Exploring The Waste Land
A miscellaneous page linked from The Waste Land, Part V, line 430

Fragments
Line 430

In response to a question to the TSE maillist about the line
    430)  These fragments I have shored against my ruins
Robert Meyer wrote:

This line, like many, has a story all it's own. It was the earliest known line of TWL to have been written, far before the manuscript version in the Berg Collection, even before his years at Harvard. It was discovered at the Smith Academy in St Louis and was apparently a note passed from Eliot to a classmate, the heretofore unknown "Myron", concerning a green candy popular among the children there at the turn of the century. Of course, Eliot encrypted the line when published so as to not draw attention to unscholarly youth. Here is for the first time in public:

"These frog-mints, I have stored again, Myron."

Robert Meyer, TSE maillist Thu, 18 Nov 1999, used with permission.
http://web.missouri.edu/~tselist/mharc/tse/1999-11/msg00438.html


Exploring The Waste Land
File name: mq430.html
File date: Sunday, September 29, 2002
[Home] [E-mail]