Modern Poetry

Handouts prepared by lnst. Arwa Aldoory

Tikrit University/ College of Education fbr Humanities

Notes on Eliot's poem "The Love song of J. Alfred prufrock"

T. S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"depicts the complex tension between a neurotic

individual and the high society he finds simultaneously attractive and repulsive. J. Alfred prufrock,

the name of a furniture dealer in Eliot's home city of St. Louis. sounds like an unlikely name to be

yoked to a love song, and indeed, his song is hardly conventional or straightforward. prufrock

speaks for all alienated individuals whose relation to the rituals. hierarchies. and sexual intrigues of
society can only. at best, be f'raught with anxious f'eelings of inadequacy and a desire to refrain fiom

contact. Society, as the epigraph hints, is a kind of hell t'rom which no one escapes. This poem is

the earliest of Eliot's major works. lt is an examination of the tortured psyche of a middle-aged

modern man who is overeducated, passive, weak, eloquent and emotionally stilted. The title is

ironic because it is neither a song nor intended to be sung. It is a realistic song of hesitation,

frustration and emotional conflict.'fhe poem embodies the setting of urban boredom. The rhetorical

phrases, the irregular rhythms and the f'ragmented style symbolize Prufrock's deep-rooted disorder.

Eliot prefaces his poem with an epigraph drawn from [)ante's lnf'erno, in which the damned soul of

Guido da Montet-eltro addresses Dante. saying he would not speak except that he knows no one

returns to the surface world from Hell. The quotation suggests a parallel between Guido and the

poem's own speakerPrufrock, as well as between Guido's listener (Dante) and the reader of ..The

Love Song." Eliot's Prufrock begins with an epigraph fiom Dante's Inflerno. At first there may seem

little in common between the inactive Prufiock and Guido rvho is condemned to Hell fbr
 committing the sin of fraud. The epigraph symbolizes Prufrok's inner lost character. prufrock
is

suffering in his own personal hell in the same way that Cuido is sutfering without
believing in the

possibility ot'any contact with the living world. Prufrok. similarly t-eels that there is no

sympathetic figure towards his own torture.

The opening line of the poem invites an unspecified o'you"

to "go then,, to an unspecified
destination. The "you" may be understood as the reader of this
confiding and depressing poem
(although it could also be taken to indicate another figure
in the poem or, perhaps, some part of
Prufrock's own fractured personality; the anxious Prufrock
does not clarify whom, exactly, he

means)'The poem as a whole is an exercise in self-revelation cast in the form of a dramatic

monologue, in the tradition of 1-enrryson and Robert Browning. However, the poem,s violent
transitions and associative alogical structure make it seem more
like an interior monologue than a
spoken one, a possibirity left open by the ambiguous antecedent
of ,,you.,,

The memorable opening lines make clear that the journey Prufrock
proposes will be through urban

streets on the way toward some social gathering. Eliot uses the metaphysical conceit to describe the

dull evening' The visual image of the evening like a patient etherized
upon a table to be examined
reflects Prufrock's own mental paralysis. He makes an invitation
to visit the commonplaces of the
city where the reality of everyday life contrasts with his evasive way
of looking ar them. After
wandering in "half deserted streets" Prufiock returns to
the polite world of the salon where there is

a party and some women come and go talking of Michelangelo. The

refrain ,,ln the room the
women come and go / Talking of Michelangelo" first hints
at the nature of the gathering. prufrock

seems to be looking ahead to the empty social chatter, replete with namedropping,
of upper-class
women he expects to encounter on his "visit." The image further compounds the speaker,s
mounting anxieties, evident from the refusal to grapple with
the "overwhelming question,, of line
 l0 (mentioned again in line 93). Their trivial conversation of art symbolizes the ironic connection

Michelangelo, the artistic hero and Prufiock with his mock-heroic character. Those women have a

trivial conversation about art. The chat of the salon establishes an ironic connection between

Michelangelo, an artistic hero, and prufrock with his mock- heroic tone.

Even when Prufrock physically attends at the salon, his mind is outside, digressing to the yellow

fog. Eliot again presents a conceit that shows his influence by the metaphysical poets: he observes

the fog in animal terms: the yellow fbg rubs its back upon the window- panes, licking its tongue

into the corners of the evening. The fbg. like Prufrock. is curious. It starts in the evening streets and

end by curling about the houses. lt makes attempts of activity. slipping by the terrace then finally

vanishes away.

The reader is then back to the salon where Prufrock is concerned with his own inactivity. "There

will be time...". The repetition of this phrase suggests the non-existence of time itself since the

passing of time is related to the world of activity and change but Prufrock's world is inactive and

unchanged. There is always time but without hope or significance.

Do I dare

Disturb the universe'l

These lines reflect the pathetic attitude of Prufrock , his physical decay and a determination of a

middle- aged man to see himself as others see him whatever the cost will be to his personal dignity.

Prufrock has feelings of self-disgust and self-rejection. His feelings of isolation continue. His

attitude towards the women of the salon is a passive admiration: the elegant perfume in their

dresses symbolizes his inability to contact with them, his feelings of inferiority towards them,
 isolation and passivity. He,ironically. compares himself to.lohn the Baptist and tlamlet(allusions).

He makes such comparisons in order to define and evaluate his position."l am not prince Hamlet

nor was meant to be": despite his denial a connection is made between Prufrock's evasion and

Hamlet's hesitation.

Prufrock is an intellectual and a virtuous character; however he is trying to excuse his inactivity by

pointing out his own significance and that of the society he lives in. He is afraid to be ridiculed and

misunderstood by the women of the salon and that is the main reason behind his detachment from

the salon society.

'fhe poem's third section,

which discusses fog as if it were a cat, does not develop the central social

themes and seems almost like a separate composition. Its unusual conceit looks back to the famous

simile from lines 2-3 comparing dusk to "a patient etherised upon a table." Both figurative

passages indicate that Prufrock possesses a jumbled, miscellaneous, unconventional, and

surprisingly creative mind, apt to dwell on languorous imagery. In the fburth section. the poem

returns to the social themes implicit at the outset: Prufrock claims there will be sufficient time.,To

prepare a f-ace to meet the faces that you meet" and also ref'ers to such rituals as "the taking of a

toast and tea."'fhe principal emphasis in this section falls upon time itself. as the repetition of the

word "time" no fewer than eight times in the space of twelve lines clearly indicates.

Three more repetitions in section five follow the return of the brief "Michelangelo" refrain.

Prufrock's obsession with time, which exposes his basic indecisiveness, leads directly to the

meditation on aging and mortality that dominates the latter portions of the poem. Prufrock's feelings

of sexual inadequacy and intimidation become clearer when, in line 80, he doubts his ability ,,to

force the moment to its crisis." Various images underscore Prufiock's low self-esteem: he identifies
with lonely working-class men; absurdly, he wishes he were a lobster, free of social obligations and

able to move rapidly backwards; and he envisions himself in the role of John the Baptist, just after

Salome has had his head cut off. The latter image powerfully indicates his fear of attractive women

and its unhealthy relation to his even greater fear of death.

Death, figured in line 85 as an "eternal Footman." bars the way to the social gathering. This

scarifying vision has a decisive effect on Prufrock's plans. The fear of death allows him to

rationalize his anxieties and so avoid any uncomfbrtable encounters. After a legion of
equivocations. Prufrock finally seems to have determined not to make his visit. Nonetheless, his

meditation still continues. He eventually acknowledges the opacity of his statements: "lt is

impossible to say just what I mean!" Instead of saying it precisely ('Just"), he does so in a

roundabout manner, by recourse to various allusions and comparisons. In line lll, for example, he

rejects a comparison with the most famous equivocator in literature Hamlet. Instead, he resembles

"an attendant lord," referring to Rosencrantz or Guildenstern, those flamously interchangeable non-

entities whom Hamlet arranges to have put to death. Pruliock tells us. in short. that he is not a man

of importance (as Hamlet. Prince of Denmark. was) but rather a man doomed to an anonymous,

inconsequential death. The poem ends by gathering together the various strands of Prufrock's
anxiety-ridden character.

An emphasis on aging and mortality returns in line l20.lt is an indecisiveness, taken to an absurd

extreme ("Do I dare to eat a peach?", which perhaps can be interpreted as a sexual image), recurs in

line 122. There is something ineffably sad about Prufrock's belief that the mermaids (another image

of those attractive, dangerous women who frighten him so much) will not even sing to him. The

poem concludes by suggesting that selt.-consciousness is a dream tiom which human voices wake

us to a social world in which we drown.

At the end of the poem, Prufrock is seen wandering upon the beach, looking at the sea and escaping

into a romantic flantasy. Prufrock makes an escape image. His belief that the mermaids are not

singing to him recalls his hesitant and passive attitude throughout the whole poem:

I have heard the mermaids singing each to each

I do not think they sing to me.

The thematic significance of the poem:

This poem expresses the fragile, psychological state of modern urban society in the 20th century.

The change of the cultural notions from the Victorian era into the modern world war with all its

challenges. Eliot demonstrates the sense of indecisive paralysis of the modern man represented in

Prufrock who wonders if he should eat a piece of fiuit. make a radical change. or if he has the

fortitude to keep living. It is a debate over the humanity's damaged psyche out of their inability to

communicate with each other .Prufrock also symbolizes all those men who returned home after the

end of the first World warto find women adopting a new role as living-earners.

Eliot uses a fiagmented style in order to symbolize the chaotic and disjointed state of modern man

and community. Fragmentation means collaging bits and pieces of dialogue, images, ideas, foreign

words and tones within one single work, representing humanity damaged psyche of humanity after

the lst world war and the collapse of the British Empire.