Both Alfred Lord Tennyson’s “Ulysses” and T. S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” involve the narrator’s dealing with a self crisis, characterized by a state of despair at their current situation. Ulysses is not content with his return to kingship after the adventures of The Odyssey and Prufrock is self-deprecating, hating himself for his indecision and his perceived lack of worth. Yet while Ulysses resolves to take action to regain his former days of glory and adventure, Prufrock is so psychologically paralyzed that near the end of the poem he questions whether he “dare to eat a peach.”
In “Ulysses” the first two stanzas seem to be an interior monologue, with Ulysses going over his current situation and making the case. There are no references to other parties it is all describing his situation with lines such as “I have become a name;” (11). In the third stanza there is a possible switch in narration, as Ulysses says “This is my son, my own Telemachus,” as if he is presenting Telemachus to another person, though it is still possible he is looking at Telemachus and thinking or saying this to himself. In the final stanza there is a definite shift in narration; Ulysses is now entreating his sailors to come on a last adventure with him. He calls upon them: “My Mariners,/ Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought with me—.” He admits “you and I are old” before repeating his plea of “Come my friends” (56).
“The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock” uses interior monologue, however Eliot presents his narrator’s thoughts through stream of consciousness, which allows the reader direct access to Prufrock’s thought processes. Each stanza is somewhat disjointed, jumping from biblical allusions and imaginary landscapes to ...
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...one point he even inquires into why he digresses so “Is it perfume from a dress? / That makes me so digress?” (65-66). While syntax serves to illustrate Ulysses sometimes wavering purpose, for Prufrock it highlights his tendency to overanalyze, question himself, and fail to arrive at an action.
Radically different individuals, Ulysses and Prufrock cope with their respective crises in nearly opposite ways. Ulysses follows a relatively straight-forward path of rejecting his barren life, recalling his past, evaluating Telemachus as a ruler, then planning his future adventure. Prufrock on the other hand is crippled by indecision. His narrative is non-linear and he fails to ask the “overwhelming question” (93). By the time he has grown old, this deficiency has reached the point where he questions whether he “dare to eat a peach?” (121), a pathetically mundane action.
Amir and Ulysses both ultimately attempt to return to their home and reach a goal. In Amir’s case he had to return to his childhood country to retrieve his half brother’s son and in Ulysses’s case he needed to return home after being out at sea for twenty years. The two held family values and had people at home who loved them greatly. Amir owed it to Hassan and Ulysses needed to return to his faithful wife and son in Ithaca. In a sense they both took on these dangerous journeys and endured them for their family—“For you, a thousand times over” (Hosseini
Eliot, T.S.. "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." An Introduction to Poetry. 13th ed. Kennedy, X. J., and Dana Gioia. Boston: Little, Brown, 1966. 369-372. Print.
T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” tells the speaker’s story through several literary devices, allowing the reader to analyze the poem through symbolism, character qualities, and allusions that the work displays. In this way, the reader clearly sees the hopelessness and apathy that the speaker has towards his future. John Steven Childs sums it up well in saying Prufrock’s “chronic indecision blocks him from some important action” (Childs). Each literary device- symbolism, character, and allusion- supports this description. Ultimately, the premise of the poem is Prufrock second guessing himself to no end over talking to a woman, but this issue represents all forms of insecurity and inactivity.
Prufrocks next thoughts tell of his old age and his lack of will to say what is on his mind. He mentions his bald spot in his hair and his thin arms and legs. This suggests that he knows he is growing old, and therefore contradicts what he had mentioned earlier in the poem about having plenty of time. Throughout the poem he is indecisive and somewhat aloof from the self-involved group of women. One part of him would like to startle them out of their frustratingly polite conversations and express his love for her, but to accomplish this he would have to risk disturbing their ?universe? and being rejected. He also mentions ?sprawling on a pin?, as though he pictures himself being pinned in place and viciously analyzed like that of an insect being literally pinned in place. The latter part of the poem captures his sense of overwhelming lack of willpower for failing to act daringly, not only at that tea party, but throughout his life.
To begin, the first message is Ulysses’ purpose for his speech in the monologue. Because Ulysses was such a known traveler and hero, he refuses to give up his journeys. Wanting to begin another expedition, he gathers his old mariners and tells them that it’s not too late to find a new world. According to Homer, Odysseus or Ulysses, was the only survivor of his crew. But here we have his mariners still surviving. Tennyson knew the story, so he didn't just slip up. The mariners were the ones who went through battle and on the ship with him. They are the ones who know him, so Tennyson changes the story so that some survived. (Hampton) He continues by saying, “For my purpose holds to sail beyond the sunset, and the baths of all the western stars, until I die.” (Lines 59-63) He is unsatisfied with being an idle person and longs for more adve...
Eliot, T.S.. "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ed. M.H. Abrams. New York: Norton, 1996. 2459-2463.
Eliot, T.S.. "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ed. M.H. Abrams. New York: Norton, 1996.
The poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” written by T.S. Eliot is a depiction of sadness and a disillusioned narrator. While reading this poem, one senses that the narrator is disturbed and has maybe given up hope, and that he feels he is just an actor in a tedious drama At the very beginning of the poem, Eliot uses a quote from Dante’s “Inferno”, preparing the poem’s reader to expect a vision of hell. This device seems to ask the reader to accept that what they are about to be told by the poem’s narrator was not supposed to be revealed to the living world, as Dante was exposed to horrors in the Inferno that were not supposed to be revealed to the world of the living. This comparison is frightening and intriguing, and casts a shadow on the poem and its narrator before it has even begun. J. Alfred Prufrock is anxious, self-concsious, and depressed.
Many of us have studied in our dreaded English classes the classic tale of Odysseus, or Ulysses. Ulysses is the Latin name of Odysseus, and it is this Latin form that Lord Tennyson uses in his poem Ulysses. However, when this poem was written, England was losing hope. At that time the country of England was already older than Rome, so they were basically sitting there waiting for their time to come, well, until this poem made an appearance. After this poem surfaced, it brought upon a new light to England and gave them hope again. Yet, how did this poem do such a thing? Well, this poem is about Ulysses many years later after he returned from his epic journey as mentioned, “This dramatic monologue imagines Ulysses as an old man, years after he had returned home from the Trojan War. He desires to restore his youthful vitality and heroic temperament.” (Markert, Lawrence Wayne). He is expressing how he feels about his life and how he feels about his age. He even talks about his son and wife in certain fractions of the poem. First, he calls his wife old, and -he talks about handing his kingdom off to his son. However there are many of his personal views on life that are revealed in this poem that really opened England’s eyes. Ulysses from Lord Tennyson’s poem Ulysses, three main things are revealed: his purpose, his feelings about aging, and his attitude towards life.
In the poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” T.S. Eliot uses a man named Prufrock to describe the uncertainties in life and how they affect a person’s views. Prufrock does not have the confidence to give or receive love. There is an equal amount of unhappiness to the concept of time and space. He is unsatisfied with life and with the decision to think rather than act.
Both Browning and Eliot seek to improve upon the nature of the dramatic monologue. Browning emphasizes structure and a separation between the poet and the character which is reiterated by Eliot’s poem. Browning’s influence on Eliot can be seen by the form and structure of “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” adding working intrinsically with the theme and subject of the work. However, Eliot deviates slightly from Browning by the portrayal of his characters, and the amount of information that he is willing to share with the reader. The intended message of Browning’s poem is much more apparent than Eliot’s who creates an open ended poem that can be interpreted differently by each reader.
T.S. Eliot, a notable twentieth century poet, wrote often about the modern man and his incapacity to make decisive movements. In his work entitled, 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock'; he continues this theme allowing the reader to view the world as he sees it, a world of isolation and fear strangling the will of the modern man. The poem opens with a quoted passage from Dante's Inferno, an allusion to Dante's character who speaks from Hell only because he believes that the listener can not return to earth and thereby is impotent to act on the knowledge of his conversation. In his work, Eliot uses this quotation to foreshadow the idea that his character, Prufrock, is also trapped in a world he can not escape, the world where his own thoughts and feelings incapacitate and isolate him.
To me, Ulysses was a necessary evil, in that I thought that I would not be able to call myself a literature student unless I had read the entire novel. While my journey through Ulysses was laden with moments of bewilderment, exasperation, and self-pity, I was able to power my way through the novel with a deeper appreciation for the way James Joyce was able to create a linear story told through a series of non-linear writing styles. In retrospect, the grueling challenge of reading Ulysses made me a better student, in that I was able to grow as a reader by adjusting myself to Joyce’s train-of-thought writing style, and that I could add Ulysses to my personal canon of academic literature.
The wisdom and grace of old age seem to elude him completely as he metaphorically claims "I will drink life to the lees."Tennyson uses vivid imagery in lines 10 - 11, the "rainy Hyades"again bringing out the fear of death in the narrator . The lines "I am become a name", and " myself not least , but honored them all" reflects the awareness Ulysses has of his legendry fame . The reader begins to identify with the character as he seems fraught with the same faults that afflict normal men . "A hungry heart' is a personification used to highlight the character's insatiable desire to travel and explore " I am part of all that I met ", portray the swelling pride of one who knows he ...
"Ulysses." Poetry for Students. Ed. Marie Rose Napierkowski and Mary Ruby. Vol. 2. Detroit: Gale, 1998. 277-293. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 18 Mar. 2014.