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Who Was James Joyce? James Joyce / James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (1882-1941), was an Irish novelist noted for his experimental use of language. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. Joyce came from a big family and was the eldest of ten children. His father was a talented singer (he reportedly had one of the finest tenor voices in all of Ireland), but failed to support his family. His habit of drinking and spending money carelessly soon brought the family into financial crises. From an early age, Joyce loved to write and had a passion for literature. He taught himself Norwegian so he could read Henrik Ibsen's plays in the language they had been written and spent his free time devouring Dante, Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. Because of his intelligence, Joyce's family pushed him to get an education. Largely educated by Jesuits, Joyce attended the Irish schools of Clongowes Wood College and

Wasteland by T.S Eliot One of the main harbingers of the Modernist movement in literature, T.S Eliot’s canonical work The Wasteland is a public outcry against the degenerating and decaying modern life devoid of any real values. The lack of hope, the looming uncertainty of the future, and the inevitability of death occupy the base of the various allusions and references made in the poem. The very title of this poem is rich in references. The title evokes associations with vegetation myths which assert that the sterility of the land is due to the impotence of its ruler. And both can be cured by the questing knight asking the right question at a ritual. Eliot has borrowed much from Jessie L Weston’s book From Ritual to Romance (1920) which speaks about the Grail Legend. The Golden Bough by James Frazor is another work from which Eliot has borrowed. According to Weston, the fisher king was the ruler of the land that was cursed with an evil spell that rendered the king impotent. A questing