Mar 15, 2024
T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land
Yes! Eliot had read reports of a mission in Antartica where this exact thing had happened, so he incorporated it in the poem. There is a double meaning, obviously, because it's also a reference to Jesus on the road to Emmaus. But it is very much on purpose. He wrote:
"The following lines were stimulated by the account of one of the Antarctic expeditions (I forget which, but I think one of Shackleton's): it was related that the party of explorers, at the extremity of their strength, had the constant delusion that there was one more member than could actually be counted"
