T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land as a Place of Intercultural Exchanges

The focal point of this study is one of the masterpieces of Anglo-American poetry, T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, tackled from the perspective of translation. In this particular case, translation is deemed to be not only an intra- and inter-linguistic transfer, but also a form of intercultural contact. The book centres on a comparative study of the poem with five of its Romanian translations within the framework of Romanian letters. Thus, it also presents a thorough analysis of the target literary and cultural context of the various moments of the translation production, with particular consideration being given to reception-related issues. Due to this complex approach, this study sketches the most comprehensive contextualisation of Eliot’s poem in Romanian culture. It analyses the source poem as the topos of intercultural exchanges which encourage cultural reconciliation and dialogue. The wide range of cultural references which are recontextualised and reinterpreted in Eliot’s poem suggest the opportunity of seeing The Waste Land as a master work of translation in itself, which accommodates various inter-systemic relations and transfers of meaning. Finally, this study reveals the poet’s activity as a translator guided by the main tenets of modernist production practice. Due to its inter-disciplinary approach and its focus on intercultural dialogue, this book will appeal to a wide range of researchers in the field of Humanities.