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T. eliots use of symbolism
T. S. Eliot
T.s. eliots views on modernism
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One of the twentieth century’s major poets was a British, American-born essayist: T.S. Eliot 1888-1965. In his works, he uses a distinct style of writing, such as folk tales to hold and regulate contemporary experience, compiles juxtaposition of different voices, traditions, and communication, and targets on form to act as the bearer of meaning, thus leading many of his biggest fans to consider his poetry an equivalent with modernism. Throughout his career, Eliot’s poetry underwent momentous changes, which brought forth some of his most famous works. T.S. Eliot’s wide-ranging but almost small collection of work includes The Waste Land (1922), The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915), and Four Quartets (1943), which Eliot considered to be …show more content…
Subsequently, Eliot saw the society as helpless and wounded and the culture as collapsing and dissolving, and so he demonstrated these thoughts and feelings in The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915). Also, Eliot explored the idea of humanity’s damaged spirit which prevented people from communicating with one another in The Waste Land (1922). Considering The Waste Land, it is also a good example of Eliot’s use of juxtaposition of a variety of literary elements and mythic traditions blending with modern life. But even so, Eliot’s use of symbols is one of his most profound signatures. Firstly, he greatly symbolizes water, which is a representation of both life and death. For instance, his characters either wait for water to suppress their thirst, or watch a river overflowing a shore, sob for rain to dampen the dry earth, or pass by a still body of water. In a like manner, water is thought of as a regenerative source of restoring life, but it can also lead to death by
Despite the similarities between these two poems, Corso and Eliot shared little in common. Corso spent much of his early life between foster parents and prison, the latter being where he was introduced to poetry. Now credited as a key member of the “Beat Generation”, a group of poets who were opposed to social conformity and the traditional forms of poetry, Corso typically wrote poetry “on serious philosophical issues” (Olson 53). On the other hand Eliot’s upbringing was more traditional where he attended Harvard and went on to become a figure of immense influence in the literary world. Eliot’s first major poetic publication: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock bares many resemblances to Corso’s postmodern poem Marriage, a poem written to criticize the philosophical issues associated with marriage.
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.
The Modernist era of poetry, like all reactionary movements, was directed, influenced, and determined by the events preceding it. The gradual shift away from the romanticized writing of the Victorian Era served as a litmus test for the values, and the shape of poetry to come. Adopting this same idea, William Carlos Williams concentrated his poetry in redirecting the course of Modernist writing, continuing a break from the past in more ways than he saw being done, particularly by T.S. Eliot, an American born poet living abroad. Eliot’s monumental poem, The Waste Land, was a historically rooted, worldly conscious work that was brought on by the effects of World War One. The implementation of literary allusions versus imagination was one point that Williams attacked Eliot over, but was Williams completely in stride with his own guidelines? Looking closely at Williams’s reactionary poem to The Waste Land, Spring and All, we can question whether or not he followed the expectations he anticipated of Modernist work; the attempts to construct new art in the midst of a world undergoing sweeping changes.
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
If voices were not heard through poetry, poetry would not have had the effect on society and history that it has had. Bibliography B.C. Southam A Student's Guide to the Selected Poems of T.S. Eliot Faber and Faber Limited, London, 1994 M. Herbert T.S. Eliot Selected Poems YORK PRESS London, 2000 T.S. Eliot Selected Poems Faber and Faber Limited, London, 2002 Nicol, Andrew http://www.philosophyclassics.com/essays/680/ (April 2004) [1] T.S. Eliot To-Day September 1918 [2] M. Herbert T.S.
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” is an ironic depiction of a man’s inability to take decisive action in a modern society that is void of meaningful human connection. The poem reinforces its central idea through the techniques of fragmentation, and through the use of Eliot’s commentary about Prufrock’s social world. Using a series of natural images, Eliot uses fragmentation to show Prufrock’s inability to act, as well as his fear of society. Eliot’s commentary about Prufrock’s social world is also evident throughout. At no point in the poem did Prufrock confess his love, even though it is called “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, but through this poem, T.S. Eliot voices his social commentary about the world that Prufrock lives in.
“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Eliot is a widely studied and analyzed modernist poem. This poem is one that many high school students are subjected to, leading to an overall displeasure for “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” However, those that revisit the poem are more inclined to enjoy and analyze the poem, finding an interest in the character of J. Alfred Prufrock. Charles C. Walcutt is one of the many individuals fueled to provide a deeper analysis of this text and in his contribution to the November edition of College English, an essay entitled “Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,"” he addresses his impression that the “Love Song” portion of “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” has been neglected and what that could mean to the context of the poem.
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.
...s, Colleen. The love song of T.S. Eliot: elegiac homoeroticism in the early poetry. Gender, Desire, and Sexuality in T. S. Eliot. Ed. Cassandra Laity. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2004. p. 20
As a conclusion, since he is a 20th Century Modernist poet, Eliot believes that readers should have knowledge about ‘’ dead poets and artists’’ so they could appreciate the value of an artist’s work truly and better.He is right in what he says and also he believes one can only be original if he/she combines past and present.His poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock obviously carries these characteristics of Moderist Poetry.
In his poem "The Waste Land," T.S. Eliot employs a water motif, which represents both death and rebirth. This ties in with the religious motif, as well as the individual themes of the sections and the theme of the poem as a whole, that modern man is in a wasteland, and must be reborn.
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.
middle of paper ... ... What can be said is that Eliot's poetry, as misinterpreted, misread, and misunderstood as it may be, is a quintessential cornerstone in modernist thought, a fragment in the puzzle, which may yield an emergent whole, though it may not be fully grasped. Works Cited Eliot, T. S. & Co. Wasteland, Prufrock, and other poems.
T.S Eliot, widely considered to be one of the fathers of modern poetry, has written many great poems. Among the most well known of these are “The Waste Land, and “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, which share similar messages, but are also quite different. In both poems, Eliot uses various poetic techniques to convey themes of repression, alienation, and a general breakdown in western society. Some of the best techniques to examine are ones such as theme, structure, imagery and language, which all figure prominently in his poetry. These techniques in particular are used by Eliot to both enhance and support the purpose of his poems.