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What is duality in literature
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The analysis between“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” and“Something Whispered in the Shakuhachi” T.S. Eliot has been one of the most daring innovators of twentieth-century poetry. His poem“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, is different and unusual. He rejects the logic connection, thus, his poems lack logic interpretation. He himself justifies himself by saying: he wrote it to want it to be difficult. The dissociation of sensibility, on the contrary, arouses the emotion of readers immediately. This poem contains Prufrock’ s love affairs. But it is more than that. It is actually only the narration of Prufrock, a middle-aged man, and a romantic aesthete , who is bored with his meaningless life and driven to despair because he wished but …show more content…
Alfred Prufrock”indicates the spiritual emptiness and disillusionment of people , chaos, and futility of modern life and nothingness of human existence on a meaningless world. This is what the poet intends to disclose. And love songs, as many expect, must be very sweet and romantic. Love must be connected with something pleasant. Yet the love song of Prufrock seems very sentimental and sorrowful. The first stanza of the poem presents an unpleasant sight to us.“when the evening is spread out against the sky, Like a patient etherized upon a table”, Prufrock perceives the sunset as a patient oozing on the operation table. Through Prufrock’ s“stream of consciousness”,“ half-deserted streets, cheap hotel, dust restaurants”-the living conditions of the poor appear before him. The situations and the atmosphere are not in harmony with a real love song. This reveals the state of mind of Prufrock, who is not happy, but in a melancholy mood. There is a repetition of the line“In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo”demonstrates the women of fashion pose as a lover of culture and show off their culture accomplishment. They pretend to be educated and converse with so-called civilized gentlemen to relieve their boredom. People in the genteel society in the party eat, drink, dance, and talk to kill much time. This description of the life of genteel society forms a sharp contrast to the poor district with its …show more content…
I found there is a consistent theme of the being the "other" and never being fully accepted into mainstream society. Hongo said: “My project as a poet has been motivated by a search for origins of various kinds, a quest for ethnic and familial roots, cultural identity, and poetic inspiration—all ultimately connected to my need for an active imaginative and spiritual life. I write to be a voice that I can listen to, one that makes sense and raises my own consciousness.” Hongo uses descriptive lists and repetitious word order and phrasing. His language is elegant and lyrical. “Something Whispered in the Shakuhachi”in Yellow Light in 1982 by Garrett Hongo. It is an intimate poem. In its focus on one elderly and enfeebled man, Hongo is able to show a strength of spirit that can transcend the most challenging and demeaning of conditions. In that poem, Hongo talks about an old man hanging over his sleep, a metaphor for his own Japanese origins, which live in his heart. The old man delights in his talent for carving Shakuhachi. Rather than have his precious flutes destroyed, he burns them himself, but even after they are gone, he can hear their “wail like fists of wind whistling through the barracks.” After the war, when he returns home, the memory of the flutes and their
Eliot, T.S.. "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." An Introduction to Poetry. 13th ed. of the year.
The Love song of J. Alfred Prufrock is a poem that was written by T. S Eliot. The poem introduces the character, Prufrock, as a man who is very pessimistic about everything and is incapable of change. Prufrock sees the society he lives in as a place that is full of people who think alike, and he thinks he is different from them. Though Prufrock, realizes that the society he is associated with needs a change and have more people who think differently, but the fact that he is very concerned about what people would think of him if he tries to speak up to make a change or that he would be ignored or be misunderstood for whatever he says hindered him from expressing himself the way he would like to. Prufrock then decides not to express himself in order to avoid any type of rejection. In the poem, Prufrock made use of several imagery and metaphor to illustrate how he feels about himself and the society he is involved in. Prufrock use of imageries and
T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 6th ed. Vol. 2. ed. M. H. Abrams New York, London: Norton, 1993.
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.
T.S. Eliot’s breakthrough poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is expertly crafted to have a complex structure with various hidden themes. The poem acts as an inner monologue for the titular character, appearing as lyric-narrative poetry. However, it does appear to lean towards a lyric poem, with the hazy plot consisting of Prufrock describing what his life has been like, in retrospect to speculating on what is to come next. The monologue throughout is melancholy in nature, with Prufrock dwelling on issues such as unrequited love, his frail body, his looming demise, and a dissatisfaction with the modernist world. Eliot uses a variety of metaphor within the poem to showcase Prufrock’s indecision, between being unable to fully live, while
On the surface, ?The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock? is about an older man who is distressed by his own inability to tell a woman of his desire for her. He tries to relay his feelings to her but comes up with all kinds of excuses not to, and ultimately does not. The speakers? real problem is not that he is just too timid to confess his love for this particular woman, it is that he has a somewhat unproductive, bleak life and has a lack of willpower and boldness to change that life.
The editors of anthologies containing T. S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" invariably footnote the reference to Lazarus as John 11:1-44; rarely is the reference footnoted as Luke 16:19-31. Also, the reference to John the Baptist is invariably footnoted as Matthew 14:3-11; never have I seen the reference footnoted as an allusion to Oscar Wilde's Salome. The sources that one cites can profoundly affect interpretations of the poem. I believe that a correct reading of Eliot's "Prufrock" requires that one cite Wilde, in addition to Matthew, and Luke, in addition to John, as the sources for the John the Baptist and Lazarus being referenced. Furthermore, the citation of these sources can help explain Eliot's allusion to Dante's Guido da Montefeltro.
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.
T.S. Eliot’s poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock has a plethora of possible interpretations. Many people argue that the poem represents a man who appears to be very introverted person who is contemplating a major decision in his life. This decision is whether or not he will consummate a relationship with someone he appears to have an attraction to or feelings for. People also debate whether or not Prufrock from the poem is typical of people today. While there are a plethora of reasons Prufrock is not typical of people today the main three reasons are he is very reserved, he overthinks most situations and he tries avoid his problems instead of solve them.
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.
The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock, by T.S. Eliot, is the story of the life of a man. It tells of a man reminiscing over his life, regretting decisions that he made. Of a man who is thinking back on his life, and toward the end, it is told how the man is closely approaching death. He wants to be able to escape it, but alas, cannot, and, in the end, he dies. In The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock, T.S. Eliot expresses a sense of regret using literary devices, such as imagery, metaphors, and allusion.
T.S. Eliot is often considered one of the greatest and most influential poets of the 20th Century. Not only were his highly regarded poems such as “The Wasteland” and “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” influential to the literary style of his time, but his work as a publisher highlighted the work of many talented poets. Analyzing his poem, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” with psychoanalytic criticism reveals several core issues in the speaker of the poem, and may reflect Eliot himself.
The title T. S. Eliot chose for his poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is ironic. Mr. Prufrock does not love anyone, nor does he believe he is loved. He has disdain for the society of which he wishes he were a part, and he believes society views him no differently. The imagery of Mr. Prufrock's thoughts provide the audience a more detailed insight into his character than had Mr. Eliot simply listed Mr. Prufrock's virtues and flaws. Mr. Prufrock is seen as an exaggeration or extreme for the sake of literary commentary, but the world has many Prufrocks in many differing degrees, and T. S. Eliot has made them a little easier to understand.
One of T.S. Eliot’s earliest poems, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, is a prime example of a text that takes a turn inwards in terms of conveying the experience it presents. The poem provides a look into the distressed mind of an archetypal modern man of the times. It does this using the speaker’s stream of consciousness presented as a dramatic monologue. Prufrock, the poem’s speaker, seeks to advance his relationship with a woman who has caught his eye. He wonders if he has “the strength to force the moment to its crisis” (Eliot, 80). Prufrock is so entrenched in self-doubt that he is uncertain whether he is capable of having a relationship with this woman. His knowledge of the world he lives in and his circumstances keep him from attempting to approach this prospective lover. He contemplates the reasons for which he believes he cannot be with her and scolds himself for even thinking that it was possibl...
T.S. Eliot was a poet, dramatist and he was also a literary critic. “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” and “The...