Fragments, Wholes

Strikingly, and in contradiction to preconceived expectations, when mapped in its entirety (left), what is most apparent in the spatial structure of 'The Waste Land' is not fragmentation, but coherence. A clear spatial structure–a loose figure of eight the fulcrum of which is 'London'–is evident. This bears comparison with the other poetic maps of 'The Idiot Boy' and 'Rime of the Ancyent Marinere' in this section.

Only when the topoi map is filtered for connections which are direct (right) – spaces which the text describes as being physically connected or reachable from one another – does the fragmentation for which the poem is notorious become visible. Yet clear spatial clusters are nonetheless apparent: mainland Europe ('the Starbergersee', 'the Mountains'); 'London'; 'the Thames' and its reaches.