poetry texts, poem archive at plagiarist.com

Wilfred would obviously choose MAcavity over the Hollow Men and probably will never truly understand hysteira but this is all my opinion on his opinion.

J. Alfred Prufrock has taken on a character all his own in the years he has existed. Something more interesting though. This poem is written in the same style and tone as Desiderarta- that anonymous piece supposedly found in a church somewhere that begins. "Go placidly amidst the noise and haste and remember what peace there is in silence."

When I refer to style, I mean Eliot's writing style for the poem and its intention as an explanatory device rahter than any kind of expose of his inner self.

Style not rythm. I would hate for it to be interpreted as a reference to Iambic penatameter or tetrameter or whatever.

It is sort of like a list of dos and don't phrased in terms of Prufrock's experience.

Come on Wilfred, its brilliant.

ok so we debate how we should analyze the poem and go about it and whatnot. well i am a huge fan of the poem and love analysis, but never touched this one... simply to beautiful by itself. however, recently coming to light on how to actually read a poem (well due to another poem) i would like to share this as the way to read prufrock.... check out billy collins' poem "introduction to poetry." pretty much this is how you can read this/any poem... thought i would mention it... oh and metaphor says more than it may seem....

I have to say that i have enjoyed reading the posting here. As for analysis, it is a slippery topic.

In the past, when i have taught this poem, I have often asked my kids to choose a different simile to "the evening is spread out against the sky like a patient ehterized upon a table".

I have done this so that they might see hgow the beginning of the poem, its tone, would be changed by the substitution. Sometimes i get awful cimiles like, "the evening is spread out against the sky like butter" (!). but I have also been given, "the evening is spread out against the sky like a diamond necklace on black velvet", and it has been interesting to see what they think of the effect of the substitution.

I sympathize with those of you who think it is too beautiful a poem to "tear apart". I love reading it aloud and it still gives me goose bumps when I do, even after all this time. Having said that, I think that some things have to be explicated, things like the references to John the Baptist and Lazarus.

Anyway, i look forward to reading more comments. I have given the web site address to my class this year in the hopes that at least one of them will log on and read what is here.

Cheers
Glen

apropos of nothing and yet indicative of much (I speak into the air), I present the following for your consideration (Rod Serling redux):
when I spent a week in Rochester,
New York, visiting my oldest son while he was a student at the Eastman School of Music, the following line sprang into my head, full-blown, like Athena from the forehead of Zeus:

In the room the women come and go,
Talking of Lake Ontario.

One must murder to dissect.

Besides the poem (a 'vision'), it was really stimulating -- thus this response -- to read the comments on it ( the 're-visions'). Coming from a geographically and culturally removed space/place (India), still some way off from being fully networked (this is my first exposure to the Plagiarist site, for example) I was wonderstruck at the ease and intensity with which the voice in the poem took hold of me when it first sucked me inside the poem -- when it called me saying 'Let us go then you and I' -- twelve years ago. And today, when I read it out to my students -- batch after batch -- Prufrock possesses so many of them at merely the reading (yes, in academia, analysis -- rather, an attempt at 'understanding' -- can't be, and, with due deference to Eliot, should never be avoided). Its not true -- as some have commented -- that Prufrock is not in the poem. But then, on third thoughts, maybe it is. Prufrockesque-mood is the bitter-sweet drug that enters us surreptitiously as we lie etherised upon an aesthetic wonder of an invisible intellectual table!

Of course Prufrock is in the poem!
(although I agree- it is not a love song in the conventional sense).

I view it as a love song to his potential self, as he awaits the moment in which he will (or rather, would) take that first step beyond mediocrity.

I also agree that rhythm is very important in prufrock's works....although its not your cookie cutter, iambic crap- its his own brand of funk.

Anyway- thats my own take.
I'll admit- its been VERY interseting reading the comments on this poem

i think this poem is absolutely lovely. i've always thought i was destined to be born into a different decade and marry eliot, but that's a whole different discussion...

i agree with everyone who has said this poem has a distinctly personal meaning to everyone. however, i think that analyzing (or at least sharing different viewpoints) is crucial to one's discovery of that personal meaning.

i identify with the fact that prufrock (or eliot, if you want to take the autobiographical stance) is terrified of change. he's basically a control freak at the mercy of a changing world, a world where the only way he can control anything is taking his coffee exactly the same way every day.

i love the hope that he has towards the end. perhaps he will eat a peach. and though he is old, maybe he'll lose himself in the beauty of the beach and roll his trousers. (he's really throwing caution to the wind here). but in the end, the question remains: is he able to give up that need for control, or does he stay this way, perpetually sabotaging his personal relationships and sticking to a strict routine?

besides discussing the rhythmic quality of Prufrock, I think we also need analyzing Eliot's splendid use of imagery. I especially liked the lines in which he compares the fog of the evening to a cat(second stanza). a cat is originally an innocent animal, with a shiny look in its eyes. however, the fog by no means seems innocent. rather, it seems to have an "insidious intent." and it is dark. I believe irony is at work here. by juxtoposing these two objects, Eliot shows how desperate the night and the future seems for him. our speaker is certainly a desperate man who is extremely afraid of future. look how he describes himself: "I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas." here, again with perfect imagery, he compares himself to a crab, for crab is the only animal which walks under the sea with claws. however, he is not even the complete animal, but only the claws of it, that is; he is walking blindly and trying to figure his way out in complete silence and loneliness: under the "floors of silent seas." how strong use of imagery this is!! Eliot's lines "In the room the women come and go/Talking of Michelangelo" which at first glance seem irrelevant to the theme of the poem, has a certain kind of criticism on the modern world. ın our world, Michelangelo is only a name. at every place you may here people talking of him and his being a perfect artist.however, whether they really know about him or his works is another question. I think, by putting this fragmentary lines inside his poem, Eliot implicitly criticized those people who pretend to understand from real beauty but simply mention such artists as Michelangelo to show off. there are a lot more things to be discussed in this poem, for which time would not be enough. but these are the lines which I striked me most and I wanted to share my interpretations with people who also read and like this poem.

I am sixteen years old and I read 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock' today for the first time. So feel free to take whatever I have to say with a pinch of salt. I read the poem alone, in the solace of my Australian backgarden and i enjoyed every word of it.

I have to say though, this discussion over whether approaching T.S Eliot's work analytically, recreationally or just simply with raw emotion and instint, seems absurd to me. Poetry can be interpreted in such a plethora of ways and is therefore a different experience for every individual. For those who read Eliot's poetry in their Lit class at school, they may just as easily find the transcendental nature of his work as one whom reads Eliot's poems alone.

I think that everyone commenting on this website, should focus on what they found, and continue TO find, so numinous about Eliot's poetry, rather than the nature of interpretation itself.

The last stanza of the poem intrigues me and has haunted me all day - "We have lingered in the chambers of the sea by sea girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown till human voices wake us, and we drown."

The potential for imagination, inspiration and the ability to live simply as a sybarite rather than a cynical, broken, solitary human is shattered by the disilusionment which humanity itself has caused. We drown in the fear of our own imaginations.

As Oscar Wilde once said "illusion is the first of all pleasures." Perhaps it is also the cause of our demise, as the more cynical Eliot implies.