The Use of Imagery in Preludes by T.S. Eliot
In T.S. Eliot's poem "Preludes" he portrays the world as a dark and depressing with no future. His Imagery is sharp and clear and he exercises many techniques. He uses literal imagery, which is a clear description of what something is, so it can pictured it in the mind. His word choice is a big factor in that he uses words that bring a certain picture to the mind, he also describes humans by their body parts or their presence. His unique syntax and use of rhythm also heighten the effects of his poetry. His attitude towards this world is summed up in the last two stanzas. Eliot's imagery achieves its effect through his use of literal imagery, word choice, descriptions of the human influence, syntax, and rhythm. His attitude is one of total indifference, towards this world.
Eliot uses literal imagery in "Preludes". He doesn't use vague or hard to picture images. Since it is impossible to picture to picture "tasting desire", he would never use, "From what I have tasted of desire" which is from Robert Frost's poem "Fire and Ice". He uses descriptions like "[t]he faint stale smells of beer" (15). This image clearly brings a smell to your mind. His word choice is a big part of this. He uses words that bring clear pictures to the mind. For Example, the words "[W]ithered leaves"(7) gives a clear sharp image, as does, "... grimy scraps" (6).
Eliot also uses an interesting syntax in his poem. He makes inanimate objects the subject of his sentences, for example "The winter evening settles down / With smell of steaks in passageways." (1-2). He makes the winter evening the subject of the sentence, not the human presence. In "[o]f withered leaves about your feet / and newspapers fr...
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...sk since the beginning so why should he try to change it.
Eliot created a world full of images of dirt, ugliness and dankness. He uses many forms of imagery to get this across to the reader. He uses syntax, rhythm, description of the people's extremities and presence, word choice and literal imagery. His attitude though towards the world is very much indifference to it. T.S. Eliot wrote about a world that is solemn and hopeless. He creates such strong emotions in readers that they can feel the hopelessness of the world, through his imagery. His imagery makes the poem and should not be over looked.
Bibliography:
Work Cited
Eliot, T.S. "Preludes." Twentieth-century Poetry and Poetics. 4th ed. Ed. Gary Geddes. Toronto: Oxford, 1996.
Frost Robert "Fire and Ice." Twentieth-century Poetry and Poetics. 4th ed. Ed. Gary Geddes. Toronto: Oxford, 1996.
...ictures for the reader. The similar use of personification in “Snapping Beans” by Lisa Parker and the use of diction and imagery in “Nighttime Fires” by Regina Barreca support how the use of different poetic devices aid in imagery. The contrasting tones of “Song” by John Donne and “Love Poem” by John Frederick Nims show how even though the poems have opposite tones of each other, that doesn’t mean the amount of imagery changes.
Everett, Nicholas From The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-century Poetry in English. Ed. Ian Hamiltong. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994. Copyright 1994 by Oxford University Press.
Eliot, T.S. “Preludes” T.S. Eliot: Selected Poems. Orlando, Florida: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1958. 22-4.
The most obvious stylistic device used by Eliot is that of personification. She uses this device to create two people from her thoughts on old and new leisure. The fist person is New Leisure, who we can infer to be part of the growth of industry in the 19th century. He is eager and interested in science, politics, and philosophy. He reads exciting novels and leads a hurried life, attempting to do many things at once. Such characteristics help us to create an image of New Leisure as Eliot sees him.
Each literary work portrays something different, leaving a unique impression on all who read that piece of writing. Some poems or stories make one feel happy, while others are more solemn. This has very much to do with what the author is talking about in his or her writing, leaving a bit of their heart and soul in the work. F. Scott Fitzgerald, when writing The Great Gatsby, wrote about the real world, yet he didn’t paint a rosy picture for the reader. The same can be said about T.S. Eliot, whose poem “The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock,” presents his interpretation of hell. Both pieces of writing have many similarities, but the most similar of them all is the tone of each one.
T.S. Eliot had very philosophical and religious meanings behind this poem, and that helped me relate personally very well with this work of his. He used allusions to other poems, letting me make connections with works I have read before. He also used inclusive language and had the same opinion as me portrayed in this work. Based on these, T.S. Eliot has convinced me of his messages in this poem, as well as made this by far my favorite of his.
Ferguson, Margaret W., Salter, Mary J., and Stallworthy, Jon. The Norton Anthology of Poetry. fifth ed. N.p.: W.W. Norton, 2005. 2120-2121. 2 Print.
Imagery is one of the many ways Edgar Allen Poe used to convey his message. At the beginning of the poem, the reader can instantly recognize imagery. A man is sitting in his study trying to distract himself from the sadness of a woman who has left him.
Throughout Preludes, the structural element of time is portrayed through images and sensations associated with daily actions. Points in time are made obvious through meaningless tasks; early mornings are defined by the raising of dingy shades and evenings by the "smells of steaks in passageways," (T.S.Eliot: The Complete Poems and Plays [CPP], 12) and the lighting of the lamps. As the initial stanza begins, we are aware that evening is upon us. The notion of scheduled action is made through the reference of, "Six o’clock," (CPP, 12). Images of poverty and lower class filth set the scene and allude to "the burnt-out ends of smoky days," (CPP, 12) painting a disgusting picture of society’s surroundings. Deepening the feeling of emptiness, there stands a "lonely cab-horse," (CPP, 12) the first notion of actual emotion on a street of meaningless leaves and newspaper.
The recurring sensory images that Eliot uses appeal to the reader’s fear of the loss
Ellmann, Richard and O'Clair, Robert, ed. The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry, Second Edition. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1988.
“In Tradition and the Individual Talent”, T.S. Eliot affirms that the greatest writers are those who are conscious of the writers who came before, as if they write with a sense of continuity. T.S Eliot addresses literary tradition as well as poetic tradition, and states that it is important to focus on “significant emotion, emotion which has its life in the poem and not in the history of the poet” (18). In this sense, the importance of tradition in poetry relies on the fact that a poet must be aware of the achievements of his predecessors, for, as we shall see in the case of Stevens and Ashbery, “the emotion of art is impersonal. And the poet cannot reach this impersonality without surrendering himself wholly to the work to be done. And he is not likely to know what is to be done unless he lives in what is not merely the present, but the present moment of the past, unless...
Moody, Anthony David. The Cambridge Companion to T.S. Eliot. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1994. 121. Print.
...required a reinvention of poetics and the very use and meaning of language. Since the modern period is said to extend to this day (it's debated whether it's post-modern or not, since both elements survive), any final say on the matter is difficult. 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.
...mpossible to overstate Eliot's influence or his importance to twentieth-century poetry. Through his essays and especially through his own poetic practice, he played a major role in establishing the modernist conception of poetry: learned, culturally allusive, ironic, impersonal in manner (but, in his case, packed with powerful reserves of private feeling), organized by associative rather than logical connections, and difficult at times to the point of obscurity. But, despite the brilliance and penetration of his best essays, Eliot could not have accomplished so wholesale a revolution by precept alone. First and last, it was through the example of his own superb poetry that he carried the day, and the poetry will survive undiminished as his critical influence waxes and wanes, and as the details of his career recede into literary history.