Metaphor of the Week

“The structure of The Waste Land is, in a sense, a negative structure. If a large family, kept together unwillingly in the same house by economic and social reasons, but not by any ties of true affection, could be caught at a moment of disintegration — not necessarily all in the same room together, nor even particularly conscious of each other’s activities — all making claims and each refusing to meet the other’s claims, then the intricate disharmonies of that house, the subtle cross-references of conflict, would give it an individuality as strong as that of a house where everyone was positively at peace.”

— Robert Graves, Contemporary Techniques of Poetry: A Political Analogy, 43-44