Preludes - TS Eliot

Preludes - TS Eliot

Relevant Background

• Thomas Stearns [TS] Eliot was born in into a wealthy family in St Louis, Missouri, America in 1888

• He became a British citizen at the age of 39 in 1927.

• His father was president of a brick making company. His mother wrote poetry and was once a teacher and social volunteer. They were determined to educate Thomas well.

• TS Eliot's awareness of how differently some people lived inspired a lot of the descriptions found in ‘Preludes'.

• Through the work of his mother and grandfather TS Eliot became aware of poverty and the boring reality of peoples' lives.

• In 1917 he published ‘Preludes'. ‘Preludes' consists of four short poems, numbered I, II, III and IV.

• Some say that in ‘Preludes' Eliot tried to imagine the thoughts and observations of four badly-off city dwellers. It is possible on the other hand that he is observing a prostitute in the first three ‘Preludes' and a tramp in the fourth ‘Prelude'. This is open to discussion.

• In each prelude the Eliot reveals the thoughts and feelings of a person about an aspect of everyday living in a city. Eliot felt that life for poor city dwellers was monotonous. He felt that they suffered from boredom and a poor quality of life. In these ‘Preludes' Eliot looked at human despair and feelings of rejection and failure.

• A prelude is a short piece of music that introduces a longer piece of music. In music a prelude is sometimes referred to as an overture. In writing a short introductory piece is often called a preface.

• Perhaps the overall theme is the misery of poverty.

Summary

Prelude I

• In this short poem, a hidden observer describes dusk on a winter's evening in a poor part of a city.

• The observer is outside, obse...

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...becomes an example of onomatopoeia when it captures the rasping or scraping sound of the blown leaves as they scrape the ground. Sibilance also conveys the mood of the impatient cab horse more vividly. Sibilance is used throughout the poem—it reinforces the atmosphere of dirty secret lives.

• Rhyme There is a lot of end rhyme in the poem although it doesn't follow a strict pattern throughout. Note the irregular sequence of fifteen end sounds for ‘Prelude III': ‘ed', ‘ed', ‘ing', ‘ages', ‘ed', ‘ing', ‘ack', ‘ers', ‘ers', ‘eet', ‘ands', ‘ere', ‘air', ‘eet', ‘ands'. There is rhyme but an unclear pattern. This musically represents the confusion of life. There are also some word repetitions between lines. Take for example ‘street' between lines 33 and 34. All the sound repetitions create verbal or word music, which is very suitable for a group of poems called ‘Preludes'.