To prepare a face to meet the faces you meet... We do that every day. This poem has been my favorite since college and I look forward to teaching it to my AP students every year.
Anthony Hopkins has by far the finest voice. I have heard reading. Prufrock. The more. I hear it the more. I'm convinced it's the reading that's the one for me. S
I love to wander through this poem over and over again without any great depth of understanding but enjoying the images which are sometimes ruthless and sometimes comforting. As I grow older some parts seem prophetic and as I remember, some parts are unbearably sad. I love great poetry like a dragon loves its hoard and like the dragon there is never enough. When I was a young stupid boy I did not like this poet but that boy was killed.
Perhaps one could argue that Hopkins' rather fast speed in reading is reflective of the very theme of time itself within the poem. Time passes by quickly and without mercy. You can't take a time out or ask for temporary respite from time like Prufrock tries. Before you know it, much like Prufrock, you find that everything has ended before you even knew it. So in a way, Anthony Hopkins' delivery may have been quite purposeful in drawing greater emphasis to the irony of Prufrock's claims that "there will be time" when really, in his heart he knows that that's just an excuse. Any way, that's how I look at it personally.
❤❤ . I studied English literature in Baghdad university 1998-2002 got my bachelor from the best college in middle east during Sadam Hussein’s Time , loved this poem . I live in USA 🇺🇸
"I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floors of silent seas." Still my favorite line. It's the lowest point of Prufrock's sad realization of his life and anxieties.
I discovered this poem after watching this movie The Lobster and that line to me symbolizes solitude, although a self-imposed one. (In the movie, The Lobster, the protagonist enrolls himself into a dating hotel, where they are matched based on a pre-profile questionnaire and other things, not on love. If they fail to find love in the 2 weeks or so they are allowed there, they turn into an animal. He chooses Lobster, so he can travel alone on the sea floor. And because they are “blue blooded”)
@@asbestosbunny He doesn't enroll himself, he's forced to attend the program after his wife leaves him for someone else. The movie implies being single is illegal in this society, as evident when they go shopping in the city and have to pretend to be couples or they will get arrested.
I like the pacing, direct, to the point, not too self indulgent. Hopkins beautifully captures the resigned sadness of the poem's speaker. One of the best readings of a poem on youtube, in my opinion.
This one is the first poem that got me interested in poetry. Here now, 4 years later and about to graduate with a poetry degree, I still love these words.
Thank you for posting this impressive reading. To my ear, Hopkins strikes the right note of anxious melancholy. He becomes Pufrock, & leads me to that overwhelming question time & time again.
This is actually perfect. The inner structure of the poem calls for urgency and a certain detachment from the words being said, as if the author does not wish to believe he is really sharing these thoughts with someone. Rushing doesn't spoil the meaning, it underlines it.
My take is that Eliot, who was also a playwright, has created a dramatic character who is brimming over with bitter resentments and disappointments, and who is in a hurry to tell us about them. The quick pace also suggests that time is rushing by Prufrock, though at certain points Hopkins slows down to catch the underlying sadness. Perhaps we've become so used to elegaic readings of almost all poetry that we fail to see the poem's dramatic core, which Hopkins' fine reading reveals.
It's actually a comedy of manners in an age when manners were seen to the door and handed its hat. Getting ever closer to the middle of the 20th century and the end of the world as we know it. Do you feel fine?
Among my favorite TS Eliot poems, along with Ash-Thursday and the Hollow Men. Love how Anthony reads it. I read it like that too, beacuse I like to read it aloud a lot!!! Poetry is such a necessary pang in our hearts. :)
Thank you! I had read this to myself before, but other than the ending where the mermaids come into it and the brief line about spoons I was not able to sail through the entire sea of words and feel each one until hearing it now. Thank you for sharing this.
He seems to say, "I get no respect," "Where is the sacred," "Where is a euphoric moment?" "I fear my mortality." "I make no connections with people." "I am Mediocre, I must live with it."
Yes, because we are of a different generation, the pain and uncertainty is the same and we can all relate. Hopkins is gangster! And shows is just how gangster, Eliot was and is for eternity ; )
The recitation of poetry is an art form, and there are different ways different artists go about it. It doesn't have to be commonplace and usual to be a viable way of performing said art form.
"Let us go then" ... but where and why and how long shall we go there and what happens when we finish? Such a moving poem read by such a wonderful man.
Yeah that line has stuck with me since i found this poem at 17. Such a haunting inescapable conclusion. He's got those opening and closing lines down pat. lol
I have to listen to this poem/ reading at least twice a day. I think Eliot knew something profound and deep that he just gives us hints about in Prufrock. Blows my mind what words can do!! Blows my mind that he was only 22 when he wrote this!!!
TS Eliot's own belief was that once he composed his poem, it was its own living organism. It would be free to be interpreted by its readers. A poem can mean anything it wants. Although Hopkins does read it quickly, in his own way, he probably interprets it differently than others. That's how Eliot intended it to be. I believe that it's only respectful to go on that belief. :) Everyone has their own way of reading it.
He has such a great voice for this kind of thing. "Until Human Voices Wake Us" is a very good movie. Wish Anthony Hopkins had been in it, but but the main character is good, too. Bittersweet.
I quite agree. One does tend to rush, thinking it fitting the rhyme, I made a recording of Prufrock a while ago and rushed through parts of it. Different parts, as it turns out. But Tony's timbre suits the poem quite well. I count this among my bery favourite poems, and it does my heart some good to hear it thus recited. Here's my most recent rendition: soundcloud.com/the-uzig-zag-wanderer/the-lovesong-of-j-alfred
Eliot also read it in a rushed tone. read slow it loses the stumbling haphazard perfection and becomes the tone of a dead clock. the beat is one of shamble rather than gait. falling backwards down a staircase. the image here is one of collapse and regret and the corrosion of loss. all the lost arms now tossed. the emptiness of past embrace. memory warped and in moments of crisp resolve; abandoned and lost and then mourned. this is tragedy as triumph but an empty shell all the same. in the final stroke; in the pointlessness of all; there is beauty, however transit. but it haunts as it lingers, and there is suffering in the blessing as the shadows dissolve along the walls. this is where the kisses fade; the embraces lose their limbs; where today unravels moorings of yesterday, and tomorrow, slips past the lingering bow and sinks away into the fog of lost horizons. we bury children in our youth. in our old age we bury life.
I agree with those of you who say Hopkins is reading it too quickly. It takes away some of the melancholy of the poem, in my opinion. Besides, it's two minutes shorter than T.S. Elliot's reading of the poem, and he, y'know, wrote it. Either way, this interpretation is interesting and made me think about how the poem doesn't have to be read as sad.
Andrew--Eliot was an American poet:) He was born in St. Louis and moved to England as a young man. He goes down as both a British and an American poet. This is a great reading! I think it is better than Eliot reading it.
I know there are a lot of complaints about the speed at which he is reading. Study the rhythm of the poem for a minute and I believe it will make a lot more sense. In fact, try reading it aloud and you will see that the first few stanzas are akward when read slow or clipped.
I thought it was a bit too fast until I heard it a second time...eyes shut laying on the sofa. I then realised the tone and mood was perfect...slowing down when necessary. It is after all a reflective poem so one's speed of thought is generally rather fast...therefore the pace was pretty accurate...he is after all Prufrock and Prufrock I feel would have been thinking at a fairly rapid pace, reflecting on what may or should have been....
Eliot, like Pound and most if not all of the Modernists, was very concerned with the loss of tradition and increase of commercialism. He felt that a disconnection from tradition and feeling causes a kind of animalistic autonomy and cheapening of the human condition. This poem is probably a reflection of loneliness, death, and old age. Perhaps an idea of life without the experience of real love or a disconnection from society. The Waste Land would probably explain it better, if actually fully understood...
But it's also about a particular kind of Englishman, bred in a particular way, cultivated, yet ravaged and hollowed by privilege and no resistance or conflict, world-weary yet completely naive and parochial.
I first heard this poem from my 7th grade English teacher. The first time he did attendance for the class when he got to my name he started reciting the poem, I was completely confused until he explained the poem to me and since then I have loved it. It really makes me wonder if J Alfred Prufrock was a real person and if there could somehow be a relation if he was.
This is by far my favorite poem, resonating with me and filling me with dread and sorrow all at once. I think Hopkins did a good job reading this; I can hear the weariness in his voice.
The inconsequential nature of human pursuits and life. Couldn't have been explained better. Our words can stand nowhere close to explaining what Sir Eliot put forth so beautifully in words.
@@JiMMY-my1ds Well, it wouldn't be difficult (time permitting) to list 500. To claim something as "the greatest piece of literature ever written" suggests that you've at least read all of Homer, Dante, Sophocles, Shakespeare, Milton, Blake, Euripides, Tolstoy, Chaucer, Aeschylus, etc, and for some reason I'm suspecting you haven't. Even sticking to poetry alone it would be easy. "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is neither a song nor about love, and seems to be written from the vantage point of a procrastinator who gets hung up on domestic banalities like "Do I dare eat a peach?" and wondering how to wear his trousers. The man clearly wears his collar tight and is vacuous. The reading of the poem here is very fine, and the poem itself is original, though I can't help disliking the speaker. He himself admits he's less than a full crab.
@@jimnewcombe7584 ahh I see what this is… you fancy yourself a bit of a literary buff and need to shit on others enjoyment of Prufrock to affirm your ‘superior’ knowledge and stroke your ego. What a joke. No doubt you sit round with ‘friends’ probably drinking wine and cheese reciting your favourite poems. Patting each other on the back. Stop with the wank. You have no way of providing any evidence that Prufrock is any worse than anything you’ve listed. Pretentious git. I’m still waiting on you 100 ‘better’ pieces.. or is it 500 now?🙄
I suppose reciting at a clip avoids the temptation towards bathos, which the text certainly invites. But there are places where a more measured pace would have given the reader more time to digest the intent before rushing on to the next morsel. Sorry, Tony, you're a fab thespian, and I couldn't read it anywhere near as well, so I should really keep my trap shut. But I'll keep looking for the perfect reading.
True, it is too fast- to begin with. ...It- is (on paper) quite a long poem. I/we have listened to the writers reading.....this one far exceeds. It begins overly fast, That is true, but settle down, dear reader- & listen. It will bear fruit. In my opinion?.. It's the best reading I have found. I'm readily open to suggestions? so far tough... the best!
No no no.I love Hopkins the actor, but this is read with such brutal familiarity. To me this poem reads tremulous, as caution. This misses enitirely the text.
I'm going to have to agree with you here. A "familiarity" hastened and seemingly without introspection. Perhaps a purposeful attempt to be less poetic with rhyme and meter which makes it sound like he's reading to children. I have known many poets at slams who hate "sounding like a poem" with stereotypical rhyme, meter and stresses. So they go completely the other way and make the poem sound more conversational. I assume that Hopkins attempt here was to be more casual as well. I love interpretations of famous works and hoped to find one with a visceral impact here but I think this one falls short.
Overall an excellent reading. Hopkins’ voice is just right and he allows the poem to be itself, ie does not dramatize excessively, as Burton does with some of his readings. I do think this poem must be read a little more slowly for optimum effect.
LET us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient etherized upon a table; Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, The muttering retreats 5 Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: Streets that follow like a tedious argument Of insidious intent To lead you to an overwhelming question…. 10 Oh, do not ask, “What is it?” Let us go and make our visit. In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo. The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes, 15 The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening, Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains, Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys, Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap, 20 And seeing that it was a soft October night, Curled once about the house, and fell asleep. And indeed there will be time For the yellow smoke that slides along the street, Rubbing its back upon the window panes; 25 There will be time, there will be time To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet; There will be time to murder and create, And time for all the works and days of hands That lift and drop a question on your plate; 30 Time for you and time for me, And time yet for a hundred indecisions, And for a hundred visions and revisions, Before the taking of a toast and tea. In the room the women come and go 35 Talking of Michelangelo. And indeed there will be time To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?” Time to turn back and descend the stair, With a bald spot in the middle of my hair- 40 (They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”) My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin, My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin- (They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”) Do I dare 45 Disturb the universe? In a minute there is time For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. For I have known them all already, known them all: Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, 50 I have measured out my life with coffee spoons; I know the voices dying with a dying fall Beneath the music from a farther room. So how should I presume? And I have known the eyes already, known them all- 55 The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase, And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin, When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall, Then how should I begin To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways? 60 And how should I presume? And I have known the arms already, known them all- Arms that are braceleted and white and bare (But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!) Is it perfume from a dress 65 That makes me so digress? Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl. And should I then presume? And how should I begin? . . . . . . . . Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets 70 And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?… I should have been a pair of ragged claws Scuttling across the floors of silent seas. . . . . . . . . And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully! 75 Smoothed by long fingers, Asleep … tired … or it malingers, Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me. Should I, after tea and cakes and ices, Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis? 80 But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed, Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter, I am no prophet-and here’s no great matter; I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, 85 And in short, I was afraid. And would it have been worth it, after all, After the cups, the marmalade, the tea, Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me, Would it have been worth while, 90 To have bitten off the matter with a smile, To have squeezed the universe into a ball To roll it toward some overwhelming question, To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead, Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”- 95 If one, settling a pillow by her head, Should say: “That is not what I meant at all; That is not it, at all.” And would it have been worth it, after all, Would it have been worth while, 100 After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets, After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor- And this, and so much more?- It is impossible to say just what I mean! But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen: 105 Would it have been worth while If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl, And turning toward the window, should say: “That is not it at all, That is not what I meant, at all.” . . . . . . . . 110 No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be; Am an attendant lord, one that will do To swell a progress, start a scene or two, Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool, Deferential, glad to be of use, 115 Politic, cautious, and meticulous; Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse; At times, indeed, almost ridiculous- Almost, at times, the Fool. I grow old … I grow old … 120 I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach? I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me. 125 I have seen them riding seaward on the waves Combing the white hair of the waves blown back When the wind blows the water white and black. We have lingered in the chambers of the sea By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown 130 Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
I dont mind the way Mr. Hopkins has read this. It most definitely is quick, and I think that is because he hasn't carefully taken the punctuation of this poem into consideration. The punctuation is intentional, and Eliot (and all good poets) used commas and semicolons to give the poem a certain pace.
My least favourite of Eliot's poems. I tend to like poetry more the more abstract and timeless it is, and the less when the more concrete and mundane it is.
