When I was in college studying T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land for the first time, I made the mistake of sitting down to read the poem in my dorm room. I opened the book expecting an intellectual challenge and I got one. What I didn’t expect was a physical challenge. The first print to meet my eyes was the epigraph in Latin and Greek. I was lost before I got started. So I left my desk, walked to the library, found a reference book on Eliot’s poem and discovered the epigraph came from the Roman writer Petronius’ fiction the Satyricon and referred to the Sibyl of Cumae. Armed with this information, I returned to my room to continue with Eliot. A few lines down I ran into German. Fortunately I had a German-English dictionary so I figured it out. Then more trouble, I came upon Madame Sosostris, Belladonna, tarot cards, and Saint Mary Woolnoth church. Back to the reference section of the library for an hour of research. And so I worked my way through the 433 lines of Eliot’s famous poem with its many allusions to the literary wealth of the world, Sanskrit included. By the end I was exhausted. I laid down to take a nap, miffed at Professor Brown for assigning the poem and T. S. Eliot for writing it. That was in 1963.
Jump ahead 56 years. It is now 2019 and I am rereading The Waste Land. I am sitting in my study at my desk. Much of what I had learned about the poem in 1963 I had forgotten by 2019. But this time my laptop is nearby. I Googled my way through The Waste Land, listened to several lectures, and watched one YouTube documentary on the poem. It was as good as Professor Brown’s class. Better.
Poets frequently allude to the work of other writers in their own work. Today, with Google and Bing you can immediately find the reference. You can find the meaning of words. You can discover their etymologies. You can see and hear Jeremy Irons read The Waste Land in his inimitable voice. You can listen to lectures on any subject you want, including poetry.
Today you do not need to be a scholar to enjoy and learn from difficult poems. Your alma mater can be the world wide web of the internet.