Claes, Paul

Dr. Paul Claes is a Flemish scholar who holds a Ph.D in Classical, Dutch, and English Philology from The University of Leuven (Belgium). He is a Retired Professor who formely taught at The University of Leuven and the University of Nijmegen.

Commentary on T. S. Eliot's Poem the Waste Land: The Infertility Theme and the Poet's Unhappy Marriage

2012 0-7734-2651-5
Claes argues that The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot is actually indicative of infertility in his marriage. While also cracking several riddles that Eliot put into the poem, this book provides ample evidence that the work is auto-biographical in nature. Claes provides line-by-line analysis of the poem, and the introduction presents six interpretive keys facilitating a systematic decoding. Textual arrangement, thematic recurrence, metaphorical syncretism, mythical method, allegorical representation, and inter-textual reference may help the reader to penetrate the multiple mysteries of the poem.