"What branches grow out of this stony rubbish?"

Re-reading T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land I have been very impressed by the hopefulness implicit in the over-arching idea--namely that of a waste land. Eliot seemed to relate it to two different concepts within the poem: to the Biblical wilderness and the arid plain of the Grail legends. In both of these, the waste land is caused by sin, but is understood as a good suffering--for purgation. This idea of suffering is also consciously present in the poem, most beautifully in the references to Dante's Purgatorio and the character of Arnaut Daniel. Daniel embraces his pain, understanding the good to which it will lead. (I. e., Heaven) This is one hopeful thing: suffering is not evil. But also the two supplementary ideas of waste lands are not complete if understood as desolation alone. They are passages: they come from something and lead to something. They result from sin and lead to grace. The Israelites are led from the wilderness into the Promised Land. The Fisher King is healed by the Christ-figure, and the land is restored to fruitfulness. Given these prototypes, I cannot help but consider Eliot's modern waste land also as a passage. It has not come from nowhere, nor should we consider movement out of it impossible. If it was not possible, there would be no point in attempting to "set my lands in order." Yet Eliot urges this. When the life is amended the land will be restored.