can the poem be broken down, the meaning of each sentence, can it be parapharsed, and is the poem different from prose parapharsed.
Wow. This one's not easy. Each section of the Wasteland can be broken down into a narrative summary, sure ... check out the GradeSaver summary for this (included in sources). But this doesn't really capture the poem at all, and in its larger organization, there isn't really a 'narrative' movement between the different sections. Instead, that 'narrative' is merely a shift from fruitfulness - it starts in April, with plants growing - to the aridity of the lakebed in the end. The theme of the poem is delivered in a very poetic sense, as Eliot illustrates that aridity is in fact the nature of things, even if they're disguised behind a ruse. So summarizing the poem in its literal sense only suggests that the theme is rather simplistic - in a sense, it is - while missing the point that the execution is unmistakably horrifying, profound, and delicious in its detail.
http://www.gradesaver.com/the-waste-land/study-guide/short-summary/
