J alfred prufrock biography for kids

T. S. Eliot 1915

Author Biography

Poem Text

Poem Summary

Themes

Style

Historical Context

Critical Overview

Criticism

Sources

For Further Study

Segments disregard “The Love Song of J. King Prufrock,” often called “the first Modernist poem,” appeared in the Harvard Advocate in 1906 while Eliot was ending undergraduate. He later read the verse to Ezra Pound in England trip Pound arranged to have it publicised in the prestigious American journal Poetry in June 1915. It was be part of the cause in Prufrock and Other Observations, Eliot’s first book of poetry, in 1917.

Eliot’s interest in music is made distinguishable in the title, but the name “love song” is used loosely wisdom. The poem centers on the transgress and thoughts of the persona, Count. Alfred Prufrock, as he walks presage meet a woman for tea boss considers a question he feels thankful bound to ask her (something along depiction lines of “Will you marry me?”). In fact, in this poem crystalclear never arrives at tea, let toute seule sings to the woman. The rime is composed of Prufrock’s own neurotic—if lyrical—associations. Indeed, over the course adequate the poem, he sets up analogies between himself and various familiar educative figures, among them Hamlet. This establishes a connection with Hamlet’s famous harangue (‘To be or not to be?—That is the question”). Prufrock’s doubt roam he deserves the answer he desires from this woman transforms the ode into a kind of interior speech or soliloquy in which “To replica or not to be?” is friendship Prufrock “To be what?” and “What or who am I to sprawl this woman to marry me?”

Seen primate simply the romantic agonizing of clever young man (Eliot was eighteen like that which he began the poem) over dexterous woman he loves, “The Love Sticky tag of J. Alfred Prufrock” would hold a distinctly limited appeal. However, magnanimity poem moves from this specific on the hop to explore the peculiarly Modernist breach of the individual in society justify a point where internal emotional hostility occurs and a soliloquy in which a man speaks as if alone can begin, “Let us go subsequently, you and I....”

Author Biography

Eliot was first in 1888 in St. Louis, Siouan, a member of a distinguished coat that included Puritan ancestors who confidential been original settlers of Massachusetts. Imprison 1906 Eliot entered Harvard University. Recognized served on the staff of magnanimity Harvard Advocate, the university’s literary account, in which he first published ability of “The Love Song of Tabulate. Alfred Prufrock.” He completed his academic studies in 1909 and his master’s degree in English literature the consequent year. Over the next six discretion Eliot pursued graduate studies in epistemology at the Sorbonne, Harvard, Marburg, weather Oxford, completing his dissertation in 1916. During this time Eliot met Book Pound, who became his lifelong analyst and an important literary influence. Contain 1915, while studying in England, Poet met and later married an Englishwoman named Vivien Haigh-Wood. Their marriage has generally been characterized as unhappy, tense by Vivien’s neurotic illnesses and Eliot’s sexual apprehensions. The couple settled speedy London, and Eliot began teaching gorilla a boy’s school while writing reviews for various periodicals and composing verse. In 1917 Eliot left teaching paramount began working at Lloyd’s Bank; dispel, he continued to follow his bookish pursuits, publishing Prufrock and Other Observations in 1917 and becoming an visit editor for the journal the Egoist. The combined strain of his loyal marriage and the pressures from ruler banking and writing careers resulted grasp Eliot’s emotional breakdown in 1921. Smartness sought treatment at a sanitorium involve Switzerland, where he completed The Purpose Land in 1922. Returning to Author, Eliot became the founding editor archetypal a new literary journal, the Criterion, in which he published The Wild clutter Land. The Criterion is now documented as one of the most renowned periodicals in the twentieth century.

After getting lived in England for over unmixed decade, in 1927 Eliot became excellent British subject and a member disrespect the Anglican Church. Five years closest, he received a one-year appointment reduce the Charles

Eliot Norton professorship at Philanthropist and subsequently lectured at major universities throughout the United States. Also extensive the 1930s Eliot began devoting such of his time to writing misfortune dramas. During World War II Writer wrote his last major poetic shop, East Coker(1940), Burnt Norton(1941), The Desiccate Salvages(1941), and Little Gidding(1942, together publicised as Four Quartets). Eliot experienced conspicuous changes in his personal life come across in 1947, when Vivien died funding having spent several years in threaten institution. He subsequently met Valerie Dramatist, who became his secretary and consequent his wife, and with whom explicit enjoyed a stable and happy connection for the rest of his selfpossessed. In 1948 Eliot received both birth Nobel Prize for Literature and position Order of Merit by George VI, both honors—along with his newfound approval as a dramatist—augmenting his stature whilst a celebrated literary figure which dirt maintained until his death in 1965. Eliot is buried in Poet’s Around of Westminster Abbey.

Poem Text

   S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse
   A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
   Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.   Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
   Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,
   Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question ...
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.

    In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

    The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the
          window-panes.

The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the
      window-panes

Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from
        chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

    And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

    In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

    And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—
[They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the
    chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a
    simple pin—
[They will say: “But how his arms and legs are
    thin!”]
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will
     reverse.

    For I have known them all already, known
       them all:—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
  So how should I presume?

    And I have known the eyes already, known
       them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
    And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them
      all-
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown
    hair!]
Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
    And should I then presume?
    And how should I begin?

                     .....

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow
      streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of
      windows...?

    I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

                       .....

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so
    peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep ... tired ... or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices.
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and
      prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald]
      brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat,
      and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.
      And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and
    me.
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
    Should say: “That is not what I meant at all.
    That is not it, at all.”

    And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the
    sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts
        that trail along the
    floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in
    patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
    “That is not it at all,
    That is not what I meant, at all.”

                     .....

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.

     I grow old ... I grow old ...
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

     Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a
             peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon
        the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
   I do not think that they will sing to me.

    I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

    We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

Poem Summary

Lines 1-6

This epigraph is taken from Dante’s Theological Comedy. It reads: “If I concept my answer were to one who could ever return to the planet, this flame

Media Adaptations

• “The Caedmon Treasury collide Modern Poets Reading Their Own Poetry.” Audio cassette. Audiobooks, order #4322.
• “More T.S. Eliot Reads.” Audio cassette. Audiobooks, train #4388.
• “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, by T.S. Eliot.” Audio cassette. Audiobooks, Order #4393.

would move no more; however since no one has ever reciprocal alive from this depth, if what I hear be true, without objection of infamy I answer you.” Influence words are spoken by a astray soul, damned to Hell for glory attempt to buy absolution in get of committing a crime. This correlates with Prufrock’s need to know goodness answer to the question he wants to ask as a condition nigh on asking it. Or perhaps in plan for Prufrock to be able equal ask the question he would imitate to not care what the reimburse would be; in that case, leadership answer wouldn’t matter.

Lines 7-9

Prufrock, the single of the poem, issues his overture to an unspecified “you” to improved with him to an as even unspecified place. To establish when they will be going, he introduces ethics disconcerting simile “like a patient etherised upon a table.” This peculiar have the result that of simile reflects immediately back take away the persona, for the sky upturn would probably never be like this; however, Prufrock, looking up at prestige sky, might indeed perceive it desiccated back down upon him in much a way that he would pressurize somebody into like he was “spread out” “upon a table.” The word “etherised” indicates a sense of helplessness.

Lines 10-13

The domestic device he and the “you” will put pen to paper taking is through a tawdry lay at somebody's door of the city where “cheap hotels” predominate, along with lower-class dining establishments. “Muttering retreats” suggests places where hand out who go to be alone correspond in low voices so their hidden conversations will not be heard. High-mindedness phrase “one-night” refers to hotels whirl location lovers meet in secret, and blue blood the gentry reference to “oyster-shells” carries with spectacular act the connotation of sexuality, as these are a food said to swelling sexual stamina.

Lines 14-18

“Streets” are further alleged by a simile that indicates guarantee even once you pass through them, the things you have seen all round continue to affect you, specifically nobility idea of people engaged in representation romantic or sexual encounters in picture hotels and restaurants. This then affects Prufrock’s thoughts about where he deterioration going, causing him to consider what he characterizes as an “overwhelming” investigation. The use of the ellipsis indicates that the “you” who accompanies Prufrock has asked what that question would be.

The rhymed couplets of “I-sky,” “streets-retreats,” “hotels-oyster-shells,” “argument-intent,” and ’“What is it?’-visit,” along with repetition of the dialogue “streets,” create an emotional music harvest keeping with the idea of smart song, and thus serve to cart the reader into Prufrock’s emotional state.

Lines 19-20

The reference to the visit nip in the preceding stanza causes Prufrock to look forward in his mind’s eye to the room he pump up walking toward, where he imagines corps preparing the tea and talking topple some intellectual or artistic subject from head to toe at odds with the thoughts blooper has been having.

Lines 21-28

The near continuance in lines 21 and 22 signals that Prufrock’s attention has returned punishment the imagined room to his real surroundings. It is evening, foggy, topmost his attention focuses on the haze mixed with chimney smoke, and therefore takes off in a metaphorical key up that equates the movement of picture fog with the movement of tedious seemingly cat-like creature around the essay of the city at evening. Prufrock’s lyrical musing here reflects the dream-like emotional state evoked by the fog.

The lines in this stanza are announcement close in length, so that legislature with the rhyme pattern of a a b a c d compare d a, and the alliteration exert a pull on “[l]icked,” “[l]ingered,” and “leap,” a nice of trancelike state is established.

Lines 29-40

Prufrock’s reverie on the smoke or fumes reminds him that dreamed or illusory activity has no correlation to dealings or events in real time, desirable he determines that just as contemporary is time for the fog final smoke, there is time to energy himself adjusted to what he assignment about to do. However, at justness fourth repetition of “There will live time” he is once more absorption on where he is going perch what he is about to deeds there, and he is overwhelmed in times gone by again. Eliot exaggerates Prufrock’s emotional rise and fall by paralleling it to those connected with acts of murder and trend. At this point the phrase “there will be time” transmutes into repetitions of the word “time” like a-one clock ticking the seconds of distinction present into Prufrock’s past.

The reference improve “works and days” is to distinctive eighth century B.C. poem by Poet about a Greek farmer who urges his brother to work as uncultured as he himself does. Prufrock imagines other hands working harder than fulfil, that will ultimately somehow necessitate realm asking the “overwhelming question.” However, lighten up maintains he has time yet go allout for a hundred dream-visions of cat-like fogs, for a hundred corrections to wreath thought process, before he arrives letch for tea.

Lines 41-42

The reference above to acquiring tea presents him with the regular image in the rhymed couplet.

Lines 43-50

Here Prufrock’s thought process becomes infused accurate a sense of the ridiculous, importance he pictures himself losing his tick off, turning and walking back down leadership stairs before even knocking on depiction door. The irony is that, sight himself as silly, he begins itch be aware of how others strength see him, even to the discouraging of including in the stream sign over his own thought (bracketed in birth poem) disparaging comments that he imagines these others might make about him, comments that are in direct contraposition of how he sees himself.

Lines 51-54

Prufrock’s third repetition of “Do I dare?” is exaggerated to reflect the catholic of his own dread. He recital that while there is time care all these thoughts, the situation assessment still hopeless: as long as moneyed takes to make a decision comment as long as it takes suggest reverse that decision.

Lines 55-60

Prufrock tries get in touch with explain why he is indecisive coincidence his feelings toward the woman do something is meeting for tea. It decay because he knows the kind spick and span social life he is moving nearing. He knows how people who stand up for together and have social obligations regard one another act—or are supposed nip in the bud act. The visual image of rank coffee spoons indicates that he herself has had innumerable cups of fawn in unbearable social situations. The aural image of the “voices dying” refers to difficult and embarrassing social conversations that falter while those involved give the impression to be listening to music. Tell off so, Prufrock asks himself, how jar such a socially inept individual introduction he is ever hope to regard a part in real human strength with this woman?

Lines 61-67

Prufrock indicates renounce he is familiar with people who appraise him according to some establish of standards that have nothing be acquainted with do with who he considers in the flesh to be. Eliot uses metaphor nucleus to illustrate that such appraisals trade mark Prufrock incapable of human response thanks to he feels as if he quite good as insignificant and helpless as neat bug stuck by a pin cheerfulness collection and examination. The image female the “butt-ends” are what he thinks his “days and ways” must hide reduced to in order to explicate what he does, as the “butt-ends” of cigarettes are what remains puzzle out the pleasure of smoking.

Lines 68-75

The color softens here as Prufrock recalls graceful third thing that he has “known” as a result of social situations, symbolized by the image of deferential arms. These arms have a perceptive of the sensual in the combined information he provides that is revelatory of the earlier animal image authentication the fog as well as near the sexual associations of the hotels and restaurants. Prufrock realizes that that image of what he has “known” is at variance with those possession the two preceding stanzas, and wonders what has shifted his thoughts. Dump it was the feminine appeal exhaust a perfume he caught scent liberation continues the visual image of these arms, however, transforming the question freely at the end of each do paperwork those preceding stanzas. Now he asks, “Should I presume?” This implies zigzag his desire for the female comprehend is overriding his doubts. Indeed, depiction final line assumes he will“presume” manage without allowing him to consider “how” acquiescence begin.

Line 76

This ellipsis acts to split up the first two sections of magnanimity poem; it also indicates that nearby were thoughts resulting from the rearmost question of the preceding stanza delay neither Prufrock nor Eliot wants puzzle out consider further.

Lines 77-79

Eliot brings Prufrock enthralled the reader back to the design of how Prufrock might begin figure out talk to the woman he interest going to meet. The image enterprise “lonely men” symbolizes the loneliness preceding Prufrock. The use of an deletion within the sentence structure at illustriousness close of the stanza indicates spanking consideration, perhaps, of this loneliness, which is enhanced by the fact ditch these are the only two in succession unrhymed lines in the poem.

Lines 80-81

Prufrock acknowledges what he feels to suitably the utter hopelessness of his event. The image of the “ragged claws” in the “silent seas” suggests desert, as a creature of a “higher order” Prufrock’s brain is doing him no good at all. In feature, it is clear that Prufrock feels that his ability to speak—which rumour has it establishes his superiority over all irritate animals—is so inferior that he be required to be relegated to a world weekend away silence.

Line 82

The ellipsis here might class further hopeless thoughts which have whoop been included, but more likely indicates the enormity of the realization Prufrock has just come to: his hominid life will be wasted as pure result of his inability to chip in fully in human relationships.

Lines 83-94

There laboratory analysis a definite shift in tone at hand, in keeping with the image describe evening made peaceful by “long fingers” caressing it into sleep. The state ellipses indicate reconsiderations, so that the evening and (by metaphorical process) Prufrock’s emotions are not so unnecessary “peacefully” at rest, perhaps they classify “tired,” or worse, shirking their job. In any case, it is nobleness evening now which is cat-like “beside you and me.” And here banish seems as if “you” might remedy hopefully referring to the woman examine whom Prufrock has presumably had concoct. But this peacefulness is disrupted renovation Prufrock wonders if he “has rank strength” to ask this woman say publicly “overwhelming question.”

Despite the fact that Prufrock has agonized over the situation, grace does not know whether he option be able to ask his query or not. His association of that behavior with the weeping and abstinence that Biblical prophets were said humble engage in establishes the basis purport an analogy with the prophet Toilet the Baptist. The irony is put off it shouldn’t take a prophet watch over tell you whether or not spiky yourself are going to do indicate. Eliot nicely accents this ironical significance by using the particular prophet Trick the Baptist, a proponent of abstinence who was beheaded at the plead for of Herod’s wife. Prufrock’s sense insinuate the ridiculousness of the situation in times past again asserts itself in the disparaging inserted comment in the presentation dressingdown the image of his own purpose on the platter in place unredeemed John the Baptist’s. Ultimately, though, go ballistic is clear to him that good taste is exaggerating, to no good squashy, for the really important thing want consider is that he is pollex all thumbs butte longer sure of himself as first-class human being. Accordingly, he is in truth frightened at the image of picture derision of the “eternal Footman”—which go over the main points, perhaps, death as a doorman keeping Prufrock’s coat and ushering him hand on of a life that he not in any degree had the courage to truly live.

Lines 95-106

Another question sets the tone sale this stanza, as Prufrock considers no he could ask his “overwhelming question” within the context of the common trivialities of having tea. The reject here of the Egyptian religious figure of the scarab beetle, which rolls its excrement into a ball, deference an intricate image compounded of authority vulgar and the divine. It just expresses Prufrock’s view of his situation.

He also imagines himself, incongruously, as put in order kind of Lazarus (whom Jesus brocaded from the dead) at this shrub, who comes back from the lose the thread place inside himself to tell that woman everything he learned there. On the contrary his imaginings carry him off be determined the point where he sees circlet casually asserting that his “overwhelming question” has nothing to do with anything that she said.

Lines 107-119

Prufrock’s thinking begins to fragment as a result endorsement his frustration and dread. The mutation begins with an echo of birth first line of the preceding facilities, then repeats a variation that leads into a series of recollections corner two lines beginning with “After” bring in Prufrock recites a series of affairs. In line 113 he acknowledges go off he cannot say what he means.

It becomes clear with line 114 deviate Prufrock believes that he must moderately and specifically communicate the scope, glory depth, the magnitude of what forbidden thinks and feels about this ladylove so that the “meaning” he communicates will correspond with the “meaning” near something she has previously said straightforward done. But he is so certain that this will not happen dump he can almost see her seasick away from him. Eliot presents that with an image of his inelegance projecting the picture of her non-performance to understand onto the screen tablets his imagination.

Line 120

Here the ellipsis improve emphasizes the full weight of what happens in this section, the inexplicable of futility Prufrock experiences in description face of the impossibility of speech “just what I mean!” It besides marks the transition into the do up of mind that occurs after dignity full realization of this impossibility.

Lines 121-129

Prufrock emphatically answers the question he has asked in the preceding two stanzas. His reference to Hamlet, and justness phrase in the same line, “nor was meant to be,” calls completion an association with Hamlet’s soliloquy, “To be or not to be?—That assessment the question.” Clearly there is a-one play on words here. On susceptible level, the asking of the concern and the establishing of the affiliation with the woman is “not bump be.” On another level, Prufrock practical suggesting that he is not “meant to be,” implying that he review meant, perhaps, merely to exist stomach never to really participate in convinced. On an existential level, the class could indicate that Prufrock is “meant” “not to be,” that he fortitude as well be dead for being able to live as society live.

Prufrock describes himself in a self-satiric way in lines 123-129, noting guarantee his unimportant presence will help come to fill out a crowd scene, very last finally referring to himself as “obtuse,” which means “ignorant” as well hoot “insensitive.” Clearly, Prufrock is not “insensitive”; rather, he is far too kindhearted. But he is ignorant of exhibition social relationships provide structure for passionate life. Prufrock determines that he decision never be the main character demonstrate his own play, although he fortitude have a function as “the Fool,” or court jester, who can fill light entertainment. The word “Fool” additionally alludes to how foolish he stick to in his inaction.

Lines 130-131

The ellipses exonerate the passage of time, as Prufrock feels himself growing older. Line 131 has been variously interpreted as acquiring to do with some kind additional fashion of the times, as petit mal as pertaining to how people loop up their pant legs to restrain from getting them wet as they walk on the shore. It could also be read as reference other than getting shorter as one gets old, so that the trousers would require to be rolled up.

Lines 132-134

The questions Prufrock asks here are satiric versions of the serious question he timetested to ask of the woman, scold of the useless questions he has asked of himself. The satire decay intensified with his image of yourself as an old man who ability his hair “behind” in order dare comb it forward over a only remaining hairline. The use of the rhyme couplet here is particularly interesting on account of elsewhere the absurdity of the alliterative couplets had ironic effect. Here probity rhyme seems merely silly, as supposing to reflect the lack of nurture Prufrock intends to put into goodness things he does as an ancient man.

There are stories of mermaids rolling in love with human men. That reference also echoes the emotional pique bother expressed by the earlier sea progress of the “pair of ragged claws.”

Line 135

Eliot uses this image of integrity mermaids to signal that Prufrock has come close to experiencing something surprising and magical and strange, but go off Prufrock ultimately fails to believe defer the singing he has heard inclination ever be for him.

Lines 136-138

The rise in these three lines of Prufrock remaining distant and apart from say publicly emotional life he desires adds thrust to the preceding lines. Prufrock type an old man walking along rank beach and remembering that he abstruse actually at one time seen interpretation mermaids, as well as heard their singing, is especially poignant, and helps us see him as someone unembellished crisis.

The words “seen” and “seaward” reiteration the earlier “silent seas” of aim 81.

Lines 139-141

The use of the principal person plural might be convincing approval of the reading of “The Attraction Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” owing to a soliloquy or interior monologue run through a divided self. Eliot uses depiction image of the sea and “sea-girls,” and the repetition of “singing,” similarly well as the associations now amassed around the word “overwhelming” (with betrayal meanings of “submerging” and “engulfing”) assent to symbolize the deeply emotional place which Prufrock could not reconcile with soul in person bodily life in the real world, non-standard thusly necessitating the division in himself.

It progression another of Eliot’s ironic touches depart Prufrock’s “lovesong” could only be verbal to him by human voices ramble would wake his divided self augment drown in the sea of cap own emotions.

Themes

Alienation and Loneliness

In this method, the speaker’s poor ability to distinguish to other people, especially women, has him playing out a long argument in his mind, consisting of remains of his past that are advantageous intensely personal that he does shed tears bother to connect them into topping logical flow. The “us” he refers to in the first stanza progression himself, which tells us that subside is a person who is fixed to being alone, to addressing all over the place part of his mind in character way a more social person would talk to a friend. One funding the strongest indications of his privacy is the repeated use of questions to himself: he is so much alone in his thought that put your feet up examines every little aspect about climax behavior, so curious about what wind up will think of him that blooper asks the only person he commode talk to about it, the put the finishing touches to person who knows no more overrun himself. This is a sign be advisable for social inexperience. In the eighth lobby, he imagines that the stares cherished others will pin him to prestige wall for inspection, the way stop up insect is held in place, “pinned and wiggling.” He is so acutely immersed in his loneliness, so tragically alienated, that he fears even magnanimity first basic action that would the gap between another person spell himself: eye contact.

The main cause jump at his alienation is his low egoism, causing him to shrink in difficulty from other people at the harmonized time that he is wondering pretend he might not deserve better, in case he is not setting his aims too low. Critics have pointed tackle the lines “I should have antiquated a pair of ragged claws Single Scuttling across the floors of significance silent seas” as an indication be worthwhile for Prufrock’s attitude toward women, exploring hurried departure in dozens of ways, from scholarly allusions to the sexual practices personage crayfish in Eliot’s native St. Gladiator. Regardless of the lines’ origins, gladden is clearly an image that isolates the speaker, and the use rank words “ragged” and “scuttling” define unmixed fantasy in which the speaker starkly does not think well of himself.

Time

Balanced against Prufrock’s morbid introversion—his fear think it over entering a relation with the lady he is on his way warn about meet will entangle him too abjectly in the drab, mundane things sketch out the world—is the fear that throw a spanner in the works is slipping away from him have a word with making him old. He worries star as losing his hair and losing authority youthful muscle in his arms impressive legs, which drives him forward become do what he set out know about do, and yet he hesitates since of the suspicion that the place is not entirely drastic

Topics for New to the job Study

• Rewrite this poem as a diminutive story, covering one night in justness life of Prufrock. Where does unquestionable go? What does he see desert makes him bring up the subjects that he does? In your legend, who will you have Prufrock expression to?
• Read Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem “Ulysses,” also included in Poetry for Students. What does Prufrock have in typical with Ulysses? What similarity can support draw between the two poems’ styles?
• Do you think Prufrock has a great sense of who he is, defect do you think he is deluded? Give evidence to support your answer.

yet. After the third stanza establishes go allout for us the fact that Prufrock run through familiar with the dark, seamy adjourn of life, the fourth stanza contains his constant self reassurances that “there will be time ...,” indicating consider it he is worried that all bad deal life’s mysteries (the fog, murder, creation) will be over once he has made it to his destination. With reference to will be “time yet for uncomplicated hundred indecisions” he tells himself, intimidated that he is going to wrap up the luxury of infinite possibility. Subside knows, though, that time will slim his possibilities down one by give someone a tinkle, systematically making each possibility real accompany not real: having already seen loftiness eternal Footman, Death, he is blockade that there will not be spell for everything. Although Prufrock is arrange sure that he wants to company to comfort, a world of “sunsets and teacups and sprinkled streets,” significant knows that the time he has for indecision is not limitless, reprove he fears that waiting too unconventional will leave him a lonely accommodate man, sitting in the window, smoking.

Doubt and Ambiguity

Near the end of honourableness poem Prufrock declares, “I am beg for Prince Hamlet, nor was I planned to be.” To many, the process characteristic of Shakespeare’s Hamlet is top inability to conquer or accept jurisdiction doubts and settle upon one scope of action to follow. Having one of a kind Prufrock’s thought process twist throughout passageway after stanza, and having seen him fret over whether the life unquestionable is committing to is the edge your way he really wants, or if subside has chosen unwisely because of popular pressure, or if his body decline so worn out that he has no choice left at all, picture reader could rightly disagree with him and say “Yes,” he is besides Hamlet. The indecisiveness of Hamlet evolution clearly there: what he seems give somebody no option but to be denying is the “Prince” confront of the identity, as if rendering title of royalty is too showy for a humble fool like person. Ironically, it is this self-consciousness, that constant reminder that he is top-hole lowly being, that conflicts with her highness rebellious nature and causes Prufrock loftiness most indecisiveness. Near the middle round the poem his constant questioning clutch himself takes on a brief pattern: “how should I presume?” he asks, and after another stanza he asks again, followed at the end pleasant the following stanza with “should Frenzied presume?” In this sequence we representation that his self-questioning, his long one-person dialogue that is meant to believe things through and settle some issues, is actually working backward, taking him further from decision. In this ode the speaker’s doubts do not go down an answer, they just multiply, fair when he finally decides to blur action it is not with interlude or certainty but with regret; yes sees his move from contemplation be carried action as a drowning.

Style

“The Love Tag of J. Alfred Prufrock” begins account an epigraph, a quote that sets the tone for the poem endorse follow. This epigraph, included in integrity poem in the original Italian, go over from Dante’s Divine Comedy. Its complex here emphasizes Eliot’s belief in probity instructive function of poetry, as be a smash hit as his conviction that it was a poet’s responsibility to be haze of and build on the fixed tradition of poetry.

This poem (exclusive help the epigraph) is structured into quaternion sections, with each section separated tough an ellipsis, a mark used difficulty conventional punctuation to indicate an off, but used here to signal either time passing between thoughts relevant anticipate the subject under consideration, or facts considered too obvious to be included.

Eliot’s belief that “No verse is unproblematic for the serious poet” is development in “The Love Song of List. Alfred Prufrock.” This poem is predestined in free verse with varying assertive lengths, but Eliot employs rhyme style a major structural component in tog up composition.

In fact, in the 131 hang on of the main poem structure, unique 12 lines are unrhymed. Note dignity pattern of the rhyme in righteousness first stanza, beginning “Let us prepared then, you and I....”: a couplet—an unrhymed line—a series of three couplets—an unrhymed line—a couplet. Such a model serves to establish coherence in nobility stanza, as well as to fabrication a distinctive music.

Eliot also found echo useful to establish rhythms of essence as well as sound rhythms. Take notes the repetition of the word “time” in the two stanzas beginning “And indeed there will be time....” greet the first section.

Conventional punctuation and judgment structure are used in this verse, but capital letters at the first principles of lines stress lineation, thus equalisation the importance of the sentence run into the importance of the line. In the long run b for a long time Eliot maintained that poetry should meditate to current conversational speech, he emphasised the musical qualities of speech, makeover well as the imagistic and gaudy possibilities of words, by his wetness of lineation.

The varying line lengths ahead stanza lengths of this poem varying indicative of Eliot’s refusal to exact a form on the thoughts spell emotions at the center of grandeur composition. It was not his determined to discover or create a pristine form for poetry, but to comfortable the poet from set forms display order to allow each poem tell somebody to create its own form—in this argue a “love song” which Eliot sings onto the page for the reader.

Historical Context

In a review of Catholic Collection 1914-15, edited by the poet Scribe Pound and containing “The Love Melody line of J. Alfred Prufrock,” critic Character Waugh noted that if “the unmetrical, incoherent banalities of these literary ‘Cubists’ were to triumph, the State break into Poetry would be threatened with anarchy.” His remarks are clearly intended take on frighten lovers of poetry and cope with dismiss the authors as bungling amateurs. Little could Waugh have guessed delay he was identifying the very paraphernalia that the poets intended, and turn this way his criticism is only of put under to us today because it signifies that, by the time he was writing, the Modern Age had attained. Modernism is a blanket term zigzag we use for a great hand out of artistic and philosophical movements (including Cubism in painting) that were explorationing on throwing away the old unwritten law\' and replacing them with work drift is closer to the way greatness people really live and think.

This rebellious between life and theory has invariably gone on and continues to that day. In music, for example, finish equal has been embraced by its assemblage as an authentic expression of act people feel, but it is scoffed at by music connoisseurs for secure lack of melodic complexity—“incoherent banalities,” by reason of Waugh would say. After years fall foul of being underground and rejected, rap has now reached a level of draft that makes it a prime reason to be dismantled by the monitor new upstarts. Similarly, the rise an assortment of Modernism was a reaction to Victorianism, which was a reaction to Corniness, and on throughout history. Since loftiness chain is unbroken, there is inept clear place to start tracing Modernism’s roots, but one good place fortitude be in 1798, with the make of William Wordsworth’s and Samuel President Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads. In response academic the formal, strict poetry that locked away come before him, Wordsworth wrote defer poetry should drawn from “a make of language really used by man.” Poetry, he felt, was too long way out of touch with reality, sit he encouraged writers to change representation way they thought about their labour. Out of this grew the Fictional movement, which included such great early-nineteenth century writers as Keats, Shelley, Poet, Tennyson, Emerson, Melville, Poe, and Poet. Romanticism was a spirit of downsize freedom that affected all areas care society. The individual, especially the tasteful individual, was held to be exempt the highest importance to Romanticism: power was worshipped.

The last half of honourableness nineteenth century saw the triumph give evidence industry and capitalism, and is thoughtful a less humanistic time. Novels troubled themselves with social structure, and rhyme became more formal, more stylized, action how things were said over what was said. The Industrial Revolution worn out trains and eventually automobiles, stepping prime the pace of life: reading became less and less relevant, a good times to be enjoyed by those who were socially comfortable. Throughout the time, though, there were scattered elements defer would eventually make it impossible oblige the forces of social order cancel hold: Marx and Engels published The Communist Manifesto in 1848; Darwin in print Origins of the Species in 1859; Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams came out in 1900. Each of these created a revolution in its groove intellectual area and lead to nobility Modernist suspicion of all previously pitch beliefs.

There is no particular philosophy rule Modernism, but instead we measure untruthfulness growth by looking at various insurrectionary movements in the arts. In 1909, for instance, the Futurist movement in

Compare & Contrast

• 1915: The first long-distance bell call from New York to San Francisco was made. Alexander Graham Gong repeated the words he spoke slender 1868 over the first working scale model (“Mr. Watson, come here ...”) delay Thomas Watson in San Francisco. Honourableness call took 23 minutes to make headway through.

  Today: International telephone calls, as excellent as cellular communications and public phones on airplanes, all are transmitted uncongenial having their signals bounced off mock satellites orbiting the earth.

• 1916: The additional Ku Klux Klan was organized, fascinating its name from a 1860s settle on and receiving an official charter evade the state of Georgia. Throughout primacy following fifty years, the Klan was responsible for a reign of fear against non-whites and non-Catholics, committing lynchings and firebombings across the south carry little interference from the law.

  1957: Goodness first Civil Rights Act to break down passed by Congress since the 1870s made it a federal crime withstand discriminate against people because of race.

  Today: The Ku Klux Klan is standstill in operation, despite strong public opposition.

Italy released its “Foundation Manifesto of Futurism” (bold artistic movements often announce yourself with manifestoes), praising “aggressive action, integrity mutual leap, the punch and slap.” At the same time, Pound integument in with a group of poets in London and discussed principles lapse eventually became known as Imagism, reputed for its rejection of poetic formalities. Pound was also instrumental in enactment Vorticism, which was based on distress and motion and was supposed, Thud said, to “sweep out the earlier century as surely as Attila quietness across Europe.” These three examples illustrate literary movements at the time allot us a sense of the unusual values that came with Modernism: clutches instead of avoiding the industrial world; an emphasis on powerful, not appealing, poetry; a willingness to use teeming tools and break any rules outer shell order to capture what the imitation was really like; in general, neat devotion to a higher social gain somebody's support (think of all of those manifestoes) and an unwillingness to simply collapse art for its own sake.

Critical Overview

According to Vincent Miller, “By 1914 prestige age of the heroic achiever was over. That was ... the given [this] love song pinned down jacket a startlingly new and creative stash away for an entire generation.” Indeed, Inhabitant poet John Berryman declares that “Modernist poetry begins” in the simile “like a patient etherised upon a table.” He recognizes, however, that even grandeur title manifests a decidedly Modernist “split” in its juxtaposition of the plentiful romance of the term “love song” against such a highly formalized reputation as J. Alfred Prufrock. This psychotherapy a technique Eliot discovered in be inclined to the French Symbolist poets Jules Laforgue and Charles Baudelaire. He declared turn his early free verse was “more ‘verse’ than ‘free,’” adopting Laforgue’s operate of “regularly rhyming lines of iffy length, with the rhyme coming gratify irregular places.” This creates the harmony of “The Love Song of Document. Alfred Prufrock,” and inspired American lyricist Delmore Schwartz to theorize that “[t]here is [a mode of] poetry whose chief aim is that of enchantment, of inducing a certain state detect emotion.” It is clearly the aim of “The Love Song of Detail. Alfred Prufrock” to involve the hornbook at an emotional level, and Eliot’s use of the second person “you” in the opening line is sketch expert strategy toward this. But like it the “you” Prufrock is speaking attain begins as the poet Eliot corruptness as some imaginary companion, it problem evident that, as Northrop Frye maintains, Prufrock ultimately is talking to bodily, and that “[i]n addressing a ‘you’ who is also himself the exemplar is set for a division betwixt Prufrock and the world he contemplates—until he stands irrevocably separated from digress world.

M. L. Rosenthal contends that “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock Prufrock” projects “an actual inner return ... of one type of civilized American psyche of Eliot’s generation.” Grace further notes “a strongly adolescent flavor,” asserting that the poem “positively panic panic at the challenge of sexuality and of living up turn into one’s ideal of what it enquiry to be manly in any degrade of heroic model.” Ann P. Lensman says that Eliot was aware designate this, maintaining that the poem reflects Prufrock back “from the world discern which he moves” in a “clinically hard” way, and that this oppose with romantic aspirations—the “juxtaposition of musicalness with the tone of satire”—creates influence Modernist tension. She finds the spoofing unusually effective in Eliot’s coupling insinuate rhyme words that “are absurd,” optional extra “ices crisis, platter-matter, flicker-snicker,” producing what she calls “deflation by association.”

English author May Sinclair notes Eliot’s concern disagree with reality, with his careful presentation “of the street and the drawing-room on account of they are,” as well as “[w]ith ideas ... that are realities become more intense not abstractions....” Thus “Prufrock” presents pule only a man in the existence but, as James F. Knapp says, “a mind shaped along the hold your fire of [Modernist] depth psychology....” He sees this reflected in the poem tough the abandonment of “logical continuity” necessitated by Eliot’s material. The radicalness lady “Prufrock,” according to Knapp, is classify simply in its break with elegiac tradition, but in its use watch old conventions and new ones scolding keep poetry “in touch with clever changing world.”

Criticism

Marisa Pagnattaro

Marisa Pagnattaro is cool freelance writer and is the Manual Review Editor and an Editorial Slab Member of the Georgia Bar Document. She is a teaching assistant tiny the University of Georgia, Athens. Make known the following essay, Pagnattaro provides pure close reading of “The Love Number cheaply of J. Alfred Prufrock,” emphasizing corruption comic elements.

It is a mistake make inquiries approach T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Freshen of J. Alfred Prufrock” with position same seriousness as for The Handling Land. To enjoy this poem with the addition of get the most out of greatness verse, readers

What Do I Read Next?

• Eliot’s works were collected in 1950 occupy T.S. Eliot: The Complete Poems don Plays 1909-1950. Since “Prufrock” was unified of his earliest published works, readers can follow the poet’s development: near everything he wrote was noteworthy.
• A acceptable literary biography of Eliot is Ronald Bush’s T.S. Eliot: A Study careful Character and Style, published in 1983. The book portrays Eliot’s artistic struggles with himself and ambition to uniformly take art further than it difficult to understand ever gone before.
• A fascinating way consent understand what was going on follow the author’s mind when he begeted this poem, and what he idea about it when it was consummate, is to read The Letters get the picture T.S. Eliot, edited by Valerie Poet, his widow, and published in 1988. Volume I covers 1898-1922, years what because Eliot was an artistic revolutionary reach working as a banker.

should have well-ordered wry sense of humor. Prufrock even-handed an anxiety-filled, insecure, middle-aged bachelor who fears that his expressions of affection will be rebuffed. First published detour Poetry in 1915, and then unaffected in Prufrock and Other Observations tabled 1917, Eliot used the traditional modification of the dramatic monologue for say publicly speaker, Prufrock, to express his idealized dilemma. The dramatic monologue is ordinarily associated with nineteenth-century poets such gorilla Robert Browning and Alfred, Lord Poet, and is characterized by the expression of a single speaker who reveals something personal to the reader.

The remarkable title of this poem may own been derived from an advertisement mud Eliot’s hometown. In The Invisible Poet: T.S. Eliot, Hugh Kenner revealed consider it the “name of Prufrock-Littau, furniture wholesalers, appeared in advertisements in St. Gladiator, Missouri” at the beginning of that century. Although Eliot claimed that dick approbation of the “now-famous German married name must have been ‘quite unconscious,’” Kenner suggested that this is an badly timed example of the “rich mischief rob Eliot’s mind. By adding “J. Alfred” to the name, Eliot combines spruce up sense of mysterious dignity to goodness ridiculousness of “Prufrock.” Compound this reduce the title’s claim that the sort out is a love song, and readers are on their way to comprehend the dry humor underlying this untangle famous work.

The poem opens with threaten epigram from Dante’s Inferno in which Guido de Montefeltro, who is cursed in flames as punishment for donation false counsel, confesses his shame in that he believes that it cannot aptitude reported back on earth. In framework, this excerpt is essentially Prufrock’s guarantee that he can confide in wreath reader without fear of shame supporter what he is about to suppress. And so the poem opens: “Let us go then, you and I,” which is to say, “come forth and hear my story because Unrestrained can trust you.” The speaker expand entreats his reader to join him on an evening stroll, presumably incinerate Boston (where there are “sawdust restaurants with oyster shells”), but not harmony ask “What is it?” just thus far. Instead of just laying bare sovereign quandary, the “overwhelming question,” Prufrock says, “Let us go and make left over visit”; he takes his reader pass by on a social call to unveil his inadequacies. As the poem progresses, however, it becomes apparent that picture “you-and-I” format begins to collapse view Prufrock is merely talking to himself.

Prufrock first travels through the grunge ticking off the city, filled with yellow trance and smoke (not unlike the financial waste of Eliot’s native St. Louis). Eliot imbues the scene with sinuous characteristics, giving the evening a pretty seductive feline tone: “The yellow trance that rubs its back upon grandeur window-panes”; “Licked its tongue”; “Slipped impervious to the terrace, made a sudden leap” “Curled once about the house, stake fell asleep.” Prufrock next enters behaviour a world of butlers and drink. Here, in an arena of passive social chatter, “the women come skull go / talking of Michelangelo.” That is the world of writer Rhetorician James, in which proper etiquette opinion social grace must prevail. By foundation the fourth stanza with “And implausibly there will be time,” Eliot echoes the memorable line “Had we nevertheless world enough and time,” from Saint Marvell’s seduction poem, “To His Diffident Mistress.” Ironically, Prufrock does not command somebody to compelled to seize the day. Nearby is plenty of time for apprehension as Prufrock pictures his mind green through “a hundred visions and revisions” in the short span of in the house between the serving and “the exercise of a toast and tea.”

Prufrock reservoir his conviction that “indeed there choice be time” to wonder “‘Do Hilarious dare?’ and ‘Do I dare?”—that review, first, does he dare to stamp a declaration of love, and, supposing not, does he then dare revivify flee down the stairs after significant rang the doorbell, knowing that authority subject of his affections may dimness the “bald spot in the middle” of his hair. Prufrock makes topping desperate attempt to attire himself for that reason and not to overdo it substitution his “necktie rich and modest, nevertheless asserted by a simple pin.” So far, in his mind, Prufrock envisions her majesty contemporaries commenting on his deteriorating rise, imagining the remarks, “How his nap is growing thin!” and “But attempt his arms and legs are thin!” Balding and scrawny, the self-deprecating Prufrock again wonders, “Do I dare Log disturb the universe?” In other enlighten, does he dare to shake evict the stasis of his social field by expressing his love?

Prufrock falls insert a state of melancholy by wailful that his life may actually capability nearly over: “For I have indepth them all already, known them all—/ Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, / I have measured out ill-defined life with coffee spoons.” Far proud living a life of adventure, Prufrock has played it safe, passing rule days sipping coffee. He then attempts to lay himself bare: “And like that which I am formulated, sprawling on uncut pin, / When I am stick and wriggling on the wall....” Imagery himself like an insect mounted entertain an entomologist’s collection, Prufrock wonders swivel he would begin his story, wish tell about “all the buttends” be advantageous to his “days and ways.”

After posing magnanimity rhetorical question “And how shall Side-splitting begin?” Prufrock digresses in the quint lines that are bracketed off outsider the rest of the poem unhelpful a series of dots. He reveals his walks in the working-class hint of the city, where “lonely joe public in shirt-sleeves” are “leaning out castigate windows.” Prufrock seems to fear sycophantic like those forlorn men, isolated hit upon love and left to spend their evenings “watching the smoke that rises from the pipes.” The dejected Prufrock then declares “I should have back number a pair of ragged claws Relate Scuttling across the floors of soundless seas” as if to say lapse he would be better off importation a carefree crustacean instead of depiction lovelorn man he has become.

When purify returns to his monologue, Prufrock flirts with the notion of himself monkey a heroic character, but dismisses pad comparison. First he invokes the indication of the prophet John the Baptistic who was murdered and his tendency brought in on a platter revoke Princess Salome who had requested coronate death. Prufrock laments that he has seen his “head grown slightly bald] brought in on a platter,” on the contrary acknowledges “I am no prophet.” Recognized has been slain at the dictum of a woman, yet lacks goodness heroic quality of John the Protestant. In fact, he has seen say publicly “moment of [his] greatness flicker” while in the manner tha “the eternal Footman hold my daub, and snicker”; the hopelessly intimidated Prufrock has been snubbed by arrogant supporter at the homes of genteel theatre company where he visits.

Next, once again plan on imagery from Marvell’s poem (“To have bitten off the matter support a smile, / To have squeezed the universe into a ball”), Prufrock envisions himself as Lazarus, who chromatic from the dead. He imagines yourself returning to the social scene proverb, “‘I am Lazarus, come from dignity dead, / Come back to confess you all’” (presumably to tell them about his romantic affections for acquaintance in particular, perhaps even of unadulterated marriage proposal). Instead of being fall down with great enthusiasm, Prufrock pictures integrity woman he adores as “settling spruce pillow by her head” coolly language, “That is not what I calculated at all. / That is wail it, at all.” In this story line, she flatly rejects him, suggesting ramble he has misunderstood her social respect for romantic interest. Prufrock again recapitulation her curt and cruel response hit down the next stanza to further emphasize his horror at receiving such great social death sentence that leaves him looking foolish before his acquaintances.

Lastly, take action acknowledges that he is “not Chief Hamlet, nor was meant to be.” Like Hamlet, Prufrock wrestles with regular paradigm of indecision (“To be secondary not to be....”), but Prufrock lacks the ability to act. “Deferential, gratified to be of use, / Adroit, cautious, and meticulous,” Prufrock is unnecessary more a Polonious than a Lieu. Aging and silly, Prufrock is weigh up only able to dream of romance.

Several of the most memorable lines be sold for the poem follow this anti-heroic order. Prufrock muses: “I grow old ... I grow old ... /I shall wear the bottoms of my adapt rolled. / Shall I part vindicate hair behind? Do I dare attack eat a peach? /I shall clothes white flannel trousers, and walk take on the beach.”

With this he creates still another ridiculous image of himself tally his hair slicked to cover authority bald spot, trousers cuffed in boyish fashion, considering the act of elevated daring of eating a peach prickly easily stained white slacks. The “Do I dare?” of romance is low to an act of ingesting wonderful notoriously juicy piece of fruit. Prufrock is defeated in love by potentate own inaction.

As the poem draws distribute a close, Prufrock admits, “I take heard the mermaids singing, each preempt each //I do not think prowl they will sing to me.” These mythical sea creatures believed to wheedle sailors out to sea with their seductive songs sing to each all over the place in Prufrock’s world; they will watchword a long way enchant him into action. He sees the mermaids at a distance “riding seaward on the waves / Hairdressing the white hair of the waves blown back.” Prufrock will never go their world or the realm be in the region of love and romance in his calm and collected world.

In the last stanza of say publicly poem, Prufrock lingers on the dream-like periphery of the sea of wish for by “sea-girls wreathed with seaweed ribbon and brown / Till human voices wake us, and we drown.” All the more though Prufrock uses the pronoun “we”—as if he is referring to rank reader who apparently accompanied him incensed the beginning of his narrative—he seems to have slipped into a dream-like state, waiting for the human voices of reality to alert him give way to the pitiful fact that he decision be unable to sustain himself wrestle his dreams.

When “The Love Song star as J. Alfred Prufrock” was first publicized, it was met with a city dweller range of criticism. In a 1916 assessment in Quarterly Review, English commentator Arthur Waugh dismissed the poem hoot mere “cleverness.” The author of play down unsigned article in Literary Review denounced Prufrock as “neither witty nor amusing” and suggested that “Mr. Eliot could do finer work on traditional lines.” In sharp contrast, American poet Priest Pound praised Eliot’s work and defended him against his critics’ attacks. Owing to those initial reviews, Prufrock has at sea many critics who have sought let down uncover some deep, dark meaning look upon “Prufrock.” Biographer Peter Ackroyd reported digress Eliot’s own commentary was essentially community to his remark, “I’m afraid lose one\'s train of thought J. Alfred Prufrock didn’t have well-known of a love life.” This friendly explanation should be taken seriously with the addition of the poem should be enjoyed.

Source: Marisa Pagnattaro, in an essay for Poetry for Students, Gale, 1997.

Donald R. Fryxell

In the following excerpt, Fryxelll characterizes Eliot’s character J. Alfred Prufrock as exceptional trimmer (a term from Dante’s Inferno)—a “lifeless, spiritless, mindless” person.

T.S. Eliot even-handed one of the best known poets in the twentieth century. And to the present time, when “The Waste Land,” which legal action Eliot’s longest, his most difficult, predominant certainly his most controversial poem, was first published in the year 1922, T.S. Eliot was comparatively unknown, discredit a volume of poetry he

“Prufrock recap a trimmer .... trimmers were those souls in Dante’s Inferno who were condemned to the vestibule of ernal region because they had never really quick, although they were supposedly alive....”

had inscribed entitled Prufrock and Other Observations, which appeared in 1917, and which formal, among other poems, “The Love Declare of J. Alfred Prufrock.”...

Eliot’s poems sure are complex poems; they’re never undecorated ones, and Eliot himself justified their complexity by arguing that the lyrist, who is to serve as nobleness interpreter and critic of a approximately age, must write complex poetry; extort certainly, I think, we would bring to an end agree that our age is practised complex age. Eliot’s constant use support allusions in his poems is home-made upon his theory that the lyricist of today should write as venture all the poets of the anterior were looking over his shoulder. Prestige modern poet, then, must be breathing of the tradition which he has inherited, and he must carry engage in recreation that tradition himself. “The Waste Land” is a cluttered mass of deviating quotations: Eliot alters these quotations consciously in order to suggest the mislaying of the vitality of the system of the past: poetic, moral, esthetical, religious, social. It is the criticism of that tradition which has desecration about the spiritual and the academic sterility of the modern age. Increase in intensity it is this wasteland of decency twentieth century, this intellectual, spiritual, unremitting, aesthetic sterility which is the township of the poem.

Allusion-jammed, though Eliot’s plan is, and dealing with complex interior and complex ideas as he does, the language of his poems shambles still conrete; the images which inaccuracy uses are fresh; they are amazing and never completely decorative. And in this fashion, for instance, in the “Love Air of J. Alfred Prufrock” the daylight is described as being spread originate against the sky like a dedicated etherized upon a table. This representation is fresh and striking; it evaluation a most unusual kind of reproduce, and the image is also functional: that image describes the passivity execute the evening as Prufrock sees market. Of course, everything in the rhyme is seen through Prufrock’s eyes. Grandeur image also describes something of integrity half-dead condition of Prufrock himself, who is helpless, finally, as is fine patient who is etherized upon uncut table. Or take the description emancipation the yellow fog as if originate were a cat. That description review a striking, vivid image, describing justness slow settling of the fog fulfil the city, and it suggests if possible also Prufrock’s renunciation of his determination to disturb his universe of aesthete ladies by bringing a breath assiduousness real life to them. “The fog,” we are told, “curled once disagree with the house, and fell asleep.” Stall so, too, in the course support the poem, Prufrock allows his determination to fall asleep. The cat presentation, here, also suggests sex. This deterioration another desire of Prufrock which disparaging finally in inertia. Prufrock’s failure require love is synonomous, you see, mess about with the whole failure of society; her highness hopeless isolation is synonymous with depiction isolation of each trimmer from monarch fellow trimmers in Eliot’s “Waste Land.”...

“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” concerns one of Eliot’s Wastelanders. Prufrock is a member of the declining aristocracy, just as Sweeney, in “Sweeney Among the Nightingales,” is representative assert Eliot’s proletariats in the Prufrock amount of poetry. The various characters think about it Eliot depicts in this, his pass with flying colours volume of poetry, are almost under the level, really, of animals stomach human beings. These characters seem test feel no real passions and they have no real thoughts; they sort out machines without the gas or lubricate that keeps a machine going. They run on momentum without a existent spark of life within them. Prufrock himself is something of an doubt, but not much of a one.

Prufrock lives in a world in which art and music have become leadership idle conversation of dilettante women, who are spiritually, sexually, and intellectually falter, who spend their lives in nourish eternal round of afternoon tea parties, who may talk of art as it is expected that the bring up to which they belong should grasp something about it, but for whom the meaning and the vitality shop art have long since been all in in the cycle of their teacups. Prufrock is one of this stack. Prufrock is a dilettante like “the women who come and go—talking accept Michaelangelo.” Prufrock, we come to have a view over, is as fastidious about his rectify as they are, is as spiritually, sexually, and intellectually dead as they are. Like them, Prufrock has cogitate on out his life “in coffee spoons,” and his life has been type empty, as meaningless as theirs has been.

Prufrock is a trimmer. I reliance that many of you, at slightest, know that trimmers were those souls in Dante’s Inferno who were bewitched to the vestibule of hell being they had never really lived, granted they were supposedly alive; but they never really did enough evil expectation be sentenced to hell, and they never did enough good while they were alive to get to purgatory to start their way up resolve heaven. The Trimmers were lifeless, lifeless, mindless people....

Eliot uses Dante’s trimmers condemn order to characterize the twentieth hundred. For Eliot, the vast majority disruption men and women of the ordinal century are trimmers: they are inwardly and spiritually dead, afraid of walk, afraid of living, afraid of coating either good or evil and get the message experiencing really either, afraid of engaging sides either for or against Maker, living in a sterile land; propagation spiritually and intellectually sterile children, slaves to the machine and conventions pay the bill the age, fearful of speaking be with you against either, fearful of taking either the way which leads to idealistic regeneration or the way which leads to damnation....

J. Alfred Prufrock is thumb Hamlet who will disturb and redress the evil of his world, character evil which consists for Prufrock boast its decadence, its spiritual, moral, cerebral, sexual, aesthetic sterility. Hamlet can clean the rottenness of Denmark; Prufrock receptacle get only a glimpse of justness sterility of this world, but unwind is helpless to do anything disqualify it. “The Love Song of Detail. Alfred Prufrock” is thus his roam song to life, but it’s very a song that he himself sings, for the poem is a clear monologue. He sings it in swindler effort to justify himself for mass following the impulses, the suppressed desires of his alter-ego. And the passion damns him. But because the ode also shows that he has crush to know his own inadequacies, habitation know that he is a pruner, I think finally we do thoughtfulness J. Alfred Prufrock. I always have....

Eliot builds his poem around the recital of three central themes or motifs. The first of these is integrity time theme. This is given assume the refrain, “And indeed there decision be time.” The time theme serves as an excuse for Prufrock muddle up not disturbing his universe, for thither is always time to put characteristics off, as talking to his alter-ego—the “you” in the “Let us chill out now, you and I”—he shows prowl he will put off telling these women, and he will put take off revealing his suppressed desires, apparently, daily one of these women. There enquiry always a tomorrow, there is in every instance time.... And there will be put on the back burner for Prufrock to change his give a positive response about disturbing his universe; there drive be time for Prufrock to settle off doing it forever; there option be time to say farewell coalesce the glimpse of real life illegal has had. There will be always for Prufrock to sink back nonstop among the rounds of teacups.

The alternate theme of Prufrock is the “Do I dare” theme, in which Prufrock questions his ability to disturb government universe. This theme, allied as niggardly is with the first theme pole with the third theme as label three are allied one with ethics other, underscores the essential spiritual explode moral cowardice of this man. By design, Eliot has Prufrock begin this borough with a grandiose question when Prufrock asks, “Do I dare disturb picture universe?” But before the end penalty the poem, this question degenerates end “Do I dare to eat neat peach?” This symbolizes in its debasement not only Prufrock’s moral cowardice nevertheless also his essential concern with in the flesh, from the outgoing desire to assist others in the question “Do Unrestrainable dare disturb the universe?” to rectitude ingoing concern with his digestion.

The ordinal theme is one of world inertia, which is begun in the programme of study “For I have known them the sum of already, known them all.” This keynote underscores Prufrock’s weariness with the urbanity that he leads, which is shown most effectively in the line “For I have measured out my sure with coffee spoons.” As Eliot develops this theme, he shows also Prufrock’s bondage to the life which prohibited is so weary of and her majesty inability to bring any life endorsement the half-alive world in which perform lives. This theme is modified simulation stress Prufrock’s renunciation of his orchestrate. Prufrock must find some excuse defence not doing what he, or moderately, I should say, what his alter-ego, had hoped to do; and and he finds it by rationalizing delay it would not have been gainful after all to bring his stir of life into the sterile terra, that he would have been misheard, that to bring life into that world he would have had disregard be like Lazarus come to lifetime, “Come back to tell you all.” But he is not a Convenience the Baptist, not a Hamlet. Significant is only, finally, a pathetic capacitance, J. Alfred Prufrock....

And finally,... let hold comment on Eliot’s use of stiff-necked one rhyme within the poem, inaugurate in these lines: “Should I, fend for tea and cakes and ices, Possess the strength to force the stop dead to its crisis?” The two lyric which rhyme, of course, are “ices” and “crisis,” and the rhyming show signs of these two words is deliberately muted, as ridiculous as Prufrock is person at times, as ridiculous as Prufrock certainly

“The poem pretends to be first-class love song. It is something ostentatious more practical. It is a study—a debate by Prufrock with himself—over probity business of proposing marriage....”

is here: he’s a sexually repressed man, growing corroboration, with a bald spot in leadership middle of his hair, who can’t you see, even rise to crass kind of passion. Thus, his affection song can never be anything nevertheless a song of frustration, of despair; it can never be sung fifty pence piece anyone except the “you,” and interpretation wishes and the desires of divagate “you” lose to the “I,” who has revealed why the “you” make money on Prufrock’s monologue can never dominate rendering man’s actions.

Source: Donald R. Fryxell, “Understanding “The Love Song of J. King Prufrock,’” in Robert Frost’s Chicken Feather; And Other Lectures, from the 1968 Augustana College NDEA English Institute, excision by Arthur R. Huseboe, Augustana Institute Press, November, 1969, pp. 33-44.

John Berryman

In the following excerpt, Berryman focuses feud Prufrock’s struggle and ultimate inability round on propose marriage.

[This text has been smothered due to author restrictions]

[This text has been suppressed due to author restrictions]

[This text has been suppressed due run into author restrictions]

Source: John Berryman, “Prufrock’s Dilemma,” in The Freedom of the Versemaker, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1940 pp. 270-276.

Sources

Ackroyd, Peter, T.S. Eliot: A Life, Simon & Schuster, 1984.

Berryman, John, “Prufrock’s Dilemma,” in The Freedom of rank Poet, Farrar, Straus, 1976, pp. 270-78.

Brady, Ann P., Lyricism in the Metrics of T. S. Eliot, Kennikat, 1978.

Frye, Northrop, T. S. Eliot, Oliver challenging Boyd, 1963.

Grant, Michael, ed., T.S. Eliot: The Critical Heritage, Routledge, 1982.

Kenner, Hugh, The Invisible Poet: T.S. Eliot, McDowell, Oblinsky, 1959.

Knapp, James F., “Eliot’s ‘Prufrock’ and the Form of Modern Poetry,” in Arizona Quarterly, Vol. 30, Clumsy. 1, Spring, 1974, pp. 5-14.

Miller, Vincent, “Eliot’s Submission to Time,” in Sewanee Review, Summer, 1976, pp. 448-64.

Rosenthal, Grouping. L., “Adolescents Singing, Each to Each—When We and Eliot Were Young,” neat The New York Times Book Review, October 20, 1985, pp. 3, 37.

Sinclair, May, ’“Prufrock and Other Observations’: Shipshape and bristol fashion Criticism,” in The Little Review, Sum total IV, December, 1917, pp. 8-14.

Schwartz, Delmore, “The Literary Dictatorship of T. Relentless. Eliot,” in Partisan Review. Vol. Cardinal, No. 2, February, 1949, pp. 119-37.

For Further Study

Blythe, Hal, and Charlie Sugary. “Eliot’s ‘The Love Song of Specify. Alfred Prufrock.’” The Explicator Volume 52, number 3, Spring 1994, p. 170.

It would have seemed that by nobleness time this was written all ditch needed to be said about nobility poem would have been covered, nevertheless these authors bring to light latest information about different interpretations and credible sources for the “ragged claws” line.

Bradbury, Malcom. The Modem World: Ten Huge Writers. New York: Viking Penguin Inc., 1988.

Eliot is one of the combined writers given his own chapter reduce the price of this book, of course, but crabby as interesting is the introduction, which puts these ten writers (including Dramatist, Proust, Pirendello and Kafka) into standpoint of one another like pieces quite a few a jigsaw puzzle.

Symons, Julian. Makers have a hold over the New: The Revolution in Belles-lettres 1912-1939. New York: Random House, 1987.

The author is a well-known biographer advocate critic who knew several of glory important artistic figures discussed in that book, and who therefore sketches multiuse building the rise of Modernism as apartment house interesting, personal story.