The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot
The poetry of the modernist movement is characterized by an emphasis on the alienation of the individual from the broader community in which he or she exists. In the works of T. S. Eliot, this alienation is expressed as a symptom of spiritual and moral decay within communities, societies, and entire civilizations. Eliot’s modernism, which was strongly influenced by his conversion to Anglo-Catholicism, is a harsh critique of the pervasive self-obsession of the modern secular world.
In any discussion of modernist poetry, it is crucial to remember that technology was advancing at a rapid pace during the beginning of the twentieth century. Mechanical inventions, from electric lights and motorcars to indoor plumbing, had brought the standard of living in Western cultures to unprecedented heights. At the same time, however, a generation had witnessed the cataclysmic carnage of World War I. The “war to end all wars” introduced mankind to machine guns, tanks, and poison gas. The same technology that had supplied comforts to civilian life had also killed millions in a conflict over scraps of land. Modern man entered the 1920s shell-shocked and questioning what human life was really worth, since it had been proven to be so disposable.
In a poem written at the beginning of World War I, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," T. S. Eliot expresses modern man’s sense of existential isolation, and scorns the narcissism of the age, which he sees as a principal cause of this isolation. The very title of the poem is a grotesque joke. “J. Alfred Prufrock” is an unlikely appellation for one who would sing a love song. The name connotes images of a pedant in a stuffy ...
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...e has failed to instill values in its members, so individuals have retreated within themselves. The ego has become our idol. The problem with egotism, though, is not only that it is seen as evil in traditional Christian theology, but that it is useless to a person who has an inferiority complex. Prufrock, the quintessential “modern man,” clearly has an inferiority complex because he constantly requires validation from outside himself. His egotism, therefore, is impotent, as is the value system on which it is based.
Works Cited
Cousineau, Thomas J. Lectures on T. S. Eliot. Sept., Oct. 2005. Washington College, Daly Hall, Room 106.
Eliot, Thomas Stearns. “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry. 3rd ed. Ed. Jahan Ramazani, Richard Ellmann, and Robert O’Clair. New York: Norton, 2003. 463-466.
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.
Elliot, George, and Gordon Sherman. Haight. Selections from George Eliot's Letters. New Haven [Conn.: Yale UP, 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.
Modernist Poetry involves a movement away from the self and the emotions of the individual. Typically, the focus of Modernist poetry revolves around the rational notions of the self, unlike the Romantic period, which focused on the poet. Modernist poets ex...
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.
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
Thomas Stearns Eliot was not a revolutionary, yet he revolutionized the way the Western world writes and reads poetry. Some of his works were as imagist and incomprehensible as could be most of it in free verse, yet his concentration was always on the meaning of his language, and the lessons he wished to teach with them. Eliot consorted with modernist literary iconoclast Ezra Pound but was obsessed with the traditional works of Shakespeare and Dante. He was a man of his time yet was obsessed with the past. He was born in the United States, but later became a royal subject in England. In short, Eliot is as complete and total a contradiction as any artist of his time, as is evident in his poetry, drama, and criticism.
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 entire poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” deals with one man’s total inability to be a part of any successful relationship with the opposite sex. Eliot portrays Prufroc...
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, 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.
Life in modern society was endured rather than lived. The lives of individuals in modern society were bound by routine, lacking originality and meaning, which saw them to turn to spiritually and emotionally corruptive influences in order to withstand the endless and morbid cycle of home and work which was their lives. This is the vision of life in modern society created by TS Eliot in his work ‘Preludes’. Modernism was characterised by the growth of capitalism and consumerism, as spurred on by the industrial revolution, intermingled with the shock and devastation of WW1. The emphasis of material gain over originality, the sacrifice of meaning to the pursuit of commodities, as well as the subversion of gender roles, with women replacing absent soldiers in the workforce, such betrayals of tradition influenced anglophile TS Eliot, through foreboding imagery and the fragmented style of his work, to challenge the deterioration of society at the hands of modernism. Through the unnamed and somewhat distant persona of ‘Preludes’ Eliot applies a torturous fate to all members of modern society, reflecting Eliot’s resolute conclusion that no substantial achievements could be made in a society that lacked traditional modes of art, politics, economics or religion.
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.