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T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
loss and disillusionment in t.s. eliot's "the love song of j alfred prufrock"
the love song of j alfred prufrock summary
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Recommended: T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
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.
First, Eliot weaves several layers of symbolism into Prufrocks’s narrative. This ambiguity shows largely through the vehicle of the yellow fog, which Eliot personifies with cat-like characteristics using phrases such as, “…rubs its back…rubs its muzzle on the window-panes” and “…curled once about the house, and fell asleep” in reference to the mist (Eliot). This feline depiction of the city smog creates an eerie setting which serves to further the tone of unsteadiness in Prufrock’s ramblings. The seeping movements of the fog also mirror the uncontrolled movements of Prufrock’s thoughts and his polluted self-concept which causes him to question his every move to no end (Childs). The smog is uncontainable and indefinable, much like Prufrock’s emotions when dependent upon his non-existent actions (Childs). In another instance, Eliot breaks up the deep, incessant wanderings of the speaker’s mind with the phrase, “In the room the women come and go talking of Michaelangelo” (Eliot). These women symbolize the society in which Pr...
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.... “Prufrock and Other Observations.” Magill’s Survey of World Literature. Web. January 2009.
Eliot, Thomas Stearns. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. Chicago: Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, 1915. Print.
Demaggio, Kenneth. “The Unknown Cloud behind the Yellow Fog: The Medieval Religious Journey in T.S. Eliot’s ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.’” The International Journal of Religion and Spirituality in Society. Vol. 2.2. Web. 2013.
Lowe, Peter. “Shelleyan Identity in T.S. Eliot’s ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” International Publication Center. P. 65-74. Web. 1999.
Campo, Carlos. “Identifying the ‘Lazarus’ in Eliot’s ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” English Language Notes. September 1994. Print.
McCormick, Frankie J. “Eliot’s ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ and Shakespear’s Hamlet.” Eastern Illinois University. P. 43-47. Print.
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.
Eliot, T.S.. "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ed. M.H. Abrams. New York: Norton, 1996. 2459-2463.
“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Elliot is the poem of a desolate man crippled with insecurity and inactivity. He lives in paralyzing fear of rejection and with a pessimistic outlook on life. Through images of an abandoned and gloomy world, pathetic descriptions of himself, and patronizing allusions,
Eliot paints a picture of the opening scene that depicts a drab neighborhood of cheap hotels and restaurants where Prufrock lives in his solitary gloom. He invites the reader to make a visit with him to a place that Prufrock imagines is filled with women having tea and engaging in conversation. Prufrock procrastinates on the visit and says, 'There will be time, there will be time / To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet:'; (lines 26-27) indicating to the reader that he is afraid of showing his real self to these participants. He further indicates his hesitation by stating, 'Time for you and ...
Eliot, T.S.. "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ed. M.H. Abrams. New York: Norton, 1996.
"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.
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 “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, T.S. Elliot writes from the point of view of a lonely, antisocial middle age man named Prufrock, introspecting on the apathetic way he feels, resulting in his inability to propose marriage. The author uses a variety of techniques in his poem to help illustrate the type of man Prufrock is and to express his indecision, lack of initiative, and monotonous attitude toward life. From the start,Prufrock claims his purpose is to ask an important question, but only continues to beat around the bush, avoiding asking the question completely. Focusing on the fifth stanza of the poem, readers can easily gather the essence of the poem’s overall purpose through the allusions, repetition and imagery he uses.
Both Browning and Eliot seek to improve upon the nature of the dramatic monologue. Browning emphasizes structure and a separation between the poet and the character which is reiterated by Eliot’s poem. Browning’s influence on Eliot can be seen by the form and structure of “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” adding working intrinsically with the theme and subject of the work. However, Eliot deviates slightly from Browning by the portrayal of his characters, and the amount of information that he is willing to share with the reader. The intended message of Browning’s poem is much more apparent than Eliot’s who creates an open ended poem that can be interpreted differently by each reader.
In modernism, fragmentation, open form, and themes of hopelessness take priority over the fixed form and meter of the previous era. It is about bold strokes and individuals whose writing style encompassed the changing world. T. S. Eliot is no exception. With his 1915 poem, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, he uses new modernist ideals as an expression of the pessimistic feelings of society and a shift away from traditional writings. With a variety of literary techniques, Eliot effectively creates a twenty-stanza poem that embodies the modernist sentiments.
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.
The poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” written by T.S. Eliot is a depiction of sadness and a disillusioned narrator. While reading this poem, one senses that the narrator is disturbed and has maybe given up hope, and that he feels he is just an actor in a tedious drama At the very beginning of the poem, Eliot uses a quote from Dante’s “Inferno”, preparing the poem’s reader to expect a vision of hell. This device seems to ask the reader to accept that what they are about to be told by the poem’s narrator was not supposed to be revealed to the living world, as Dante was exposed to horrors in the Inferno that were not supposed to be revealed to the world of the living. This comparison is frightening and intriguing, and casts a shadow on the poem and its narrator before it has even begun. J. Alfred Prufrock is anxious, self-concsious, and depressed.
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.
The absence of a complete identity and the inability be whole is what creates a line between The Love song of J Alfred Prufrock with Eliot’s other poems The Hollow Men and Portrait of a Lady. These poems work together using imagery and characters to highlight the darkness that was weighting down most people after the First World War was finished.