Exploring The Waste Land
An allusion page linked from The Waste Land, Part I, line 55

The Golden Bough
The Hanged God
James George Frazer

Eliot's note to line 46 refers to Frazer's Hanged God. In The Golden Bough there are a number of hanged gods. Because Frazer notes that Odin was called the God of the Hanged and because Eliot a few lines later (line 52) mentions a one-eyed merchant, one can suppose that Eliot is alluding to Odin (who exchanged an eye for wisdom.)

This site has a small except of The Hanged God section of The Golden Bough.


External Links (shown in AUXILARY window):
Hints for using external links are available in the either the DEFINTIONS frame or this frame.

Topics:

T 43 - Frazer, Sir James George
T 87 - Odin
T 10 - Attis


Exploring The Waste Land
File name: aq055.html
File date: Sunday, September 29, 2002
[Home] [E-mail]