Teaching The Waste Land to Japanese Students

As we go about our daily lives, we may have a sudden moment of illumination when we catch a glimpse of a reality beyond our material existence. In such cases, some of us believe that we have experienced a hidden, supernatural message that comes to us from another world, from beyond our limited perspective. What I propose to explain here is how Eliot’s Western Christianity might be experienced and appreciated even in a non-Christian society such as Japan. Some Japanese scholars of English literature ask a question that goes straight to the heart of this matter of religious belief: “Can our students, or even we ourselves, really appreciate Eliot’s poems and essays without any belief in, or even understanding of, Christianity?” For us Japanese, the answer will vary depending on the context. If, for example, a classroom teacher has a clear reason for choosing Eliot’s works for discussion, they may be able to teach students something about their own lives by using Eliot’s alien cultural context. As we Japanese run a rat race in society, we tend to think of human life from the viewpoint of economic practicality such as making money or acquiring a reputation. Eliot points us to another sphere of human life by seeking the still point of the turning world, which for Japanese students looks like the stage of nothingness of Zen Buddhism. In this way Japanese students might be able to find a new horizon of interpretation in Eliot’s poems outside a Judeo-Christian culture.