(The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock)
i need an explanation or comment on this poem by T.S.Eliot.
please help me.
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(The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock)
i need an explanation or comment on this poem by T.S.Eliot.
please help me.
I studied it at school- I'm not sure if it was the whole of it that we analysed, but anyway it can be a start :)
I hope you can afford to wait, i'll post here my notes as soon as i can (maybe even later tonight, or in the next days anyway).
thank you Koa for your nice responde :P . i`ll be waiting for your reply coz i really need it a,s,a,u,c.
Here I am... i'll try to get a summary out of my old school notes :)
-Each line has a different number of syllables (im not sure this is the right spelling ;))
-The 2 stanzas are not composed by the same number of lines
-No regular rhyme
-In the first stanza the fog is compared to a cat, or anyway a feline animal ('rubs', 'licked its tongue', 'lingered', 'slipped', 'made a sudden leap').
This is an unusual comparaison, as the fog is usually compared to a veil or a wall or soemthing like that ---> no traditional image (which is typical of Eliot and of that kind of modern poetry of ealry 20th century...)
---> personification of the fog, compared to an animal
The punctuation and the run-on-line reflect the movements of the cat: they make the reader stop a bit, reproducing the way cats move/walk/stop.
I don't have much on the second stanza... quickly:
line 5 (to prepare...meet): mask-afraid of other people
l.6: murder and create: opposites
l.7: long time, habit, routine, things are always the same
l.8: the question is about routine
l.9: another person appears
l.10: not sure about anything (100 indecisions)
plate (l.8 ), toast and tea---> everyday elements
Sorry i couldn't make a paragraph out of my notes so i just put them there, maybe they can give you ideas to develop your own comment.
Other random notes:
first line ('the yellow fog' etc...): Fog--> you can't see---> loneliness, imagination; you can't go out ---> isolated;
man, nostalgic, observes the weather- i think this fear of going out can be linked to the fear of other peopel conveyed by the masks of line 5 of the second stanza.
Suggests atmosphere; images; no clear explanation.
I hope this can help and even the rushed sentences can help you develop ideas or a comment or whatever you need. :)
thank you so much Koa :) ,
finally i got something to help me with this poem. hope to find you again ;)
The poem is a dramatic monologue in which Prufrock builds up a mood of social futility and inadequacy. The title implies an ironic contrast between the romantic ideas of a love song and the dull and superficial kind of love that pervades Prufrock's society. He is a lost soul. To Eliot, Prufrock represented the modern man at the time Eliot wrote the poem.
thanks alot putty, i know it`s a bit late :oops: but i had to finish my finals
What happened to the two messages of late--one asking me to follow up on Eliot's technique, and the other showing by example some of that technique? Does anybody know?
I get the impression, mainly from this poem (being the only one of his I've read) that Eliot is quite mysogynistic, as he writes twice "Here the ladies come and go / talking of Michelangelo", making them appear stupid, and foolish. Is it true that there is an element of mysogynism in a lot of Eliot's poetry?
actually, i didn`t get the meaning of (mysogynism). does it have to do with Mystagogue?
In the context of the whole poem, it seems that the line stating that ladies come and go talking of Michelangelo is another image of the artificiality and superficiality of the society Prufrock is headed toward. The ladies want to give the impression of intellectuality when they are in actuality empty-headed.
In the context of the whole poem, it seems that the line stating that ladies come and go talking of Michelangelo is another image of the artificiality and superficiality of the society Prufrock is headed toward. The ladies want to give the impression of intellectuality when they are in actuality empty-headed.
Mysogynism means "distrust or dislike of women", the gyn part creating the female part of the word (as in gynaecology). I agree with you, putty, Eliot must have despised those sort of people acting great knowledge about art, and the poem has a bit of a backlash to that society.
Yes, Munro, one of the major themes in the poem is pretentiousness. Three of the many examples. Prufrock's name with the initial only at the beginning suggests one of a high society, a person of distinction. The name "Alfred' reminds us of Alfred the great, or Alfred Lord Tennyson; the name is tradionally associated with distinction. A love song is traditionally a song of deep emotion, sincerity, truth. But when we read through the whole poem, we find all is a sham, all is phony in relation to Prufrock and the society that he seems to want to be a part of. The poem is full of contradiction and contrast--note the name Prufrock--prude and effeminity--Prufrock's whole name suggests the contraditions. Eliot's way of telling us what he means is completely through suggestions--that was Eliot's philosophic cntention of the best and only way an poetic artist could and should communicate his ideas and feelings. Prufrock is utterly confused because he can't bring his mind to separate the real from the phony.
Eliot was anti-semitic, racist, mysoginistic, &c., &c. Read 'The Waste Land' . . . it is a total waste of carbon.Quote:
Originally Posted by Munro