Thanks, bwana. The penny has dropped. To teach is to learn twice. Docendo discimus !

[@janesherman5637]

Goodness, what a lot of negative reactions to a brilliant lecture.

[@tomaszbethell]

Pity so little of the lecture focuses on the text itself

[@reaganwiles_art]

T.S. Eliot is among the difficult artists, the self-contradictory, his works seem to have been written despite all that he held most dear. In a way Eliot is like Dostoyevsky, in that the works are in contradistinction to what the man valued; rather, the characters and personae repudiate the artist himself. The challenge is to believe that these works of art do not actually represent the deepest character of the men who created them. There is in everything Eliot wrote the knell of doom; we won't be fooled by any "knot of fire" and "rose" at the end of "Little Gidding!" Nor by any rationalization about Aristophanes re: Sweeney Agonistes!

[@ftlpope]

Very interesting but he sounds rather like Stanley Unwin and Tony Benn.

[@davidgardiner6123]

I got the Stanley Unwin similarity too! But Professor Ricks is excellent!

[@ftlpope]

I read the books he refers to. I think that the Carthaginian line is very weak. I do not think that Eliot, in his four piece suit, was ever in touch with the mundane world.

[@brandgardner211]

Ricks is a fool.

[@georgericks1443]

If you met him in real life you would know he wasn't a posh git.

[@seltonk5136]

Brand “The Buffoon” Gardner. Does your car still smell like farts? We recently had laughs at your expense over that. Cruel, but now I don’t feel bad.

[@martinmichalek]

what the fuck are you on about?