I would not presume to claim that I understand all, maybe not even much,
of what Eliot meant in his allusion-packed Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,
but what I comprehend of it I really like. Moreover, rereading it
just recently, I was struck by how frequently the words and phrases of
the poem have been borrowed by subsequent authors, particularly how many
titles are derived from the poem. So, before I say a few words about
the themes Eliot seems to be mining, here's the poem with hyperlinks to
the works by others that I'm aware of, which derive at least their titles
from this piece :
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
(1915)
S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse
LET us go then, you and I, As you can see from that brief exercise, the language that Eliot uses here has certainly had at least a superficial impact on the culture. Just as he alludes to many predecessors in his choices of phrases, his fellow artists allude back to him, knowing that his words will be remembered and recognized. This is appropriate because somehow, stubbornly, even with the decline of formalism and structure in poetry, most of us still think that great poetry should at least utilize lyrical language, and phrases and images which remain with us. Prufrock easily passes that test. But pretty words and memorable mental pictures do not suffice to make a poem great; it should also convey ideas. Here too Prufrock meets the mark. You don't have to be religious yourself, or even approve of religion generally, to acknowledge that the most important idea of the modern era is that God is dead. Whatever else belief in God may have done, it gave Man a sense of value, of purpose, and of mission. To the extent that we considered ourselves to be God's creation, considered ourselves to be animated by a divine spark, considered the Bible to contain the word of God, considered ourselves bound by God's commandments and later by Christ's teachings, and considered Heaven to be our eventual goal, Man had an external belief system, framed by certain absolute laws, which gave a certainty to life, and alleviated doubt. This all began to unravel in the Rennaisance, the Reformation, and the Age of Reason, as Western Man placed increasing importance on men generally and on the self. This process was greatly accelerated by scientific discoveries and theories which tended to discredit the Bible, explain away the need for God as the Creator, and suggest that Man might some day come to understand even the most fundamental processes of that Creation. Darwin, Marx, Freud, and Einstein each in their own way served to undermine the old certainties of the Judeo-Christian world. But even as the crucial tenets which had provided the framework for Western Civilization were torn away, no structure of equal sturdiness was erected to take its place. The Twentieth Century saw fundamental reconsiderations of Man's place in the cosmos, of the basis for and the validity of morality, of the existence of free will and of the soul, etc., etc., etc. Darwinists proposed that we were merely a random, and temporary, mutation. Marx proposed that we are merely pawns acted upon by the forces of history. Freud opined that we are simply the product of the interplay between id, ego and superego. Einstein, though it's not what his theory said, lent an official imprimatur to the idea that everything is relative. Small wonder then that the defining feature of Modern culture is doubt. Eliot seized upon this quintessential characteristic of modernity and crafted its singular love song, one that is hesitant, doubt-filled, angst-ridden, and neurotic to its core. To begin with, we're not even sure to whim he's addressing himself. The opening quotation is from Dante's Inferno and refers to a character telling Dante that he's only sharing his innermost thoughts because he's certain Dante will never make it out of Hell. It seems fair to suggest that's how Eliot (Prufrock) felt about us, his readers. The poem that follows then consists of Eliot/Prufrock studiously avoiding the "overwhelming question" which is presumably the whole point of the love song and repeatedly denigrating himself. It raises procrastination ("time yet for a hundred indecisions,/And for a hundred visions and revisions,/Before the taking of a toast and tea") and abject humility (I should have been a pair of ragged claws/Scuttling across the floors of silent seas) to the status of high art. The stanza that, for me, really drives the point home is : No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be; Hamlet is notorious for his hesitancy, which leads to tragedy. Eliot/Prufrock is suggesting that he's not even the equal of the dithering Dane, perhaps not even an attendant, but a Fool. If the defining flaw of our literature's greatest tragic figure is hesitation and self-doubt, then whither the culture which has become broadly afflicted with these same flaws ? Fine, we'll assume God is dead; Man has no soul; right and wrong are relative; good and evil are mere terms of art; Man is simply one of the animals, perhaps not even one of the more valuable ones; and human life begins and ends whenever we decide it does. Where does, where did, this path lead ? To Communism, Nazism, eugenics, genocide, abortion on demand, sodomy, pederasty, incest, Wicca, etc,, etc., etc., ad nauseum. In this "love song," T.S. Eliot captures the spirit of the age, the sense of inadequacy and avoidance of conclusions which so characterize modern Man. Even if many of the references and allusions go right over most our heads, the tone that he establishes, the tension he creates by continually backing away from the main question, and the unforgettable language and imagery make this a pivotal work of 20th Century Literature. (Reviewed:) Grade: (A-) Tweet Websites:-WIKIPEDIA: T. S. Eliot -ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA : Eliot, T. S. -Academy of American Poets: T. S. Eliot -Nobel Laureates: Thomas Stearns Eliot -Literature Online: Addison-Wesley's Literature Online--A site to support Kennedy & Gioia's Literature, 7th Edition. -T. S. Eliot Poems -Literary Research Guide: T. S. Eliot (1888 - 1965) -T.S. Eliot (Most Web) -FEATURED AUTHOR: NY Times Book Review -OBIT : T.S. Eliot, the Poet, is Dead in London at 76 (Tuesday, January 5, 1965, NY Times) -LINKS: American Modernism -ETEXT: The Hollow Men -ETEXT: Annotated -POEM: Today’s Poem: Gerontion (Joseph Bottum, Sep 27, 2024, Poems Ancient & Modern) -ESSAY: T. S. Eliot as a Conservative Mentor: He salvaged a living tradition from the decay of popular culture. (Roger Scruton, October 22, 2024, Modern Age) -ESSAY: John Paul II, T.S. Eliot, & the Culture of Life (Donald DeMarco, October 21st, 2024, Imaginative Conservative) -ESSAY: T.S. Eliot: Hope Beyond the Waste Land (Haylee Wuensche, October 16th, 2024, Imaginative Conservative) -ESSAY: Faith With Feeling: Eliot’s “Four Quartets”: It contains both the drama and the architecture of belief necessary for a full poetic experience. (James Matthew Wilson, September 25, 2024, Modern Age) -ESSAY: What T.S. Eliot’s Letters to Emily Hale Reveal About the Poet’s Romantic Past: Sara Fitzgerald on Unrequited Love and a Recently Declassified Epistolary Correspondence (Sara Fitzgerald, September 6, 2024, Lit Hub) -ESSAY: The Voice of This Calling: The Enduring Legacy of T.S. Eliot (Clint Brand|July 8th, 2024, Imaginative Conservative) -ESSAY: T.S. Eliot on Economics and Education (Richard Gunderman, EconLib) -ESSAY: Reinhold Niebuhr, T. S. Eliot, and The Year of Our Lord 1943 (John Shelton, May 29, 2024, Providence) -ESSAY: Our Greatest Pilgrim Poet?: Not since the great Metaphysical Poets of the Elizabethan Age has there been such a flowering of creative genius as seen in the verse of just one 20th century poet, T.S. Eliot. (Regis Martin, 5/25/24, Crisis) -ESSAY: Permanent Things: T.S. Eliot’s Conservatism (Benjamin Lockerd, January 3rd, 2024, Imaginative Conservative) -ESSAY: THE UNFAMILIAR NAME: T.S. ELIOT ON HERCULES AND THE PENTECOST (Mateusz Stró?y?ski, May 2024, Antigone) -ESSAY: Fear, Dust, and Water: A Look Into T.S. Eliot’s Poetic Imagery (Raymond Dokupil. 1/15/22, Voegelin View) -AUDIO LECTURE: A Guide to Finally Understanding T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets (Audio Lecture) (Andy patton, November 2023, Rabbit Room) -ESSAY: T. S. Eliot’s still point: On the poet’s life & work. (James Matthew Wilson, April 2023, New Criterion) -ESSAY: Eliot’s Pitiless Brilliance: ‘The Waste Land’ (William H. Pritchard, March 1, 2023, Commonweal) -ESSAY: T.S. Eliot: fame, frustration and love (Jeffrey Meyers, 2/12/23, The Article) -ESSAY: Thumbscrew and wailing wall: T.S. Eliot’s ‘The Waste Land’ (Jeffrey Meyers, 1/29/23, The Article) -ESSAY: That’s Not Typing, It’s Writing: How T. S. Eliot Wrote “The Waste Land”: “With me an unfinished thing is a thing that might as well be rubbed out.” (Matthew Hollis, January 9, 2023, LitHub) -ESSAY: T.S. Eliot as Conservative Mentor (Sir Roger Scruton, January 3rd, 2023, Imaginative Conservative) -ESSAY: The Waste Land at 100 (James Matthew Wilson, 12/14/22, University Bookman) -SUMMARY: The Waste Land in a Nutshell (JOSEPH PEARCE, 8/26/22, Crisis) -ESSAY: The alienation of Eliot’s ‘The Waste Land,’ at 100, has come to feel like home: The December birthday ‘The Waste Land’ shares with Christmas foreshadows the Easter that is to come. (Karen Swallow Prior, 12/13/22, RNS) -ESSAY: Remembering T. S. Eliot (Micah Mattix|Apr. 1st, 2024, Chronicles) -ESSAY: T.S. ELIOT AT 101 (Cynthia Ozick, November 12, 1989, The New Yorker) - -ESSAY: On St. Louis’s T.S. Eliot and the Arrogance of a Poet’s Love (Ben, JANUARY 15, 2023, The Common Reader) -ESSAY: TS Eliot’s women: the unsung female voices of The Waste Land (Jude Rogers, 10/31/22, The Observer) -ESSAY: How T.S. Eliot’s Therapeutic Practice Produced The Waste Land: David Barnes on a Poet, His Doctor, and the Making of a Literary Masterpiece (David Barnes, October 24, 2022, LitHub) -ESSAY: How The Waste Land became the most quotable book of the last 100 years: With its many places, ages and languages, The Waste Land disturbed the piped music of modernity (Jeremy Noel-Tod, October 6, 2022, Prospect) -PODCAST: The Waste Land (The History of Literature Podcas) - - -ESSAY: Help from Uncle Possum: Unpublished letters from T. S. Eliot about Omar Pound’s schooldays (Chris Jones, September 2022, TLS) -ESSAY: A People Without History: T.S. Eliot’s Critique of Evolutionary History (Benjamin Lockerd|August 21st, 2022, Imaginative Conservative) -ESSAY: T. S. Eliot and the Holy Grail: The Nobel Laureate drew on a centuries-old legend when he put the Fisher King in The Waste Land (Angelica Frey June 1, 2022, JSTOR Daily) -FOREWARD: to TS Eliot’s The Wasteland and Other Poems, 100th anniversary edition (Qiu Xiaolong, Asian Review of Books) -ESSAY: Bob Dylan’s and T.S. Eliot’s search for truth: Eliot lingered in Dylan’s consciousness as he sought to answer the question “what is it?” (francesca Peacock, April 28, 2022, Spectator) -ESSAY: 100 years since poetry changed for ever with ‘The Waste Land’: T.S. Eliot began his career as a nihilist and ended it as a Christian. (Michael Cook, Jan 19, 2022, MercatorNet) -ESSAY: Eliot and the Follies of the Time (Russell Kirk, 08/01/08, First Principles) -LECTURE: The Politics of T.S. Eliot (Russell Kirk, The Heritage Foundation) -ARTICLE : T.S. Eliot took pause when writing of cats (ARTHUR HIRSCH, Baltimore Sun) -ESSAY: T.S. Eliot's Political 'Middle Way' (Michael R. Stevens, Religion & Liberty) -ESSAY: A craving for reality: T. S. Eliot today (Roger Kimball, The New Criterion) -ESSAY: TS Eliot's Hollow Men (AMANDA J. WAGGONER) -ESSAY: What T.S. Eliot Almost Believed (J. Bottum, First Things) -ESSAY : T. S. Eliot's Political "Middle Way" (Michael R. Stevens, Acton Institute) Nudge-Winking: a review of The 'Criterion': Cultural Politics and Periodical Networks in Interwar Britain by Jason Harding (Terry Eagleton, 19 September 2002, London Review of Books) -ESSAY: Pun and Games: A New Approach to Five Early Poems by T. S. Eliot (Professor Patricia Sloane, New York City Technical College of The City University of New York) -ESSAY: T.S. Eliot: Poet and Critic as Historical Theorist (Scott Weidner) -ESSAY: Was T.S. Eliot a Scoundrel? Although the poet's anti-Semitism is beyond dispute, its centrality to his work is open to question (John Gross, Commentary) -ESSAY : Shell Game: Clawing away at Eliot (Rick Perlstein, Lingua Franca, September 1997) -ESSAY : The Bones in Mr. Eliot's Closet : Rediscovering the patron saint of all the flawed and haunted seekers of modernity. (Michael R. Stevens, Books & Culture) -ESSAY : The Two Eliots : "To all appearances," a biographer writes, "Eliot was conventional, mild, decorous, yet the hidden character was daring and savage." (Jewel Spears Brooker, Books & Culture) -ONLINE STUDY GUIDE : Eliot's Poetry by T. S. Eliot (Spark Note, Melissa Martin) -ESSAY : Words alone : Denis Donoghue explains the genesis of his forthcoming book on T.S. Eliot (Irish Times) -ESSAY: T. S. ELIOT, CRIME FICTION CRITIC: Thoughts on Crime Writing From The Man Who Rescued Willkie Collins from Obscurity (CURTIS EVANS, 4/29/19, Crime Reads) -ESSAY: Beastly Clues T. S. Eliot, Torquemada, and the Modernist Crossword: Just a few years after The Waste Land appeared — a poem whose difficulty critics compared to some “pompous cross-word puzzle” — Edward Powys Mathers (alias: Torquemada) pioneered the cryptic: a puzzle form that, like modernist poetry, unwove language and rewove it anew. Roddy Howland Jackson reveals the pleasures and imaginative creatures lurking in Torquemada's lively grids. (Roddy Howland Jackson, January 12, 2022, Public Domain Review) - -REVIEW : of Words Alone: The Poet T.S. Eliot. By Denis Donoghue (Frank Kermode, Irish Times) -REVIEW : of Words Alone : The Poetry of T. S. Eliot by Denis Donoghue (Adam Kirsch, NY Times Book Review) -REVIEW : of WORDS ALONE: THE POET T.S. ELIOT. By Denis Donoghue (The Economist) -REVIEW: Louis Menand: How Eliot Became Eliot, NY Review of Books Inventions of the March Hare: Poems 1909-1917 by T.S. Eliot and edited by Christopher Ricks The Waste Land, the 75th anniversary edition by T.S. Eliot -REVIEW: of T. S. ELIOT: A Study in Character and Style By Ronald Bush (Michiko Kakutani, NY Times) -REVIEW: of ELIOT'S NEW LIFE By Lyndall Gordon (Denis Donoghue, NY Times Book Review) -REVIEW: of T. S. ELIOT. A Life By Peter Ackroyd (John Gross, NY Times) -REVIEW: of T. S. ELIOT A Life By Peter Ackroyd (A. Walton Litz, NY Times Book Review) -REVIEW: T. S. ELIOT, ANTI-SEMITISM AND LITERARY FORM By Anthony Julius (MICHIKO KAKUTANI, NY Times) -REVIEW: of Louis Menand: Eliot and the Jews, NY Review of Books T.S. Eliot, Anti-Semitism, and Literary Form by Anthony Julius -REVIEW: The Letters of T. S. Eliot Volume I, 1898-1922 Edited by Valerie Eliot (MICHIKO KAKUTANI, NY Times) -REVIEW: of THE LETTERS OF T. S. ELIOT Volume I, 1898-1922 Edited by Valerie Eliot (Hugh Kenner, NY Times Book Review) -REVIEW: of The Collected Prose of T.S. Eliot (Joseph Epstein, WSJ) -REVIEW: of THE LETTERS OF T. S. ELIOT : Volume 9: 1939–1941: Eeyore reports for duty: The ‘devoted patience’ of T. S. Eliot, wartime correspondent (Seamus Perry, TLS) -REVIEW: of Robert Crawford’s Eliot: After The Waste Land (Erica Wagner, New Statesman) -REVIEW: of Eliot After “The Waste Land” by Robert Crawford (Anthony Domestico, The Baffler) -REVIEW: of Eliot after The Waste Land (Michael Thurston, The hudson Review) -REVIEW: of The Waste Land: A Biography of a Poem by Matthew Hollis (Alex Clark, The Guardian) -REVIEW: of The Waste Land: A Biography of a Poem, by Matthew Hollis (Edward Short, City Journal) -REVIEW: of Matthew Hollis’s The Waste Land: A Biography of a Poem (Nathaniel Rosenthalis, Common Reader) -REVIEW: of The Complete Prose of T. S. Eliot: The Critical Edition : 8-Volume Set Edited by Ronald Schuchard et al. (Ben Lockerd, University Bookman) -REVIEW: of The Hyacinth Girl by Lyndall Gordon (Paul Krause, Voegelin View) -REVIEW: of T. S. Eliot: Culture and Anarchy by James Matthew Wilson (Daniel James Sundahl, University Bookman) FILM: -FILMOGRAPHY: Four Quartets 2023 (Metacritic) Book-related and General Links: -ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA : Eliot, T. S. -FEATURED AUTHOR: NY Times Book Review -Academy of American Poets: T. S. Eliot -Nobel Laureates: Thomas Stearns Eliot -ETEXTS : T.S. Eliot (Bartleby.com) -Literature Online: Addison-Wesley's Literature Online--A site to support Kennedy & Gioia's Literature, 7th Edition. -T. S. Eliot Poems -TSE: The Web Site and Listserv -Literary Research Guide: T. S. Eliot (1888 - 1965) -T.S. Eliot (Most Web) -OBIT : T.S. Eliot, the Poet, is Dead in London at 76 (Tuesday, January 5, 1965, NY Times) -LINKS: American Modernism -ETEXT: The Hollow Men -ETEXT: Annotated -LECTURE: The Politics of T.S. Eliot (Russell Kirk, The Heritage Foundation) -ARTICLE : T.S. Eliot took pause when writing of cats (ARTHUR HIRSCH, Baltimore Sun) -ESSAY: A craving for reality: T. S. Eliot today (Roger Kimball, The New Criterion) -ESSAY: TS Eliot's Hollow Men (AMANDA J. WAGGONER) -ESSAY: What T.S. Eliot Almost Believed (J. Bottum, First Things) -ESSAY : T. S. Eliot's Political "Middle Way" (Michael R. Stevens, Acton Institute) -ESSAY: Pun and Games: A New Approach to Five Early Poems by T. S. Eliot (Professor Patricia Sloane, New York City Technical College of The City University of New York) -ESSAY: T.S. Eliot: Poet and Critic as Historical Theorist (Scott Weidner) -ESSAY: Was T.S. Eliot a Scoundrel? Although the poet's anti-Semitism is beyond dispute, its centrality to his work is open to question (John Gross, Commentary) -ESSAY : Shell Game: Clawing away at Eliot (Rick Perlstein, Lingua Franca, September 1997) -ESSAY : The Bones in Mr. Eliot's Closet : Rediscovering the patron saint of all the flawed and haunted seekers of modernity. (Michael R. Stevens, Books & Culture) -ESSAY : The Two Eliots : "To all appearances," a biographer writes, "Eliot was conventional, mild, decorous, yet the hidden character was daring and savage." (Jewel Spears Brooker, Books & Culture) -ONLINE STUDYGUIDE : T.S. Eliot's Poetry (Spark Notes) -T. S. Eliot Prufrock Page -ESSAY : "Prufrock, J. Alfred Prufrock" : Observations on Eliot's "love song"-and its unlikely leading man (Christopher Ricks, Atlantic Unbound | April 11, 2001) -ESSAY : Alienation and Problems Finding Meaning in Life: A Comparison of the Victorian and Modernist Perceptions As Exemplified by Dover Beach and The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (Kim Rollins) -ESSAY : T.S. Eliot's Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, or, All at Sea with T.S.E.* (Robert Sward) -ESSAY : What, if anything, does T. S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" have to say about love? Is the poem's title anything more than a bleak joke? If it isn't about love, what is it about? ( Greg Hurrell, Wincent's Web Site) -ESSAY : Words alone : Denis Donoghue explains the genesis of his forthcoming book on T.S. Eliot (Irish Times) -REVIEW : of Words Alone: The Poet T.S. Eliot. By Denis Donoghue (Frank Kermode, Irish Times) -REVIEW : of Words Alone : The Poetry of T. S. Eliot by Denis Donoghue (Adam Kirsch, NY Times Book Review) -REVIEW : of WORDS ALONE: THE POET T.S. ELIOT. By Denis Donoghue (The Economist) -REVIEW: Louis Menand: How Eliot Became Eliot, NY Review of Books Inventions of the March Hare: Poems 1909-1917 by T.S. Eliot and edited by Christopher Ricks The Waste Land, the 75th anniversary edition by T.S. Eliot -REVIEW: of T. S. ELIOT: A Study in Character and Style By Ronald Bush (Michiko Kakutani, NY Times) -REVIEW: of ELIOT'S NEW LIFE By Lyndall Gordon (Denis Donoghue, NY Times Book Review) -REVIEW: of T. S. ELIOT. A Life By Peter Ackroyd (John Gross, NY Times) -REVIEW: of T. S. ELIOT A Life By Peter Ackroyd (A. Walton Litz, NY Times Book Review) -REVIEW: T. S. ELIOT, ANTI-SEMITISM AND LITERARY FORM By Anthony Julius (MICHIKO KAKUTANI, NY Times) -REVIEW: of Louis Menand: Eliot and the Jews, NY Review of Books T.S. Eliot, Anti-Semitism, and Literary Form by Anthony Julius -REVIEW: The Letters of T. S. Eliot Volume I, 1898-1922 Edited by Valerie Eliot (MICHIKO KAKUTANI, NY Times) -REVIEW: of THE LETTERS OF T. S. ELIOT Volume I, 1898-1922 Edited by Valerie Eliot (Hugh Kenner, NY Times Book Review) GENERAL:
[translationfrom Dante's Inferno] If I thought my reply would be to someone who would ever return to earth, this flame would remain without further movement; but as no one has ever returned from this gulf, if what I hear is true, I can answer you with no fear of infamy. [return to poem] |
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