Frequently called the first Modernist verse form. “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” was published in the esteemed American diary Poetry in June 1915. About the Poem: The verse form centres on the feelings and ideas of the eponymic talker ( the slightly neurotic Prufrock ) as he walks through the streets of London path to run into a adult female for tea. He is sing a inquiry ( possibly. loosely. the significance of life. or. more narrowly. a proposal of matrimony ) . Far more than merely the “love song” of a romantic. agonized immature adult male. the verse form explores the Modernist disaffection of the person in society. Thomas Stearns Eliot. 1888 – 1965

Born into a comfortable Midwestern household. Eliot attended Harvard and so went on to analyze at Oxford. Although born an American. Eliot married an Englishwoman. gave up his American citizenship. and lived most of his life in London. Eliot made his life as a instructor. a banker. and an influential literary critic. He popularized the modernist manner of thought and authorship. In fiction. modernism was represented by the blunt pragmatism of such authors as Ernest Hemingway. but in poesy this new esthesia was rather different. The Imagists. including Eliot’s close friend and fellow poet. Ezra Pound. believed in the slogan. “No thoughts but in things. ” in other words. the image is most of import. the significance secondary.

Modernists embraced free poetry ( no habitue rime strategy or metre ) and freedom of idea ( frequently their authorship questioned accepted thoughts and societal norms ) . This anti-traditional and anti-romantic tendency began before World War I ; nevertheless the unprecedented loss of humanity during the war accelerated the popularisation of modernism. The war caused many people to review their old beliefs in faith and the unconditioned goods of world. and one extremist subdivision of modernism. known as Dada. claimed that the lone legitimate emotion left was disgust. “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. ” An Overview

The full verse form. “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is an interior soliloquy based on the traditional dramatic soliloquy. a solo address that frequently puts into words the speaker’s interior convulsion. as in Hamlet’s celebrated “To be or non to be” monologue. Prufrock frequently alludes to Shakespeare’s Hamlet. but admits. “I am non Prince Hamlet. ” He has no such expansive semblances. His ideas and feelings tend to be low and full of diffidence. He worries non approximately “outrageous luck. ” as Hamlet does. but about turning old and being rejected by a adult female. Critically Analyzing the verse form:

Contrary to what the rubric implies. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. by T. S. Eliot. is anything but a love vocal. It is alternatively rather the antonym. Although the verse form is unfastened to several readings. after careful reading of the verse form. the several implicit in subjects can be expressed by one cardinal thought. In the verse form. the storyteller. J. Alfred Prufrock. portrays his letdown with the society he lives in. By construing facets of imagination. talker and intended audience. one can easy measure Prufrock’s positions of life. His reading of mundane life can be described as a vacant. bleak. and insistent. Early on in the verse form. Eliot creates a scene that does non look really ask foring. Prufrock describes his environing on an flushing out with phrases that insinuate melancholy and depression. In line 6. Prufrock describes the dark as “restless” and says that the streets are “tedious statements of insidious intent” . From this the reader can deduce a certain discontentedness that Prufrock has with his milieus.

He refers to his. and his companions’ . finish as “one-night inexpensive hotels and sawdust eating houses with oyster-shells” . Even though these descriptions leave the reader merely about 10 lines into the verse form. we already have a feeling of restlessness and dissatisfaction from Prufrock about his life. As the verse form continues. the reader is bombarded with even more imagery that conveys Prufrock’s discontentedness with his milieus. Prufrock negotiations of the “yellow fog” that “rubs its dorsum upon the window-panes” and the “yellow fume that rubs its muzzle on the window panes” . He besides mentions the “soot that falls from chimneys” . Subsequently on in the verse form. Prufrock refers to smoke once more while depicting the streets he is walking on. All this imagination leaves the reader feeling that the topographic point Prufrock is at is dark and brumous and non at all welcoming. Among the feelings that Prufrock expresses in this verse form. no feeling comes across more clearly than his feeling of restlessness and otiose clip.

We get the feeling that Prufrock. who is aging. would make things otherwise if given another opportunity. In lines 49-54. Prufrock asserts his overall ennui with life. He says he has “known them all already. known them all-have known the eventides. forenoons. afternoons” . From this we can deduce that Prufrock seems to experience as if his life is over and he has no more to offer. He makes statements similar to this throughout the verse form. He proclaims to hold known “the eyes that hole you in a formulated phrase” and the “arms that are bracleted and white and bare” . We get more of a sense of Prufrock’s disenchantment of life with his many mentions to clip. In lines 24-34. he claims there is clip to “meet faces” . “murder and create” . hold a “hundred indecisions” and a “hundred visions and revisions” .

It is non as though Prufrock is making this in a hopeful mode. though. Alternatively we get the feeling that he is reflecting on clip as if it is plentiful merely if you take advantage of it and possibly he feels he did non Another facet of this verse form that is of import is the reading of it is the talker and the audience. Although the audience is ne’er clearly identified. several premises can be made. It seems as though Prufrock is merely reflecting on life to himself. He makes several statements that would let a reader to get at this decision. Throughout the verse form. he asks several rhetorical inquiries of himself. In line 62. he asks “and how should I assume? ” . He asks himself the same inquiry once more in line 68 and so follows with another “and how should I get down? ” . These inquiries lead the reader to believe that the verse form represents Prufrock’s inner-thoughts about life. This is of import to see because if the audience was anyone but Prufrock himself. the verse form would more than probably take a really different class.

Once you get past the initial misconceptions about the verse form due to its deceptive rubric. you can easy see that this is a verse form about what happens if you do non do the most of your life. Prufrock is a character that we all can larn something from. Through an reading of this verse form. one can presume that even though a person’s life may look to be normal and in fact successful. sometimes that individual may hold a wholly different position of their ain life. From the verse form we can reason that Prufrock’s life was like many others during the clip it was written. It talks of parties. imbibing. and lovely ladies. This did non. nevertheless. convey his felicity. As he aged. Prufrock was left really disenchanted with his life. In the terminal. he discusses how he will act in his old age and eventually describes decease as what can be interpreted as drowning in the sea.

“The Love vocal of J. Alfred Prufrock. ” by T. S. Eliot is about a adult male who is seeking for something to interrupt him for the dull life that he has been taking. In the beginning. the talker invites us to travel with Prufrock and come into his universe with the statement “Let us travel so. you and I. ” Throughout the verse form. the reader is following the talker throughout an eventide seeking for the credence of a adult female. Because of his deficiency of confidence. he fails to happen the significance and credence of his love. Prufrock is a timid adult male. He is highly witting of what others think of him and this has a great consequence of his actions. He has jobs with talking what he feels and this is demonstrated when he “prepare ( s ) a face to run into the faces that ( he ) meet ( s ) . ” He besides highly self-aware with his visual aspect and thinks that people talk about what he looks like and what he wears. Other’s sentiment of Prufrock fusss him so much so that he does non desire to “disturb the universe” by doing an entryway into it.

Finally. the last portion of the verse form. Prufrock show’s his concluding desperation in life. He can non convey himself to state the adult female that he is in love with how he truly feels. However. if he of all time did make up one’s mind to state her. it would come out as a muss. He finds himself with no existent function in life. He is no “Prince Hamlet. nor was he meant to be. ” but instead an “attendant Godhead. ” or sometimes “the Fool. ” He hears the mermaids vocalizing. but he thinks: “I do non believe they will sing to me. ” In the terminal. Prufrock feels left out of society. and can non happen his ain topographic point in the existence.

As an old adult male on the beach. looking out into the ocean. he inquiries if he did the right thing. But he missed everything. all because he was scared. He realizes that he has been populating in an fanciful universe. When this world hits him. he drowns psyche and all. This verse form has ever been a favourite of mine because the subject of can use to the universe as a whole. Each of us can sometime happen ourselves seeking for where we belong in the existence. but are afraid to move on our ain desires because of the possible results. In the terminal. we have to do our move. and non fear rejection so much so that we pass up an chance of a life-time.

Decision:

The talker of this dry soliloquy is a modern adult male who. like many of his sort. feels isolated and incapable of decisive action. Irony is evident from the rubric. for this is non a conventional love vocal. Prufrock would wish to talk of love to a adult female. but he does non hold the nervus. The verse form opens with a quoted transition from Dante’s INFERNO.

“If I thought that my answer would be to one who would return to the universe. this fire would remain without farther motion ; but since none has of all time returned alive from deepness. if what I hear is true. I answer you without fright of opprobrium. ” .

Meaning that Prufrock speaks merely because he knows no 1 will pay attending to him and he won’t be heard. Purfrock repeats certain phrases to clew the reader in that they are portion of the narrative. “You and I” in the first line. propose that you must be with him to understand his narrative