Do not start with Context. If you read The Waste Land only through the lens of WWI, you will miss the sound of the words. Do Text first. Then Technicalities. Then Context.
Next time you encounter a poem—whether it is Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 or a Rupi Kaur Instagram post—do not ask "What does this mean?"
Read this couplet by Alexander Pope:
That’s it. That is the literal plot.
