Classic EnglishEliot & Hemingway
Comparative literature · 1922 and 1926

The Waste Land & The Sun Also Rises

A poem and a novel written in the years after the First World War. Both describe a world that has been wounded and cannot heal. Both use an old story to say it: the Fisher King.

T. S. Eliot published The Waste Land in 1922. Ernest Hemingway wrote The Sun Also Rises in 1925, and it was published in October 1926. You will listen to the poem, learn the myth, then read the novel chapter by chapter. As you read, you will collect passages in a notebook. At the end, your notebook becomes a comparative essay.

Black-and-white photograph of T. S. Eliot in a checked suit, sitting in a deck chair and holding a cigarette
T. S. Eliot in 1923, photographed by Lady Ottoline Morrell.
Black-and-white portrait photograph of a young Ernest Hemingway in a dark jacket and tie
Ernest Hemingway in 1923.

How your notes work

  1. ✦ hint marks a passage that connects to the Fisher King. Tap it and it is saved to your notes, with a question to think about.
  2. When you find something yourself, select the words and press Save to notes. Choose a theme.
  3. The hints get fewer as the novel goes on. By the end, you find the evidence on your own.
  4. Your notebook sorts everything by text and theme. The essay builder lets you insert your notes as quotations.

Your notes stay saved in this browser. Send them to your teacher from the notebook page.

Part 1

The Waste Land

Part 2

The bridge

Part 3

The Sun Also Rises

Read one chapter at a time. Chapter 1 starts with the two quotations Hemingway put at the front of the book.

Part 4

Write