RAMANANDA CENTENARY COLLEGE
NAME – AMIT MANDAL
ROLL NO – 121351-1815525
SEMESTER – V
REG NO– 014621
SUBJECT– ENGLISH(HONS)
SESSION – 2020–21
Course Title: British Literature: The Early
Twentieth century
Course Code: BENGCCHT502
❖ In modern poetry, a short circuit
of images is usually observed.
Discuss in reference to Eliot’s The
Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.
Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888 -1965)
was an American-born British poet,
essayist, publisher, playwright, literary
critic and editor. he is a central figure in
English language Modernist poetry. His
attention for his poem 'The Love Song
of J. Alfred Prufrock' was received as a
modernist masterpiece. He was the
second son and seventh child of Charlotte
Champe Stearns and Henry Ware Eliot,
members
of
a
distinguished
Massachusetts
family
recently
transplanted to Missouri. Eliot was
educated at Smith Academy in St. Louis
(1898-1905).
The Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock is a
symbolic poem which gives the mood of
modernism. It expresses the bareness, the
mental tension and the frustration of a
modern man. Eliot depicts the mind of the
modern man through images and symbols.
The first line of the poem is an invitation to
the beloved to go out with him in the
evening. The speaker invites the listener
to walk with him into the streets on an
evening that resembles a patient,
anesthetized with ether, lying on the table
of a hospital operating room. The
imagery suggests that the evening is
lifeless and listless. The speaker and the
listener will walk through lonely streets.
it is the relationship between Prufrock
and Eliot that is represented in the poem.
They will then ask a question to the
speaker why he visits these seddy hunts.
At a social gathering in a room, women
discuss the great Renaissance artist
Michelangelo. ““The yellow fog that rubs
its back upon the window-panes”
appears clearly to every reader as a cat,
but the cat itself is absent, represented
explicitly only in parts — back, muzzle,
tongue. The fragmentation of the cat
could also symbolize the fragmentation
of Prufrock’s pysche. Much like the cat,
Prufrock is on the outside looking in at a
world that has not been prepared for him.
There will be time to decide and then to
act. There will be time before sitting
down with a woman to take toast and
tea. The women are still coming and
going, still talking of Michelangelo,
suggesting that life is repetitive and dull.
Prufrock says there will be time to
wonder whether he dares to approach a
woman. he has a bald spot, thinning hair,
and thin arms and legs. Prufrock realizes
that the people here are the same as the
people he has met many times before.
He has seen their gazes before, many
times. Yes, he has known women like
these before, wearing jewellery but really
bare, lacking substance. He should have
been nothing more than crab claws in the
depths of the silent ocean. The time
passes peacefully. It is as if the
afternoon/evening is sleeping or simply
wasting time, stretched out on the floor.
he has even imagined his head being
brought in on a platter, like the head of
John the Baptist. He has seen his
opportunities pass and even seen death
up close, holding his coat, snickering. He
has been afraid. Prufrock and Hamlet
both are indecisive. But Prufrock lacks
the majesty and charisma of Hamlet.
Therefore, he fancies himself as
Polonius, the busybody lord chamberlain
in Shakespeare's play. The speaker
realizes that time is passing and that he
is growing old. However, like other men
going through a middle-age crisis, he
considers changing his hairstyle and
clothes.