"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"
The dramatic monologue “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock was written by Thomas Stearns Eliot and published in June of 1915. Eliot was born in St Louis, Missouri on September 26, 1888, where he grew up and lived until the age of eighteen. After high school, Eliot studied at Harvard University in Cambridge, MA and the Sorbonne in Paris, France. Eventually, Eliot ended up in England where he married his wife Vivien and spent the remainder of his life.
Throughout his college years, Eliot was active in the writing of literature, even having some of his early poetry published in the Harvard Advocate. In England, Eliot met and befriended fellow expatriate Ezra Pound, who was very impressed with the quality of Eliot’s work. Pound encouraged Eliot to publish his poetry professionally and “The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock” appeared in the June 1915 edition of Poetry. T. S. Eliot is widely recognized as a literary genius and a pioneer of the Modernist movement in literature (T.S. Eliot).
The Modernist Movement ushered in the twentieth century and artists of all genres wanted to create in a new and modern way to express themselves. The early twentieth century was a time of new beginnings; the world was becoming a more industrialized and urban place. People everywhere wanted a new fresh perspective in life and art. Life was faster and artists wanted to shake off the confines of the Victorian Age and let their art reflect the world around them in a more realistic way.
T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound played an important part in the creation of the Modernist Literature movement. .The “real life” aspect of the Modernist Movement changed the arts by
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In the last stanza, Prufrock is with the mermaids who have rejected him, but he is okay with that, it’s what he is used to. Prufrock imagines himself as being part of an undersea world where he can hide from humanity. Time, age and bald spots don’t matter in this place, Prufrock is able to drift along and he even mentions drowning (l.131). Prufrock wants to escape from his mundane existence, but he really doesn’t have the motivation to test his comfort level and change things.
Works Cited
Eliot, T. S. “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” Inside Literature, Reading, Responding, Arguing. Ed. R. S. Gwynn & Stephen Zani. New York. Penguin. 2007. 996-1000. Print.
"Eliots The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." N.p., 28 Feb. 2014. Web. 01 Mar. 2014.
"T. S. Eliot." Poets.org. Academy of American Poets, 28 Feb. 2014. Web. 26 Feb. 2014.
"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.
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.
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.
Because of Eliot’s economic status, he attended only the finest schools while growing up. He attended Smith Academy in St. Louis and Milton Academy in Massachusetts. In 1906, he started his freshman year at Harvard University studying philosophy and literature. He received his bachelor’s degree in philosophy in only three years. Eliot went on to study at the University of Oxford and also at the Sorbonne in Paris. At the Sorbonne, he found inspiration from writers such as Dante and Shakespeare and also from ancient literature, modern philosophy and eastern mysticism. Eliot’s first poem he wrote was “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” in 1915. Eliot converted his religion to Anglo - Catholicism and in 1927, his poetry took on new spiritual meaning. Ash Wednesday was the first poem he wrote after his conversion in 1930. It is said that it traces the pattern of Eliot’s spiritual progress. It strives to make connections between the earthly and the eternal, the word of man and the Word of God and the emphasis is on the struggle toward belief. Thus telling us that God is part of Eliot’s American dream.
Eliot, T. S. "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" in An Introduction to Literature. Ed Sylvan Barnet et al. 13 ed. New York: Longman. 2004. 937-940.
Eliot, T.S.. "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ed. M.H. Abrams. New York: Norton, 1996.
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.
Elliot, T.S. "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." Literature: Reading, Reacting, Writing. Compact 3rd ed. Eds. Laurie G. Kirszner and Stephen R. Mandell. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace, 1997. 781-785.
...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
‘’… the vast majority of attempts to offer alternative modes of representation in literature,music,painting,film and architecturefrom the middle of the 19th century to the middle of 20th century have been termed modernist’’(Childs 6)
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.
Eliot, Thomas Stearns. "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." 1915. The Twentieth Century and Beyond. Ed. Joseph Black. Vol. 6A. Toronto: Broadview, 2008. 444-47. Print. The Broadview Anthology of British Literature.