What is the structure of the poem?

Typical to his style, T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" is a long, sprawling,
and almost encyclopedic work that branches through many scenes
and alludes to past works on an epic scale. The structure of the poem
is divided into five parts. Within these parts, Eliot uses a disjointed
narrative that flows through a series of vague and surreal scenes.
From a lackluster scene of seduction in a modern apartment to the
death of a Phoenician on the open sea, these vignettes in seemingly
random time and space cast a haunting light on the feeling of life in a
post-war society.

At the time of writing this masterpiece, Eliot was extremely dissatisfied

with the structural tendencies of English poetry, finding them tedious,
boring, and exhausted. This break from structural tradition into chaotic
verse, out of all of his work, is most prominent in "The Waste Land."

What hope comes in the form of the

refrain from a children's song from "The
Waste Land"?
If you look at the final stanza of T.S. Eliot's poem "The Waste Land,"
you will spot the line: "London Bridge is falling down falling down
falling down."

This is the refrain from a children's song or nursery rhyme usually

played by children divided into two groups. One group sings the
refrain, taking the part of a group of people announcing to their lady
that the bridge is on the point of collapse. The other group of children,
playing the role of the lady, make suggestions as to what can be done
about the problem, first suggesting that the bridge be reinforced with
iron bars, and then with bricks and mortar, and so on. The first group
identifies reasons why all these suggestions will fail.

Why does Eliot insert this refrain here? Interestingly, almost the whole
of this final stanza is comprised of quotations from other works, from
different languages and times. They are "fragments" which the poet
has "shored against [his] ruins." The London Bridge refrain, then,
represents only one cultural echo the speaker holds in his head, and
which he uses to protect, "shore up" and rebuild himself. It is a
carefully chosen nursery rhyme because of its subject matter—
something, in this case the way society used to be, is crumbling,
falling down, but, just as in the song, people will always strive to
rebuild again. Eliot is suggesting that fragments of art are what we can
use to keep ourselves going, and to rebuild our world, even when it
feels as if it is falling down.

What does the term "Datta, Dayadhvam

and Damyata" signify in the poem 'What
the Thunder Said' ?

There are so many things going on in "The Waste Land" and so many
literary references that it is an oversimplification to suggest one grand
meaning. But in general, the 'wasteland' suggests that the Modern era
(then 1922) was the waste land. The tone of the poem is mournful
(with only bits of hope, more toward the end); the period after World
War I left many people disillusioned, not just about the current state of
the industrialized world, but with the idea of progress. In other words, if
progress is real, if the world is getting smarter, more advanced and so
on, then how can such a war occur. In the first section, the opening
line is "April is the cruelest month." April is a time of renewal; but in
this context it is cruel; the idea is that renewal should be occurring but
it is not.

After all of this talk of a waste land, the thunder becomes audible, "da"
(which may be German for "there" - the thunder being there, audible
but in the distance) and then "Datta," "Dayadhvam," and "Damyata." In
order, they mean "give," "compassion," and "control." These come
from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, which is an ancient philosophical
text containing Hindu and Buddhist concepts. Among these concepts
and statements are three duties (giving, compassion, and control).
These are things each individual must sacrifice to the gods, to other
people, animals, and so on. It is part of the lessons of ethical
responsibility for each person. 
So, when the thunder "says" these three things (giving, compassion,
and control), the thunder is far away - and still no rain. While the
landscape is still dry and dead (waiting for rain), the thunder at least
offers the possibility of rain (the hope that these things will rain down
on the waste land and provide the spring that April has not yet
provided). The thunder's potential promise of rain - leading to growth
and life - is a parallel to the promise of individual and social
improvement. So, the poem ends, not with the achievement of peace,
but with the potential of it. The thunder is the hope/potential; the rain, if
it eventually comes, is the achievement. 

What is the main theme in the poem "The

Waste Land" by T.S. Eliot?

The principal theme of not only "The Waste Land" but all T.S. Eliot's
earlier poetry (written before 1930) is the decay of the Western world
and the loss of belief in traditional values. Eliot sees present-day
culture as consisting of a kind of wreckage of the past. The present, in
his view, is a post-historical age: man is no longer capable of the
greatness, artistic or otherwise, of previous eras. "The Waste Land"
itself functions as a metaphor of this age, in which fragments of the
past are the only remaining things that have significance.

The poem consists largely of allusions to past cultural symbols and

fragmentary quotes or paraphrases of past literature. For instance, the
opening:

April is the cruelest month . . .

is a paraphrase of the prologue to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, but
with an inverted implication, altering Chaucer's view of spring as a
time of hope and renewal into one of despair. Perhaps the most
striking allusion is the following, which likens modern London
to Dante's Inferno:

A crowd flowed over London bridge, so many, I had not thought death
had undone so many.
Elsewhere, there are quotes in foreign languages, such as one from
Wagner's Tristan and Isolde. And fragments of the pop culture of
Eliot's time are presented, such as a song called "The Shakespearean
Rag," as if to suggest this is what the greatness of Shakespeare and
the past has deteriorated into. The dominant idea presented in "The
Waste Land" as a whole is that of an intellectual's resignation and
despair over his feeling that the modern world is meaningless and
chaotic.
T.S. Eliot's poem "The Waste Land" is a somewhat satirical look at the
universal despair often associated with prophecy. The poem's
structure is just as important as it's content as it is a multi-voiced work
often imagined as a collection of dramatic monologues spoken by a
host of characters, often including lines in foreign languages as well
and drawing from variety of different cultures and literatures..

When first written the poem received a mix of praise and criticism both
for its depressing content and its awkward structure that left many
readers confused.

Describe The Wasteland by T.S Eliot as a

modern poem
"The Waste Land" by T. S. Eliot is one of the touchstones of modern
poetry; it may even be the most widely-known modern poem. Its style
and content both reflect the literary movement of modernism. A few
features that I will focus on in my answer are fragmented style,
allusions, and tone. 

First of all, modernist literature is known for its fragmented forms. The
modernists tended to break from traditional forms of writing and invent
new forms or, at the very least, break or fragment more common
forms. "The Waste Land" is a long poem made of five titled sections.
Within these sections, there is no consistent rhyme scheme or meter,
so we can refer to this style as free verse. The sections are not
consistent in terms of length, either. In other words, there is not a set
form. Many modernist works focus on psychology or the inner world of
characters or speakers rather than traditional narrative. We could not
call "The Waste Land" a narrative or story in the traditional sense.
Allusions are an interesting feature of modernist literary works
because the modernists believed in Ezra Pound's motto "make it new."
So, you might ask how referring to older works of literature or to the
Bible or mythology could be in any way new. Eliot is probably the
modernist poet who most references classical texts in his work, and
many readers need either a very experienced background in literature
or some detailed footnotes to get through his works, especially "The
Waste Land." One way to look at this conundrum is to think that in
order for writers to break with the old and "make it new," they have to
first know their literary history. Eliot certainly knows his. We can see in
his varied and numerous references to classical Greek myth
and tragedy (Tiresias in Part III), to Shakespeare, to Carthage and
Phoenicia, and so on, that Eliot is well-versed in the classics. He does,
however, put a modern spin on these texts through his allusions. Take
the allusion to Tiresias, for example: Tiresias, the blind prophet from
the ancient Greek tragedy Oedipus Rex, is described as an
androgynous figure who can "see" into the dissatisfied and dingy lives
of modern Londoners. It almost seems like a "waste" of the prophet's
powers: what is there to observe here?

Finally, the tone of the poem is consistent with the mood of the
modernist era. After World War I, Europeans certainly lost faith in
some of the more solid and reliable facts of their world. It felt as
though their world fell apart in a sense. How does one go on after that
kind of loss and trauma? Eliot begins the poem with the famous line,
"April is the cruellest month . . ." and that is our first clue, along with
the title, that the poem will be dark and dour. We normally associate
springtime with rebirth, happiness, fresh starts, and beautiful scenery.
Here, Eliot subverts that expectation in a way that reflects the
modernists' perspective on the post-World War I world.

Madame Sosostris
What is the significance of the allusion to Madame
Sosostris and her tarot cards in the first section of Eliot’s
The Waste Land?
To first answer your question, one needs to understand what purpose
an allusion serves in literature. According to the eNotes site, an
allusion is

a reference, usually brief, often casual, occasionally indirect, to a

person , event, or condition thought to be familiar (but sometimes
actually obscure or unknown) to the reader.
Therefore, sometimes it takes knowledge on a reader's part to
recognize an allusion in a text. When one lacks the knowledge to
understand the allusion being made, the allusion can be lost to the
reader.

In regards to Eliot's "The Waste Land," there are multiple allusions

made regarding Madame Sosostris's tarot card reading. Readers need
knowledge of tarot cards and their meanings for the allusion to make
sense.

1. "The drowned Phoenician Sailor"--This is not a typical card seen in

a traditional tarot card deck. The allusion to the drowned sailor
references death and foreshadows the Phlebas who drowns later in
the poem.

2. "Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks"-- Again, another card created

for the poem. Here, Eliot could have been alluding to Da Vinci's "Our
Lady of the Rocks." The significance of the card lies in the fact that it
represents rebirth and purification. Eliot knows that for the Waste Land
to survive a rebirth and purification is needed.

3. "The Man With Three Staves"-- This card can be associated with
the Fisher King (a reference to the fact that no man can change all
around him on his own). The allusion can also be made that the card
represents a journey. Again, this reference points to the fact that Eliot
wishes the Waste Land to be changed and only a journey to find
spiritual newness will allow this to happen.

4. "The Wheel"-- This card can be justified in two very different ways.
First, the idea that the Waste Lands exist in a constant circle: day and
night, season to season. Second, the wheel could represent a time for
change. By turning the wheel, one can be making a decision to
change in their life.

5. "The One-Eyed Merchant"-- This is another card not found in the

traditional tarot deck. The one-eyed merchant card could reference the
closing of a single eye because of fear of what one will see. While only
one eye remains open, it could be simply to suggest existence.

6. "The Blank Card"--Again, this is an invented card. This card could

represent many different things. First, the fact that if nothing changes
in the Waste Lands the Waste Lands will fail to exist. They will
become blank, non-existent. Another interpretation of the blank card
can reflect the imperfections of the reader, Madame Sosostris. The
fact that a card with nothing on it could be seen as the fact that she
could be wrong about her reading, that she cannot control fate or
another's chosen path.

7. "The Hanged Man"-- While typically denoted as negative, this card

can actually have a positive understanding. The changing of ones
position in life could represent the fact that they are willing to change
how they look at life in order to change life itself. The hanging man
card can also be used to depict the inability to do anything about the
Waste Lands. Given the man is hung, he is unable to move from the
position. Instead, he must stay where he is at and watch.