“When The Waste Land was published in 1922, T.S. Eliot changed the course of literary history. Hailed as the most influential English-language poem of the twentieth century, this masterpiece of modernist poetry was born not only from a shattered world—but from Eliot’s own psychological collapse.

In this in-depth lecture, we explore the rich historical, philosophical, and emotional contexts behind The Waste Land. What drove Eliot to write this fragmented, haunting masterpiece? And how did a personal breakdown become the catalyst for one of the greatest poems ever written?”

—> Jeremy Irons and Eileen Atkins read The Waste Land

—> Eliot’s The Portrait of a Lady read by Irons and Sinead Cusack.