The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot

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The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock was written by T.S. Eliot in 1917. When looking at the title, one can immediately assume that this poem is a love story or even an actual love song. Actually, after reading one will find a great struggle and in fact no love song will be sung.

The poem begins with a short passage from Dante’s INFERNO. With this reference, it immediately gives an eerie feeling of something evil or possibly something related to the devil. Reading the translation of this passage though, it leads you into feelings of sympathy for the man. It concerns a man and his identity, much like the actual poem. This passage and its entire translation implies that in the poem Prufrock is only speaking because he is sure no one will stop and listen to him.

Because we are reading the thoughts of the narrator in the first stanza the entire thing is very incoherent and it does not really make sense. As the poem progresses though, Prufrock continues to repeat ideas and phrases which brings a little more concreteness as to the path of the story. For instance, the usage of the phrase “you and I”. This line includes the reader into the poem, suggesting that by following along with him, one would better be able to understand his problems.

The images of the opening lines portray a dreary neighborhood with cheap hotels and restaurants. This is where Prufrock calls home. He invites the reader along on his journey. Specifically, in line 12 he is making a visit somewhere. Immediately this conjures images of the places that he and the reader will go together. He gives ideas about occasions like an afternoon tea party where women talk about Michelangelo. The correlation betw...

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...t his love to this woman. Many people have experienced situations in life where felt they wanted to speak out and speak up, but were fearful of the consequences therefore leaving nothing said at all.

T. S. Eliot also was able to create a wide array of feelings for Prufrock. A more dominant feeling was that of sympathy for Prufrock. The great use of language encouraged the reader to want for Prufrock to sing to this woman. It involves the reader in the story. You feel as though you need to give him encouragement, or maybe a cheering section so he will go ahead and express himself to her. At the end of the story, I experienced anger towards this man because he put so much time and effort into planning his big approach, he completely quit. He decided that he would give up completely on this girl. Now he is old and does not have anyone to share his love with.

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