Abstract
In this paper I focus on the function of the colour violet in Eliot's poem The Waste Land. In the poem, I attempt to introduce it as an indicator to a special way of reading of its certain parts and to their mutual connection.
Firstly, the colour violet is emphasized in the cases of plants and other natural phenomena. Subsequently, I am focusing on three verbal phrases in which there is an explicit expression of the colour violet (violet hour, violet air, violet light).
Third semantic circle I work with is determined by the poem's verses with the Phoenicians, who are inherently associated with the production of purple fabrics. The interpretative parts of this study are primarily supplemented by those texts that appeared in Eliot's endnotes to the poem (notably Augustin's Confessions, The Old Testament, The New Testament, selected Sapphó's verses, Ovid's Metamorphoses).
The related secondary literature has so far reflected the presence of the colour violet primarily with a remark, that it is the colour of twilight. I claim that it is certainly right, but there is a need to think about the nature of this twilight - in this case it is also the twilight of sanctity and the twilight of receptivity to the supersensible.
The text is being published on the centenary of the poem's publication.