AP Literature
TODAY
Poetry Pop-Quiz
2. Poetry Analysis of
T. S. Eliot’s
“Love Song of J. Alfred
Prufrock”
4. Hamlet Act I
1.
STANDARDS OF LEARNING




Develop and apply
new poetry analysis
skills
Understand key terms
regarding poetic
devices
Application of poetry
explication skills
Working understanding
of challenging poems
AP Literature
TODAY
Poetry Explication #1
2. Poetry Pop-Quiz
3. Poetry Explication #2
4. Poetry Analysis of
T. S. Eliot’s
“Love Song of J. Alfred
Prufrock”
1.
STANDARDS OF LEARNING




Develop and apply
new poetry analysis
skills
Understand key terms
regarding poetic
devices
Application of poetry
explication skills
Working understanding
of challenging poems
AP Literature
TODAY
Poetry Pop-Quiz
2. Poetry Analysis of
T. S. Eliot’s
3. “Hamlet”
Homework: “Love Song
of J. Alfred Prufrock”
1.
Essay
STANDARDS OF LEARNING




Develop and apply
new poetry analysis
skills
Understand key terms
regarding poetic
devices
Application of poetry
explication skills
Working understanding
of challenging poems
“THE LOVE SONG OF
J. ALFRED PRUFROCK”
A DEEPER LOOK
INTO THE
MEANING AND FORM
Source: Cummings Study Guides and University of Michigan
Context:
Modernism
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Planes, subway trains, cars, and WWI created
dramatic shifts in day to day modern life that often
left people feeling lost or left behind, questioning
their identity.
Modernist poetry is often difficult to understand and
analyze because the SPEAKER is usually uncertain
about his/her own ontological (the essence/nature)
being.
The speaker in modernist poems characteristically
wrestles with the fundamental question of “self,”
often feeling fragmented and alienated from the
world around him/her.

In other words, a coherent speaker with a clear sense of
himself/herself is hard to find in modernist poetry, often
leaving the reader feeling “lost.”
Biographical Context
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Born in St. Louis on Sept. 26, 1888.
Lived there for 18 years
Attended Harvard and earned his undergraduate
(bachelor’s) and master’s degrees there.
Went to Paris for a year; returned to Harvard to pursue a
doctorate in philosophy, but ended up settling in England
in 1914 (24 yr.)
He published his poems, including this one, in magazines
in 1915.
He was known for his articulation of the disillusionment
(loss of identity) of a younger post-WWI generation with
the values and conventions of the Victorian era.
He received the Novel Prize for Literature in 1948 and
died in London in 1965.
Elements of the Poem
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Type of Work: Dramatic Monologue (Modern)
A dramatic monologue presents a moment in which a
speaker discusses a topic and, in doing so, reveals
his/her personal feelings to a listener (reader).
Only the speaker talks, and intentionally and
unintentionally reveals information about
himself/herself.
Since the main focus of a dramatic monologue is this
personal information, and not the speaker’s topic, a
dramatic monologue is a type of character study.
The Speaker
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The poem centers on a balding, insecure middle-aged
man.
He expresses his thoughts about the dull, uneventful,
mediocre life he leads as a result of his feelings of
inadequacy and his fear of making decisions.
Unable to seize opportunities or take risks (especially
with women), he lives in a world that is the same
today as it was yesterday and will be the same
tomorrow as it is today.
He does try to make progress, but his timidity and fear
of failure inhibit him from taking action.
The Setting
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The action takes place in the evening in a bleak
section of a smoky/foggy city.
This city is probably St. Louis, where Eliot grew up,
but could also be London, where he moved to.
Eliot probably intended to leave the setting
ambiguous because it was unimportant and could
be any city anywhere.
The Characters
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J. Alfred Prufrock: The speaker, a timid,
overcautious middle-aged main. He escorts his
listener through streets in a shabby part of a city,
past cheap hotels and restaurants, to a social
gathering where the women he would like to meet
are conversing. However, he is hesitant to take part
in the activity for fear of making a fool of himself.
The Characters
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The Listener: An unidentified companion of
Prufrock. The listener could also be Prufrock’s
inner self, one that prods him but fails to move
him to action.
The Characters
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The Women: Women at a social gathering that
Prufrock would like to meet, but worries that they
will look down on him or reject him.
The Characters
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The Lonely Men in Shirtsleeves: Leaning out of
the windows and smoking pipes, they are like
Prufrock in that they look upon a scene without
being a part of it. The smoke from their pipes
helps form the haze over the city that serves as a
metaphor for a timid cat (which could very well
be Prufrock himself).
The Themes
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Loneliness and Alienation: Prufrock is a pathetic man
whose anxieties and obsessions have isolated him.
Indecision: Prufrock resists making decisions for fear
that their outcomes will turn out wrong.
Inadequacy: Prufrock continually worries that he will
make a fool of himself and that people will ridicule him
for his clothes, his bald spot, and his overall physical
appearance.
Pessimism: Prufrock sees only the negative side of his
own life and the lives of others.
Style
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Conversational diction combined with the stylized
language of poetry (figurative language).
Variations in length and meter
Constant shifts in the train of thought
Shifts in topics under discussion
Shifts from abstract to concrete (universal to
particular)
Shifts from obvious allusions to more abstract
allusions (suggesting Prufrock was well read and
retained bits and pieces of what he read in his
memory)
No need to take notes from here
Stanza 1
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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 listener walk through lonely streets, after
the day has ended, past cheap hotels and restaurants with
sawdust on the floors (that soak up spilled food and drink
to make it easier to clean at the end of the night).
Stanza 1
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The shabby surroundings remind the speaker of his own
shortcomings, their images remaining in his mind as he
walks on.
Prufrock then prods the listener to ask the speaker a
question about the speaker’s life—perhaps why he visits
these seedy places, which are symbols of his life, and why
he has not acted to better himself.
Stanza 2
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
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At a social gathering now in a room, women discuss
the great Renaissance artist. Prufrock may wonder
how they would possibly be interested in him when
they are discussing someone as impressive as
Michelangelo.
Stanza 3: Symbolism “cat”
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Smoky haze spreads across the city.
The haze is like a quiet, timid cat, padding around, rubbing its head
on objects, licking its tongue, and curling up to sleep after allowing
soot to fall upon it.
The speaker resembles this cat as he looks into windows or into “the
room,” trying to decide whether to enter and become part of the
activity.
Eventually, he curls up in the safety and security of his own soft arms,
alone, separate.
What this may mean is that Prufrock feels inferior and is unable to act
decisively. He limits himself to corners, as a timid person might do at
a dance; and stands stagnant, becoming the target of ridicule or
judgment (the soot).
Stanza 4
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The speaker tells himself there is no hurry.
There will be a time to decide, then act, then put on the
right face to meet people.
He also mentions that there will be time to kill and
time to act, and even time to do many things.
There is also mention of the time to THINK about
doing things, to dream and then revise those dreams,
all BEFORE sitting down with a woman to take “toast
and tea.”
This is the speaker’s way of postponing and avoiding
his fear of failure. He says that there will always be
time to face it, so why face it now.
Stanza 5
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The repetition of the coming and going of the
women in the room suggest that life is repetitive and
dull, and this feeling of rejection and loneliness is
also repeated.
Stanza 6
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Prufrock says that there will be time to wonder
whether he dares to approach a woman.
He feels like turning back.
After all, he has a bald spot, thinning hair, and thin
arms and legs; he even doubts the acceptability of
his clothing before questioning what people will
think of him, particularly the women.
He decides to think about it and make a decision,
then reverse that decision.
Stanza 7
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Prufrock realizes that the people here are the same
as the people he has met many times before—the
same, uninteresting people in the same uninteresting
world.
They even all sound the same, so why should he do
anything?
The speaker is trying to justify his reasoning for
backing out and being indecisive.
Stanza 8
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The speaker mentions how he has also seen their
gazes before, many times—gazes that form an
opinion of him, treating him like an insect pinned
into a display.
He questions how he will be able to explain himself
to them—the ordinariness, the mediocrity of his life.
Stanza 9
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Through a continuation of this parallel structure, the
speaker mentions that he has known women like
these before, wearing jewelry but really bare,
lacking substance.
He wonders why he is even thinking about them and
blames it on the smell of perfume.
Stanza 10
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He asks if he will tell a woman that he came through
narrow streets, where lonely men (like himself) lean out
of windows watching life go by without taking part in it.
He mentions that he should have been nothing more
than crab claws in the depths of the silent oceans.
This imagery of a crab may also mean that he is similar
to them because he is always moving side to side, and
never up or down. He may also consider himself a
bottom feeder.
Stanza 11
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We see that the time passes peacefully, as if the
afternoon/evening is sleeping or wasting time, stretched out
on the floor.
He wonders if he should sit down with someone, take a
chance to make an acquaintance, or simply live.
He then laments about how he has suffered and even
imagined his head being brought in on a platter (allusion to
John the Baptist).
He even finds it difficult to compare himself to this character
because he is no prophet and has seen many opportunities
pass and has seen death up close, holding his coat,
snickering.
In short, he has been afraid of life and death both.
Stanza 12
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He asks if it would have been worth it all along to
try to make a connection with one of the women
(rambling, questioning his indecision).
He wonders if it would be worth it to act on this
urge for belonging and fitting in if he knows that he
will only have her criticize and reject him (again,
seeing only the pessimistic, worst-case-scenario).
Stanza 13
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He again questions if it would have been worth it to
have a woman to experience sunset, or after all the
mornings or evenings when the workmen walk the
streets, or discussing novels over tea, after hearing
the drag of a skirt across the floor or plumping a
pillow or throwing off a shawl before being told at
the end of the night that he was mistaken about her
intentions toward him.
Stanza 14
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Here the speaker compares himself to Hamlet,
whose tragic flaw is indecisiveness.
He has trouble with this comparison and rather
aligns himself with the attendant lord (Polonius) who
is seen as a long-winded fool.
Notice the capitalization of “Fool” which also
alludes to a court jester, or Yorick (whose skull
Hamlet holds).
Stanzas 15-19
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The speaker now realizes that time is passing and he
continues to grow old.
Like other men going through a mid-life crisis, he
considers changing his hairstyle and clothing.
He also hears the song of the sirens (like Odysseus in
the Odyssey), but says that not even they would
waste the time to sing to him.