“From Ritual to Romance, published in 1920, is perhaps most well known today for being the first work T S Eliot lists in his ‘Notes on The Waste Land’, where he says that Weston’s book suggested ‘Not only the title, but the plan and a good deal of the incidental symbolism’ of his poem. Eliot, of course, later said these notes were a publisher’s requirement to bulk out the book publication of The Waste Land, which has led some to dismiss them entirely, or to see them as one more layer of obfuscation around the poem, and Eliot himself later said he regretted sending so many readers ‘on a wild goose chase after Tarot cards and the Holy Grail’. But From Ritual to Romance, which aims to trace a link between medieval Holy Grail romances and the earliest fertility rituals, certainly had its influence on what the poem says and how it says it. ...”
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