FRAGMENTED SELVES IN MODERNIST LITERATURE: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF T.S. ELIOT’S “THE WASTE LAND” AND FAIZ AHMED FAIZ’S “DAST-E-SABA”

Abstract

This study explores the theme of fragmented identity in modernist poetry through a comparative analysis of T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land and Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s Dast-e-Saba. Though emerging from different cultural and historical contexts, both poets reflect the psychological and existential crises of their times through complex images and modernist structures. Using the lens of modernist theory and comparative literature, this paper investigates how both texts articulate disillusionment, the collapse of traditional values, and the internal fragmentation of the self. While Eliot paints a bleak vision of post-war Europe’s spiritual wasteland, Faiz channels the trauma of political oppression and exile into poetic reflection. The paper argues that modernist literature, despite cultural and linguistic differences, expresses universal anxieties of identity and loss, making it a global literary movement. This comparative study offers insights into how Eastern and Western modernist poets negotiate alienation and cultural rupture, and how poetry becomes a means of psychological and political resistance.