The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #48959 Message #3695010
Posted By: GUEST,J M Anderson
18-Mar-15 - 09:12 AM
Thread Name: South Australia:What the hell's a 'Rolling King'?
Subject: RE: What the hell's a 'Rolling King'?
Going back to the possibility of an Indian connection, what about T S Eliot's line:
"Oh you who turn the wheel and look to windward"?
(And while we're at it, what about Iain M Banks?)
The Waste Land is influenced by Hindu/Buddhist concepts (such cultures not known as being great seafarers), but this section (Death by Water) refers to one Phlebas the Phoenician, a sailor, and is in fact a rehash in English of the conclusion to one of Eliot's earlier poems, originally in French (as if there wasn't enough confusion here already).