T.S. Eliot’s 1922 poem 'The Waste Land' is considered the definitive work of Modernist poetry. Spanning 434 lines, the poem captures the disillusionment and fragmentation of the post-WWI era. It is famous for its complexity, shifting between different speakers, locations, and time periods, and incorporating multiple languages including Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, and German. Eliot’s use of 'allusion'—referencing other literary works like the Bible, Shakespeare, and Dante—requires extensive footnotes, many of which he provided himself. The poem's opening line, 'April is the cruelest month,' famously subverts the traditional poetic celebration of spring. Edited heavily by his friend Ezra Pound, whom Eliot called 'il miglior fabbro' (the better craftsman), the poem redefined poetic structure and earned Eliot the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948.