“The Waste Land” is jam-packed with allusions—so many, in fact, that Eliot included footnotes to help readers understand some of them! These references include other literary works, but also music, history, and art. The poem's allusions add depth, richness, and complexity to its themes, which include death and rebirth, the brokenness of modern life, and spirituality and religion.
Literary allusions are foremost among Eliot's references. He quotes from the poet Charles Baudelaire (for example, "You! hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable,—mon frère!" in line 76); references Dante's Inferno and Purgatorio; alludes to works by the playwrights John Webster, Thomas Kyd, and Thomas Middleton, including naming Section II after Middleton's play A Game at Chess; and of course references William Shakespeare throughout, including his plays The Tempest, Antony and Cleopatra, Hamlet, and Coriolanus.
The Roman poet Ovid's famous collection The Metamorphoses receives quite a lot of attention through repeated allusions to its poem the "Rape of Philomel" in Sections II, III, and IV and the appearance in Section III of Tiresias, the blind prophet, who is a character from Ovid. Aldous Huxley, Edmund Spenser, Andrew Marvell, John Day, Paul Verlaine, Oliver Goldsmith, Herman Hesse, John Milton, and Virgil are among the other poets, playwrights, and essayists Eliot alludes to. All of these literary references are used to enrich the poem's vision of a hellish, broken modern world.
Throughout the text, Eliot also alludes to many portions of the Bible, including the books of Ezekiel, Ecclesiastes, Isaiah, and Psalms. He also alludes to the Upanishads, holy Hindu texts, and to The Fire Sermon (the title of Section II) which was preached by the Buddha. A brief quote from Saint Augustine's Confessions appears in lines 307 and 309. These allusions are particularly vital for making Eliot's point that the modern world has lost touch with spiritual guidance. There are also many references to the Christian tradition of the Fisher King and the Holy Grail. In particular, the poem's title is likely an allusion to Jessie L. Weston's 1920 book From Ritual to Romance, which was a history of ancient fertility myths and included an entire chapter on the British myth of The Fisher King.
Operas by the composer Richard Wagner are alluded to twice in "The Waste Land." First, in Section I, Eliot quotes five lines directly from Tristan und Isolde, underscoring the theme of lost love. Then, in Section III, the poem alludes to the "Rhine-maidens" song from the Götterdämmerung but replaces all of the lyrics with Eliot's own words, except for the chorus, "Weialalala leia." In contrast, Eliot also references pop music, including "The Mysterious Rag," in lines 128-130, a hit from the popular turn-of-the-century show, Ziegfield's Follies. There also an allusion to the nursery rhyme "London Bridge Is Falling Down" at the end of the poem.
In addition, "The Waste Land" is littered with references to history and physical places. The battle of Mylae referenced in line 70 took place during the Punic Wars in 260 B.C.E., but is used as a stand-in for World War I, which also looms large over the poem. Both wars come to represent the perils of greed and destruction. The Ionic columns of the St. Magnus Martyr Church (which is a real place) in line 265 hearken back to England's ancient past, as do the allusions in the lines that follow to Queen Elizabeth I and her alleged lover Robert Leicester; the River Thames; the neighborhoods of Highbury, Richmond, and Kew; the subway station Moorgate; and the seaside town of Margate. Other locations mentioned in the poem include the real-life Cannon Street and Metropole Hotels, various streets throughout London, cities named in lines 375-376, and of course London Bridge itself.
Last but not least, the poem alludes to the fortune-telling practice, Tarot, including many individual Tarot cards like The Wheel of Fortune and The Hanged Man. The practice of reading Tarot is also heavily dependent on allusions and allegory, in which fortune-tellers interpret the cards' imagery as metaphors for life, so in some ways this allusion is self-referential, pointing the poem's own habit of using others' lines, images, ideas, and concepts to interpret the modern world.