Poetry; T.S.

Eliot

To be acutely conscious is a disease, a real, honest-to-goodness disease. Dostoevsky, Notes from the
Underground
The complex network of references: historical references & illusions.
The title of the collection: Prufrock and Other Observations: impressions not expressions
(chosen on purpose): he is influenced by the symbolists.
An objective approach (=/= the romantics): Eliot, as a philosopher and a poet, was for a
return to objective poetry (influence of Jacques Maritain & Neo-Thomism)
Objective poetry: the artist is not there to express his personal ideas. The voice of the
poet is limited; poetry is an expression of something larger than the poet.
Classicism (= no distinction between the craftsman and the artist) =/= Renaissance (=
the emergence of the subject)
Eliots poetry is a reworking of Medieval art + poetry that combines emotions & the intellect +
poetry as a form of knowledge + the poet as a catalyst.
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock:
The title refers to a model, a love song, to simply move away from it. BUT, he reminds us of
the lyrical model.
I: dramatic monologue; one of the features of postmodernism.
The self-conscious poet: conscious of the tradition; poetry about the medium itself
A form of poetic expression which is aware of its artificiality: the fact that it is mediated
through language.
Eliots poetry is also about poetry itself: metapoetry.

From the beginning of the poem, the mood of incongruity prevails; the name J. Alfred
Prufrock give an impression of a character from the bourgeoisie class + a person who is not
the poet + a language that borrows a lot from common speech (components of the poem that
the poet uses from a distance)
Parodies in the poem: in contrary to what the title suggests, there is no love song!
The use of you: involving the reader (found in Joyces, Woolfs works)
Let us go you and I refers to the impersonal nature of the modern citizen: outcome of the
new historical situation that is also related to the rise of the metropolis.
The use of a generalized you:
1) =/= romanticism & 18th century readers + an impersonal statement of the modern
individual + universal anonymity: existential equality.
2) It is considered as a form of alienation: the poet addressing an indefinite reader.
The modern individual has become more abstract; the you becomes a reference to you and
others.
The history of thought during the last century:
1- the history of abstraction: related to the dissolution of the old social fabrics. E.g.
democracy is an abstract notion which is prevailing now. We are heading towards the
idea of the pure individual; neither man, nor woman: the ideal citizen is a citizen of no
attributes (any form of difference = inequality, hence, the abstraction of I and you).
2- Democracy as the political mask of Capitalism.
Let us go, then, you and I: The process which has led to this decision is absent: thought
seems to have already taken place. This may be an act of surrender.
When the evening is spread out against the sky/ Like a patient etherized upon a
table;: the image of the night is romantic, but then he compares it to a patient etherized
upon a table.
Combining a romantic invitation with an image of death: this highlights the distance
between the poem and romanticism.
spread out: someone already did the action: drawing the attention to the presence of a
universal agent who carries out the action + contributes to the mood of paranoia that Prufrock
finds himself subject to.
The image of the sky & the earth is a reflection on what is happening on earth (1917: WWI)
The use of contrastive juxtaposition (putting two things in opposition/ conflict): pervasive in
modernism:
oLet us go vs. patient etherized upon a table: movement versus sloth; oscillation
between action & inaction/ between courage & cowardice.
We are given the impression that the struggle is within Prufrock himself/ against himself.

The sexual question of insidious intents: anxiety towards sexuality and women.
Self-consciousness: this is Prufrocks problem; he is excessively aware of what others think of
him.
Alienation: the metropolis is the background of the poem: muttering retreats: the
opportunity to experiment artistically and socially (exploring brothels)
Exploring ones psyche/perversities: a recognition of the doubleness
This ambivalence is at the heart of the poem: a doubling produced by being self-
conscious.
Streets that follow like a tedious argument/ Of insidious intent: exploring the
depth of, both, the individual and the city.
Prufrock is a man of ideals but he thinks that he is not worthy of these ideals, this is why
immediately after the invitation, this fragmented modern self appears; he finds himself going
to half-deserted streets.
Oh, do not ask, what is it?: the experience is too complex to be expressed in words.
This is not a poetry that says things, it is a poetry that shares experience (one has to go
through the experience).
The it refers to the question: vague + you and I: also, vague: a modern atmosphere.
Love for Prufrock is much more than love itself!
The title subverts the expectations of the reader.

In the room the women come and go/ Talking of Michelangelo: the poem wavers
between introspection (moments of solitude) and description of whats happening around the
persona: a full self-consciousness.
The women stand for this refined society and Prufrock is aware of them.
The fundamental discrepancy between individualism and society.
Inner life versus social life; individualism versus social requirements: a society that
celebrates individualism and tortures the individual.
The speaker is longing for a form of unity but it seems that this unity is beyond his reach. This
analytical poem tries to explore the recesses of the poets self + it tries to explore the schism
of the self.
A psychological poem.
 A typically modern split between idealism and the psychological reality of the self in a
manner very similar to what Dostoevsky have done.
The poem is a criticism of the unified self of Romanticism. What Prufrock seeks to achieve is
complete unity between the outside and the inside of being one person. In the poem, this
attempt to achieve unity comes in the form of temptation to face society and oppose it,
openly. However, this only gives us an idea about the speakers aspirations which he cannot
establish because he is too preoccupied with what society thinks of him; this is the
psychological predicament of the modern man.
If modern works of literature have become more concerned with psychological matters, it is
because of the splits in the modern individuals self (a new historical situation).
Society can no longer protect the individual and the splits between the social position and the
individuals psychological state has become great: Do I dare/ Disturb the universe? is
an assertion of the personal knowledge around, however, this knowledge is of no use.

It is impossible to say just what I mean! / But as if a magic lantern threw the
nerves in patterns/ on a screen:
Fragmentation as an attribute of the modern experience: related to the individuals inability to
endow the world with meaning is embodied in the poetic discourse itself through the choppy
nature (fragmentation) of the poems structure.
The simultaneous projection of contradictory emotions and thoughts gives the poem a
synchronic dimension. The there is no obvious development in the presentation of theme. This
is why we speak of synchronicity.
Prufrock uses the image of nerves which itself is one part of the reification of experience
(objectification). Prufrock is unable to perceive things in their totality; he sees arms, fingers,
likewise, his perception is reduced to nerves.
The use of nerves centers poetic creation in consciousness and not in emotions (not the heart
but the brain). This is a departure from the romantic paradigm and the typical modernist
attributes that give more prominence to the experience of consciousness than to sensibility;
consciousness and not feelings.
This is what Eliots poetry shares with almost all modernist works, especially in novels.

This frame of consciousness is greater than the past, in other words, it has become more
difficult for Prufrock and for the modern individual to fathom the world around him and this is
the main manifestation of what we call: alienation.
There is an illusion in the poem to the romantic paradigm and the difference between nature
for the romantics and nature for Prufrock:
For the romantics, nature was a refuge/ a shelter. Wordsworth starts Tintern Abbey for
instance, with a contrast between nature and the city. Chaos and turmoil are associated with
the city and harmony is associated with nature.
In Eliots poem, we find references to nature but they are meant to emphasize the degree to
which nature itself has become alien.
I should have been a pair of ragged claws/ Scuttling across the floors of silent
seas.: nature in the form of silent seas is also a refuge, but it can only be a refuge at the
expanse of the speakers virality because he becomes an animal with ragged claws.
This is related to the idea of shame, but it also means something else: the price for
nature being a shelter is the speakers reification; he becomes an animal.
The poet/ the speaker does not recover his humanity in nature (as in romantic poetry), he
rather becomes an animal. So, his natural self is as unfathomable as his cultural/ human
self.
The romantic period was largely based on Rousseaus distinction between two selves; the
natural self, and the artificial self. Romantics and philosophers of the 18 th century (the age of
the noble savage) established the idea that there was a natural self, covered by layers of
falsehood and that natural self could be regained through a reconciliation with nature.
The age of romanticism was the age of the glorification of nature and not the natural self.
This can be related to the rejection of the Christian doctrine of original sin which started
to look old-fashioned because the state of nature is considered as a state of purity.
(during the 19th century as well, this idea was prevailing. Marx believed in a community of
natural human beings in which private property does not exist.)
The modernists and Eliot, emphasize the illusionary nature of this escape to nature. The
natural self as portrayed by Prufrock is an animal, a crab with ragged claws. There is no such
thing as a man recovering his humanity in nature.
Nature is as inaccessible as the world at large. There is no compensation offered by
nature.
The difference between Eliots personification of nature and the romantics:
The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-/ panes,: + And the
afternoon, the evening sleeps so peacefully! / Smoothed by long fingers, / Asleep
tiredor it malingers, + the image of the raged claws:
1. The romantic would personify nature, thus transforming it into an extension of the human
subject. Human feelings would be expressed by natural elements. Nature becomes the
mouthpiece (e.g. Shelleys Ode to the West Wind where the wind stands for human
progress). The shift from the human to the natural does not hinder our understanding of
the image because in both cases the subject remains human. Nature becomes an
extension of human personality and can continue the production of meaning in the same
fashion. For instance, when Shelly asks the wind to rise, the wind becomes the speaker.

2. However, Eliot uses and abuses the romantic paradigm: the fog becomes a cat, but it
becomes more difficult to interpret natural action in terms of human will. It becomes more
difficult to understand what the poet really means through personification. Natural action
becomes autonomous, it breaks free from human will. It is no longer an extension of
human will. the evening sleeps so peacefullyor it malingers: giving the
impression that the speaker is being fooled by the evening.

Not only is nature a stranger now, but nature is also probably one of those elements
conspiring against the individual.
For the romantics, the transition through personification (from the human to the natural)
is esthetic but when it comes to the meaning of the transition we can still see that it is
the poet acting through nature (The west wind in Shelleys poem is an aggrandized
version of Shelley).
With Prufrock, in the process of the personification, nature seems to slip from the speakers
grasp and to take an autonomous existence. The poet can no longer project his emotions on
nature. Nature, now, has an existence on its own. Likewise, the image of the yellow fog
becoming a cat cuts all ties with the speaker. But, in terms of mood, the link always remains;
the mood of sloth and lethargy.
Nature itself becomes alien. This is why the poet uses and abuses natural images. He
uses the natural image to remind us of the romantic paradigm, and he abuses natural
images to remind us that nature can no longer provide the individual with shelter.
In romanticism, personification is a double process, we move from the human to the natural;
but in the poem, when the speaker says Smoothed by long fingers; the evening is affected
by human action.
 Nature is cut from any paradigm of human meaning; meaning slips and this adds to the
speakers alienation. This is why nature becomes a refuge only at the expense of
speakers humanity (the process of reification; Marxist: reification as the highest degree
of alienation).
Personification itself is affected by fragmentation. It can no longer yield a unified experience,
by which subject and object (the speaker and nature) are united in a common meaning (as in
romantic poetry).
Meaning seems to be completely lost.

What ensues from fragmentation is that the poet is no longer in control of his text, hence, the
important role played by the reader in modernist text. The reader is no longer a passive
receiver of the message, prepared by the author (the source of authority in the text). This
justifies the significance of let us go, then, you and I.
We are beyond the image of the god-like author in control of his text; mastering all of its
components and offering all of its preconceived meaning to the reader; a readerly-text as
termed by Roland Barthes (as opposed to the writerly text).
The you is the reader who is asked to play an active role in the construction of meaning.

This fragmentation is related to the fragmentation of experience itself. The modernist poet
can no longer claim to be in possession of any kind of truth.
What the poet brings is rather an experience which has a universal dimension, but it
reflects truth as a broken mirror would reflect an object (fragments). Eliot speaks of a a
heap of broken images.
As the speaker has his own fragments of truth, the reader too has his and what is universal in
this experience, is not just its emotional content but also its intellect.