Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
T s eliot the love song of j alfred prufrock poem analysis
T s eliot the love song of j alfred prufrock poem analysis
Conclusion of the wasteland
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
T.S Eliot, one of many modern poets has always managed to produce great poems. When looking at some of his finest work such as “The Wasteland”, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” and “The Hollow Men” it is remarkable, how one individual can create such exquisite art. In his college years, Eliot developed much of his early poetic style around French symbolists such as Arthur Rimbaud, Stephane Mallarme and Jules Laforgue. As Eliot grew older, he converted to the Catholic faith. From there on in, Eliot and his craft would evolve. Eliot would often cleverly target the structure, theme, and the use of symbolism in his poems. “The Wasteland” is a poem of higher stature. The poem has a disjointed timeline, meaning that this poem does not have …show more content…
Alfred Prufrock” revolves around the theme of love. This poem is timeless, mainly because it revolves around people and their wants. As long as there are things that we cannot have, we will always secretly long for them. In the poem, Prufrock is greatly unsure of what he really wants from the woman in the poem. He obviously has some interest in this woman, which could ultimately be enough for him to want to be with her. It is like seeing a nice car that you only dreamed of having, while you’re walking down the street and you could not help but look in awe. Of course, many individuals claim that they don’t want a nice expensive car. But do they really mean it? The true question would be, is it obtainable? This is exactly what Prufrock is experiencing. Does he truly believe that he could actually have a chance at dating that woman that he is so mesmerized by. In the first stanza Prufrock says “ Like a patient etherized upon a table;\ Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,\ The muttering retreats.” This is clearly stating that Prufrock was completely stiff while in her presence. He couldn’t even speak. He now is confused about what to do next. He argues with himself saying, “To lead you to an overwhelming question…\ Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”\ Let us go and make our visit.” He is not sure whether or not he should approach her. He has a little angle on his left shoulder, and a devil on the other. It is important to take into
"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is about a timid and downcast man in search of meaning, of love, and in search of something to break from the dullness and superficiality which he feels his life to be. Eliot lets us into Prufrock's world for an evening, and traces his progression of emotion from timidity, and, ultimately, to despair of life. He searches for meaning and acceptance by the love of a woman, but falls miserably because of his lack of self-assurance. Prufrock is a man for whom, it seems, everything goes wrong, and for whom there are no happy allowances. The emptiness and shallowness of Prufrock's "universe" and of Prufrock himself are evident from the very beginning of the poem. He cannot find it in himself to tell the woman what he really feels, and when he tries to tell her, it comes out in a mess. At the end of the poem, he realizes that he has no big role in life.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
There are a few instances in the poem that refer to Prufrock as an introverted person distinguishing him from typical people today. For instance, in the poem Prufrock says “I
“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is hardly a love song at all. That irony is clear in that the narrator’s voice is anxious, self-conscious, and depressed. It seems he has wasted his life or that life was wasted on him, and he regrets not being born as a creature that lives on the bottom of the sea. The very last lines of the poem,
Eliot, T. S. "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." Prufrock, and Other Observations. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1920. N. pag. Bartleby.com. Aug. 2011. Web. 11 Mar. 2014.
He does not ask questions such as a “Do I dare?” The poem also relates Prufrock’s shameful life to Dante’s Inferno. In regards to the fact that he is in a dark lonely place where his life has no meaning and has little sureness in himself. Dante’s is confined to hell, where Prufrock is living a lonely life within the city. Another reference to Dante’s Inferno quotes a false counselor in Hell who will tell his crime only to those he thinks will keep it a secret. Prufrock, too, would not want his story of his life to be known he wants to create “To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet” but what he has to hide is insignificant. There is also reference to the Italian renaissance painter Michelangelo with the women coming and going talk to Michelangelo, that gets you to think that these women can be those of higher class. This may be in regards to the fact that Prufrock may be afraid of the fact that he will not fit the needs of these
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.
In this passage, it's clear that Prufrock desires a woman's attention but doesn't think he will ever have it. This pessimistic outlook gives no hope at all and is just depressing.
Eliot, a modernist, wrote The Waste Land to show how people were getting more ignorant as modern advances were coming along. Eliot wanted to expose the standards of Modernism with his exact portrayals of society to highlight the reality of the real world. He asks “What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man, You cannot say, or guess, for you know only A heap of broken images” (Eliot 19-22). He utilized language as a way to remove the not as educated working class from understanding what he was talking about in his poem to show they needed more education.
This poem is considered to be “one of the most difficult poems in a difficult literary period”. The Wasteland is a poem that is said to be one of his most influential works. At first glance, critics considered the poem to be too modern, but then opinions changed as they realized the poem reflected Eliot’s disillusionment with the moral decay of World War I in Europe. T. S. Eliot in The Wasteland combines theme, style, and symbolism to explore life and death. The Wasteland was written in 1922 and is a long poem divided into five sections.
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.