T.S. Eliot exposes the reflections and emotions of J. Alfred Prufrock in this poem about his Love Song. Eliot does this in such a manner that Prufrock himself would not be capable of expressing, due to his rationale of showing the reader Prufrock’s diffidence throughout the poem. The attention of the reader is drawn from the beginning by Eliot’s utilization of an epigraph, which is a short saying or quote placed at the beginning of a writing to imply a theme. Eliot’s method of an epigraph helps create an effective way for the readers to identify and notice Prufrock’s uncertainty and lack of confidence in the poem. In lines 61-66, illustrated below, one can see the epigraph that Eliot uses, which is derived from Dante’s Inferno:
S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s'i'odo il vero,
Senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo. (61-66)
In the first stanza of the entire poem, Eliot opens up by saying, “LET us go then, you and I,” he relates to the audience as you by doing this. Therefore, whatever he states throughout this reading is addressing another individual. This is why this poem resembles that of a monologue and by comparing this poem to Dante’s Inferno, Eliot sets this apart from ordinary monologues.
Lines 13-14 & 35-36, “In the room the women come and go/ Talking of Michelangelo”, Eliot situates a scene that is categorized by these repeated verses that occur twice in the same exact format. I believe this constantly repetitive line is setting the scene of some sort of social gathering and the reference of “Michelangelo” in it could resemble that the gathering is academically related and J. Alfr...
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...l with verbal communication; however, it isn’t he himself in the setting that is illustrating the scenery. This goes back to the discussion of him speaking from another location as Dante did. Reflecting on the poem as whole made Eliot’s usage of the epigraph passage by Dante logical and fitting.
Eliot’s experiences help him to be able to write, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, in which he infers personal feelings into his disturbed shadow known as Prufrock. The relation to the epigraph in the poem is not only suitable, but it elaborates on how an uneasy and hesitant character such as Prufrock is able to relate what he is trying to articulate in a poem without being present in the scenery. This gives Eliot the advantage of writing in first person. This in addition with his unusual, subtle, and impelling method, he is able to hold the attention of his readers.
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.
The beginning of the poem is pre -empted by an excerpt from Dante's Inferno which Eliot uses to begin his exploration of Prufrock's self-consciousness. By inserting this quote, a parallel is created between Prufrock and the speaker, Guido da Montefeltro, who is very aware of his position in "hell" and his inability to escape his fate. Prufrock is also very aware of his current status, but doesn't realize until the end that he is unable to rise above it. The issue of his fate leads Prufrock to an "overwhelming question.
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 poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock has a plethora of possible interpretations. Many people argue that the poem represents a man who appears to be very introverted person who is contemplating a major decision in his life. This decision is whether or not he will consummate a relationship with someone he appears to have an attraction to or feelings for. People also debate whether or not Prufrock from the poem is typical of people today. While there are a plethora of reasons Prufrock is not typical of people today the main three reasons are he is very reserved, he overthinks most situations and he tries avoid his problems instead of solve them.
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.
In conclusion, after exploring the theme of this poem and reading it for myself, Eliot has created this persona, in industrialised England or somewhere else. A man of low self-esteem, you embark his journey as he struggles with a rational fear of being rejected by a woman. Which gives the reader sympathy to Prufrock, as he lives within his own personal
T.S. Eliot, a notable twentieth century poet, wrote often about the modern man and his incapacity to make decisive movements. In his work entitled, 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock'; he continues this theme allowing the reader to view the world as he sees it, a world of isolation and fear strangling the will of the modern man. The poem opens with a quoted passage from Dante's Inferno, an allusion to Dante's character who speaks from Hell only because he believes that the listener can not return to earth and thereby is impotent to act on the knowledge of his conversation. In his work, Eliot uses this quotation to foreshadow the idea that his character, Prufrock, is also trapped in a world he can not escape, the world where his own thoughts and feelings incapacitate and isolate him.
Eliot may well have chosen this passage for its eccentricities, and it succeeds in creating a powerful and provoking parody, as well as being a very good contrast to other parts of The Wasteland, poetically, including the very next part, which is more modern, and simple. It is also interesting that Eliot chose to almost blend the Shakespeare in with other more ordinary bits of literature - the passage begins with only slight changes to the words of Enobarbus’ speech, but soon becomes considerably different to the original Shakespeare.
In the poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” T.S Eliot uses a man named Prufrock to describe the uncertainties in life and how they affect a person views. Prufrock does not have the confidence to give or receive love. There is an equally amount of unhappiness to the concept of time and space. He is unsatisfied with life and with the decisions to think rather than act. He claims that there will be much time to do things in the social world. Prufrock is more of an anti-hero that is controlled by fear. T.S Eliot uses tone, allusions, and imagery to explain a man’s inability to make decisions and his own self confidence in life in which he is afraid of the outlook of his future by being misunderstood.
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.
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.
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
Prufrock’s insecurities make him feel like an outsider. “In the room the women come and go talking of Michelangelo.” He wants to approach the young
One of T.S. Eliot’s earliest poems, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, is a prime example of a text that takes a turn inwards in terms of conveying the experience it presents. The poem provides a look into the distressed mind of an archetypal modern man of the times. It does this using the speaker’s stream of consciousness presented as a dramatic monologue. Prufrock, the poem’s speaker, seeks to advance his relationship with a woman who has caught his eye. He wonders if he has “the strength to force the moment to its crisis” (Eliot, 80). Prufrock is so entrenched in self-doubt that he is uncertain whether he is capable of having a relationship with this woman. His knowledge of the world he lives in and his circumstances keep him from attempting to approach this prospective lover. He contemplates the reasons for which he believes he cannot be with her and scolds himself for even thinking that it was possibl...
T. S. Eliot's poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" reveals the unvoiced inner thoughts of a disillusioned, lonely, insecure, and self-loathing middle-aged man. The thoughts are presented in a free association, or stream of consciousness style, creating images from which the reader can gain insight into Mr. Prufrock's character. Mr. Prufrock is disillusioned and disassociated with society, yet he is filled with longing for love, comfort, and companionship. He is self-conscious and fearful of his image as viewed through the world's eye, a perspective from which he develops his own feelings of insignificance and disgust. T. S. Eliot uses very specific imagery to build a portrait of Mr. Prufrock, believing that mental images provide insight where words fail.