The Modern World: Ten Great WritersTV Show

Read by noted actors Michael Gough, Edward Fox, and Eileen Atkins, T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land powerfully expresses the disillusionment and disgust of the post–World War I era in Europe. In this program, Professor Frank Kermode, of Cambridge University; Eliot biographer Peter Ackroyd; and poets Sir Stephen Spender and Craig Raine examine the complex nature of Eliot’s influential poem, analyze its appeal, and trace the reasons why it became one of the best-known emblems of the 20th century.