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Imagery In Eliots Poetry
Examine the poetic style of Ts Eliot
Examine the poetic style of Ts Eliot
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Is modern life automated and devoid of purposeful existence? Does humanity suffer from a lack of vision and purpose in life? Can individuals in today’s contemporary society cope with the mediocrity, monotony and hollowness of their lives? Almost 100 years after first being published, T.S Eliot’s poetry still resonates with us, due to his exploration of these timeless, universal and enduring questions that characterize the impotence of the modern individual. Responding to the aftermath of WW1 and the paradigm shift that resulted from rapid industrialization and urbanization, Eliot presents a panoramic perspective of the futility and chaos that characterized the post-war environment. Loss of individualism, relaxed moral standards, alienation
Alfred Prufrock. The relevance of this poem stems from Eliot’s transformation of his own personal experience of alienation and isolation into a subjective and relatable narrative in which we can locate truths about ourselves. The poem is an acute fusion of modernity and self-consciousness that is debilitating and paralyzing. Prufrock metaphorically looks through his window but never engages meaningfully with the outside world. He is an ageing man who laments the vacuity of his life and lack of intellectual, sexual and spiritual fulfillment. His existential questioning engages us as a modern audience, provoking us to question the integrity of our own
The anonymity of the third person ‘they’ represents his inability to connect and forge meaningful relationships because of this paranoia. This exploration of fear and doubt continues throughout the poem as Prufrock poses a profound question, ‘Do I dare disturb the universe?’ Use of this rhetorical question conveys the tension between Prufrock’s realization that it is beneficial to reject complacent acceptance of designated identities and his belief that in order to belong he has to conform. Living and experiencing our contemporary society we can relate to Prufrock’s internal struggle by acknowledging this tension between conforming to societal expectations and developing our own identity. Eliot effectively admonishes against being caught in this state of Prufrockian paralysis, whereby people are paralyzed by doubt and social insecurity. He conveys how the ontological journey to self-knowledge is hindered by self-doubt and our struggle to connect and communicate meaningfully with others.
This state of paralysis and inaction is echoed in another of Eliot’s poems ‘The Hollow Men,’ in which Eliot suggests modern life can be tepid, indecisive, automated and devoid of purposeful existence, trapping humanity in mindless
"(10) which is never identified, asked, or answered in the poem. This "question" is somehow associated with his social status, but both its ambiguity and Prufrock's denial to even ask "What is it? " (11) gives some insight into his state of internal turmoil. Prufrock's dissatisfaction with his personal appearance is evidence of an underlying lack of self-confidence. Not only is he unhappy with the way he looks, having "to prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet," but he is constantly afraid of what others will have to say about him.
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 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
In T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” the author is establishing the trouble the main character, Prufrock, is having coming to terms with middle age. He is deeply distressed over the fact that he is growing old, and feels that the prime of his life has passed him by. His preoccupation with time throughout the poem characterizes his fear of aging. He is a man experiencing a mid-life crisis, brought about by his perception of aging and his own feelings of inadequacy.
The first stanza introduces Prufrock’s isolation, as epitomized metaphorically by “half-deserted streets” (4): while empty streets imply solitude, Eliot’s diction emphasize Prufrock having been abandoned by the other “half” needed for a relationship or an “argument” (8). Hoping for a companion, Prufrock speaks to the reader when saying, “Let us go then, you and I” (1), as he needs to address his lament to an audience; conscious of the reader’s curiosity regarding the “overwhelming question,” (10) Prufrock answers, “Oh, do not ask, ‘What is it?’” (11). (The likely explanation for Eliot’s inconsistent use of you in this stanza is Prufrock probably meaning you as “To lead one,” as he refers to himself and not the reader in line 10.) Eliot continues the metaphor of Prufrock’s lonesomeness by anthropomorphizing the “yellow fog” and “smoke” (15, 16) to signify Prufrock, who interacts not with people, but only the environment in the third, fourth, and fifth stanzas. Clearly it is Prufrock who “rubs [his] muzzle on the window-panes” (15, 16), passively lets “fall upon [his] back the soot that falls from chimneys” (19), “slides along the street” (24), and performs the actions also described; also, the opacity of “fog” and “smoke” symbolizes the difficulty with which readers perceive Prufrock’s true character, further separating ...
In conclusion, after exploring the theme of this poem and reading it for myself, Eliot has created this persona, in industrialised England or somewhere else. A man of low self-esteem, you embark his journey as he struggles with a rational fear of being rejected by a woman. Which gives the reader sympathy to Prufrock, as he lives within his own personal
...hich the author has elected to work, may itself evoke other psychic material; and then, lines of poetry may come into being, not from the original impulse, but from a secondary stimulation of the unconscious mind." The mental forces at work in Eliot's description of the poetic process serve as an analogy to the conflicts besetting the speaker in Prufrock. The speaker is a failed poet in terms of his inability to "murder" existing structures in order to "create" anew; be finds it impossible to say what be wants to say. In the "secondary stimulation of the unconscious mind" that occurs at this point, he partly abandons and partly resolves the struggle of form and matter; the integration of the psyche remains at best incomplete.
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.
...In "The Waste Land," Eliot delivers an indictment against the self-serving, irresponsibility of modern society, but not without giving us, particularly the youth a message of hope at the end of the Thames River. And in "Ash Wednesday," Eliot finally describes an example of the small, graceful images God gives us as oases in the Waste Land of modern culture. Eliot constantly refers back, in unconsciously, to his childhood responsibilities of the missionary in an unholy world. It is only through close, diligent reading of his poetry that we can come to understand his faithful message of hope.
T. S. Eliot's poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" reveals the unvoiced inner thoughts of a disillusioned, lonely, insecure, and self-loathing middle-aged man. The thoughts are presented in a free association, or stream of consciousness style, creating images from which the reader can gain insight into Mr. Prufrock's character. Mr. Prufrock is disillusioned and disassociated with society, yet he is filled with longing for love, comfort, and companionship. He is self-conscious and fearful of his image as viewed through the world's eye, a perspective from which he develops his own feelings of insignificance and disgust. T. S. Eliot uses very specific imagery to build a portrait of Mr. Prufrock, believing that mental images provide insight where words fail.
T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land is an elaborate and mysterious montage of lines from other works, fleeting observations, conversations, scenery, and even languages. Though this approach seems to render the poem needlessly oblique, this style allows the poem to achieve multi-layered significance impossible in a more straightforward poetic style. Eliot’s use of fragmentation in The Waste Land operates on three levels: first, to parallel the broken society and relationships the poem portrays; second, to deconstruct the reader’s familiar context, creating an individualized sense of disconnection; and third, to challenge the reader to seek meaning in mere fragments, in this enigmatic poem as well as in a fractious world.
In “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Eliot, the character Prufrock demonstrates his self pity caused by the fear of rejection by society. Prufrock also reveals anxiety and indecisiveness when encountering situations. Prufrock feels that society forces paralysis upon him, thereby stripping him of his individuality, restricting his independence and, in turn, producing all troubles encountered throughout his life. J. Alfred Prufrock consistently allows his feelings of inadequacy to prevent him from participating in social events. He feels that society judges him according to his place in the class system “...With a bald spot in the middle of my hair - [They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”]” (40-41 T.S. Eliot).
Such portrayal of an individual unable to go through anything, accentuates the stagnation and paralysis as something quite significant as they basically don’t exist in any authentic and valuable way, hence we are left with “In the room, women come and go”. This mirror’s Eliot’s contexts as it cements his vision of the modernist world and the degradation that it is creating to the urban landscape, hence a sense of detachment from the world. Through, “that sometimes gives the sense that he is holding back a little from life”, we see that Winterson’s perspectives of the persona reflects a sense of detachment from humanity and life itself. Thus, Eliot portrays a vision of his context of the incapabilities for humanity to change. Hence we experience an endless stagnation, and are incapable of establishing a sustainable relationship to move forward as a result of the overwhelming lack of purpose. From this, we learn the degradation and mistakes of the characters so that we don’t continue the same path, hence the relevance it has in today’s
T.S Eliot’s poem, The Waste Land, is written in the mood of society after World War I. By using these allusions, The Waste Land reflects on mythical, historical, and literary events. The poem displays the deep disillusionment felt during this time period. In the after math of the great war, in an industrialized society that lacks the traditional structure of authority and belief, in the soil that may not be conductive to new growth (Lewis). Eliot used various allusions that connected to the time period and the effect of the war on society in his poem. Aided by Eliot’s own notes and comments, scholars have been able to identify allusions to: the Book of Common Prayer, Geoffrey Chaucer, Charles-Louis Philippe, James Thomas, Guillaume Appollinaire, Countess Marie Larsich, Wyndham Lewis, nine books of the Bible, John Donne, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Richard Wagner, Sappho, Catullus, Lord Byron, Joseph Campbell, Aldous Huxley, J.G. Frazer, Jessie L. Weston, W.B. Yeats, Shakespeare, Walter Pater, Charles Baudelair, Dente, Ezra Pound, James Joyce, and John Webster—all within the first section of 72 lines, about one allusion every two lines (Lewis). Using various allusions, Eliot was able to connect to the fact that he lived in a modern day waste land as a result of the destruction caused by World War I. Eliot used the allusions to show that death brings new beginnings and change, and love still flourishes.
Alfred Prufrock has is his insecurity and lack of self-confidence. Throughout the poem Prufrock proclaims that he has an overwhelming question to ask, but he is too timid to ask it. He worries about how other people will respond. He says, “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 with a simple pin (They will say: ‘But how his arms and legs are thin!’)” (Eliot 1). This excerpt from the poem demonstrates Prufrock’s paranoia of how others perceive him. His lack of self-confidence hinders him from making a “bold” move, talking to women. J. Alfred Prufrock’s anxiety to communicate with others makes him the perfect example of a twentieth century modern man (Samet Guven