Worksheet for T.S. Eliot and W.B. Yeats Poetry
“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”
1. What would you imagine someone with a name like J. Alfred Prufrock to look like? Why do you
think Eliot chose that name?
2. “Like a patient etherized upon a table” is an example of what literary tool? What image does it
evoke? If your etherized you aren’t able to move.
3. The refrain, “In the room the women come and go/Talking of Michelangelo” contains what
literary tool?
4. Look at all the questions he asks. What fears do they seem to be expressing?
5. What does the yellow fog really sound like?(hint it’s an animal)
6. The line “And in short, I was afraid” means he is afraid of what most likely?
7. Look up mermaids and write in a few sentences what his allusion at the end means.
“The Hollow Men”
1. What is your first take on what the title means?
2. “We are the hollow men/We are the stuffed men”. How can you be hollow but stuffed at the
same time?
3. In the third section, Eliot has some odd word choices. Pick a few words and tell how they create
a certain tone (you must describe the tone too).
4. What would the problem be with the world ending “Not with a bang but a whimper”?
“The Second Coming”
1. Look up and write down what a gyre is.
2. Describe the scene Yeats creates in the first stanza.
3. What is the obvious allusion Yeats in making throughout the second stanza.
“No Second Troy”
1. What allusion is Yeats making in the title?
2. What did you find in Yeats biography to help make sense why he would write a poem about a
woman he loved?
3. Find at least one literary tool he uses in this poem and write down the tool and example.