"And time for all the works and days of hands" (line 29), might refer to Works and Days (Érga kai hemérai, ca 700 BC) by Hesiod. The farmer in that poem emphasises the importance of living your life in the manner that the Gods have seen fit. This could be compared to Prufrocks difficulties in breaking free from his trivial life due to fear of rejection and/or other consequences. Just a thought. You've highlighted some stuff I didn't think about in my paper on the subject. Nice video. Greetings from Norway!
I think he asks 'Do I dare to eat a peach?' in part because eating a peach is a bit messy, with the juice dripping down the chin - not something to do in polite society, which is his own milieu.
He knew ... and still knows but doesn't know for sure! The overwhelming question (O do not ask what is it) has many answers all of which are wrong ... even the question is wrong ... what is it? Question the question!
+Mick Maphari Both of your interpretations were revelations to me, so thanks. I'm new to Eliot, I've always found him intimidating. Doesn't help that I started a long time ago with Ash Wednesday.
This is a wonderful explanation! Made me appreciate this poem so much more. I feel like every time I read Eliot's work, I find something new to analyze. Thank you!
Thank you for your time and effort, i really appreciate what you are doing for learners and to explain beautiful poems for us. I have been watching you for 4 years now ❤️
This is a 'love song' and therefore presumably addressed to a woman he is in love with. We have an expression 'to pop the question' meaning to ask the woman you are in love with to marry you. This surely provides the conceptual frame within which the 'events' of the poem take place. It could perhaps be fruitfully compared with Philip Larkin's poems on a similar theme, notably The Whitsun Weddings. Is Prufrock in fact old? Or does he just see himself as old? Or is he seeing himself as he might be in the future if he never marries? (Hamlet also is uncertain of what to do with himself. As well as having his father's death to avenge there is also the question of what to do about Ophelia, Polonius's daughter!)
@Phil Dodd (HistoriaAntiqua.ORG) : 'Should I be married? Should I be good? / Marry the girl next door, with velvet suit and Faustus hood?' is Gregory Corso's version of this poem. Though of course phrased in terms of a much less highly refined and erudite sensibility. Eliot wrote many Personae which might be compared with the Dramatic Monologues of Browning. Except that Eliot's Personae are always thinly disguised versions of himself. Therefore I think it more instructive to read the poem in the light of his own biography. The evidence is not that Eliot felt that he was unattractive to women and would therefore fail to find a woman at all but that he felt most women were far too shallow and vapid - he was a terrible snob and extremely conceited and came from the American equivalent of an aristocratic family - and that he would get involved with the wrong woman. A woman who would bore him - or even worse - destroy him. The main point at issue between us is whether Eliot's protagonist is more afraid of rejection or of acceptance. I maintain that it is acceptance he is terrified of. You rejection. I suspect that in the light of Eliot's other poems on a similar theme it is I who am right. Though the argument you put up is extremely plausible. Eliot was a man with a very finely developed sensibility. A man of highly educated tastes and about as aesthetically refined as one could get. He was certainly an aesthete. He was also a genius. He would have been aware of that. He was in himself a highly wrought and extremely delicate work of art. His education was extremely elaborate and very expensive. The last thing he would have wanted to do was throw himself away on the wrong woman. And not only he but his family would have felt the same. They had extremely strong views on the subject and great difficulty with the woman he did finally choose - Vivian. To me the repeated couplet about the women coming and going and talking of Michelangelo demonstrates not a fear of being rejected by women but a demonstration of his own distaste for vapid women. He is in many ways a misogynist. He is as terrified of involvement with empty-headed women as of a lonely bachelorhood. Both are a terrifying prospects for him. He is weighing up the pros and cons. Both prospects are equally appalling. 'But since, up from those depths, no one has yet returned alive ... ' is surely the central point of the epigraph. I think you should reread 'Conversation Galante'. Surely it supports my reading of this present poem better than yours. 'Hysteria' is another case in point. 'La Figlia Che Piange' is not a poem written by a man who thinks he is fundamentally unattractive to women. Or one who thinks that women are fundamentally unattractive. On the contrary the right woman is extremely important to him. And that is precisely the point. Eliot was a perfectionist. And a perfectionist in everything. And from a very strong Calvinist tradition. Hence all his difficulties. And our difficulties with him. 'Perfection is terrible:/it cannot have children,' complained Sylvia Plath. And indeed Eliot never fathered children. Either at the physical level. Or at the spiritual. Just admirers. Who then went away and did something different. Then there is the problem of precisely why Eliot would want to write a poem about a fundamentally unattractive man. As I say there is no evidence that Eliot felt himself to be unattractive vis-à-vis other men. He may have felt that the human animal was unattractive in itself. And in many ways it is. After all physically what are we but a more or less attractively packaged bag of shit and piss and snot and vomit and blood and pus and guts? And Eliot was too deep and too religious a man to be taken in by the superficial appearance of anything. In short I think you neglect Eliot's complexity and oversimplify him. Yours is but one reading among many. And ignores too many aspects not just of this work but of the rest of his oeuvre.
Dead on that this is about love. Elliot is sharing feelings of rejection by the women he encounters. Prufrock is a middle aged man, facing his mortality and lost opportunities. Elliot, however, is a man in his early 20’s. He is projecting his feelings as a young man struggling through his romantic life onto a man like him after 30 years of these struggles. A professor of mine at Berkeley had met Elliot. They were at dinner, and Elliot was reading the menu. He said, “Oh, do I dare to get a lobster?” My professor laughed uncontrollably, and answered, “…do you dare to eat a peach?”😂
0:37 Dante’s Inferno - Embarassment, Secrets 2:06 Inviting the reader in 4:00 - Tedious, Bleak, Going nowhere (or not getting anywhere) 5:17 Women going by, talking about art 8:13 Facial preparation (persona) 30:00 Fear of being misunderstood. Hamlet and Polonius 33:46 “Do I dare Eat a peach” 🍑? 35:27 Sea seaweed, linger, drown
Brava! You deserve kudos for the relatively gentle and painless way of inviting your audience to engage with the poem, holding their hands on their first cycle around the hermeneutic circle--or perhaps I should say the hermeneutic spiral. .
OMG thank you so much! I was really having a hard time grasping the concept of this poem when I read it for school but now that I have listened to this video, I really get it now and it is really cool! Plus I loved listening to you talk, you have a nice voice. But anyway, great video!
I had to read this in high school and it was analysed by the teacher and us. I was so mesmermized by this poem that I memorized the first half and now know what it is about. I was just enthralled by the poetry.
He seems to be daydreaming; imagining him self with life in conversations, but is woken by human voices/ reality; the women, not the mermaids and is once again drowning in conversation.
Sounds like the guy is in a mid-life crisis. Anyway, thank you so much for posting this! This poem has easily become one of my favorites. Thank you again
The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock is one of the most beautiful, compelling, enigmatic poems of the 20th century. Many of us, I'm sure, have come back time and time again to this poem, wondering what additional glimmer of insight may illuminate it and move us - as I have, and been moved. So here's my take. First of all, it is a love song. So while it may be a stream of consciousness, it is a structured one - e.g. note the repetitions - albeit a complicated structure. Indeed, Prufrock is in love, painfully so. He longs deeply for a particular woman, whom he refers to in "If one, settling a pillow by her head..." Some have argued that Prufrock is terribly indecisive and passive. Similar to Hamlet, he seems to agonize and obsess over what to do, in relation to her, and and may indeed paralyze himself into saying nothing or doing nothing. Instead, I would argue that he has approached this woman, spent a lot of time with her, and gone to bed with her! He is neither indecisive nor passive. But alas Prufrock is a dour, anxiety-riddled man who, in bed with his love, sometimes goes soft on her - his erection fails him. It is so deeply embarrassing that he dies on the spot. That death is figurative of course, but it figures prominently throughout the poem: Shame so discombobulating to and disintegrating of his psyche, i.e. self esteem, that it paralyzes him, it demoralizes him, and it makes him wonder "Would it have been worth it..." To my argument about his increasing impotence, reference the following lines: Should I, after tea and cakes and ices, Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis? 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, And in short, I was afraid. Poor Prufrock wonders, after a dissatisfying turn in bed with his love, if he should have at it again next time. Of course, he does, because he's in love with her! Besides being a love song, Eliot's masterpiece is a highly erotic one. More specifically I argue that it is a brothel that he frequents, and sex is literally everywhere around him. Prufrock is a proper gentleman, as evidenced by his attire: My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin, My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin... But the opening two main stanzas speak to the route he has to walk and the air he has to breathe - it's all a bit macabre ("Like a patient etherized upon a table") and seedy ("pools that stand in drains" and "soot that falls from chimneys"). But more metaphorically, Eliot's vivid description of the surroundings tells the tale of how Prufrock experiences his love and lust for a woman and what he has to go through psychologically to be with her. It makes me think of another famous Shakespearean character - Prince Hal - who, long before he became King Henry V, frequented the taverns and cavorted with the common people, much to the chagrin of his royal father. For Prufrock it is his gentlemanly sensibility that finds the longing, lustful side of himself despicable. The repeated lines: In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo... are the ladies in the brothel. In general, he's enamored with them: 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 That makes me so digress? I doubt that they, in turn, are enamored with him, but over time they've become used to him and some of them may even find him endearing. But notice that he doesn't refer to them as whole people, but as body parts - arms and eyes. I argue that this is a manifestation of his obsessive, psychologically compartmentalized nature and also his haughty demeanor. He looks down on these women: After all what do they know about Michelangelo, he may wonder; and they shouldn't be talking about the great artist in passing anyway, he may silently scoff. Back to his love affair with one of those women: Prufrock is an awkward gentleman, not just in his manners but also in his speech: "It is impossible to say just what I mean!" So we can imagine his conversations with her as having a fair amount of misunderstanding. He hopes to win her love, and maybe even believes at times that she does. Alas, however, having sex with him is only a job for her! She may like him, but it doesn't seem that she truly loves him at all. So his repeated love overtures only come across to her as repeated misunderstandings: “That is not it at all, That is not what I meant, at all.” Moreover, it kills Prufrock every time his woman has sex with another client: I know the voices dying with a dying fall Beneath the music from a farther room. We can imagine him sitting in one of the rooms in the brothel, time and time again having coffee by himself, waiting for this woman and her client to finish their business. The sound of sex surrounds him, and the owner knows that it's best to have some music to drown it out. But Prufrock knows this woman's voice, and perhaps her clients' voices, too, and he hears them - oh, he hears them - and it's utterly painful and deflating! The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock is a profound philosophical treatise, similar, I'd argue, to The Myth of Sisyphus. Beyond the brothel setting and Prufrock's love affair, Eliot may be speaking to the Zeitgeist of the time when he wrote it - the advent of World War I. While Camus argued that Sisyphus was happy, despite having to repeatedly push a boulder up a hill, it is a life of existential absurdity and tedium. Love and life, work and sex had perhaps become that absurd and tedious for scores of people as well, at least according to Eliot. So in light of this world that Eliot created in The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock, what does he do in the end? He elevates that brothel, its ladies, and its business to mythic levels: I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me. 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 Till human voices wake us, and we drown. Just as Camus can argue with Sisyphus, so too Eliot can argue with Prufrock: i.e. that in the end he is happy. My sense is that he beds other women in the brothel, and because there isn't that anxiety and disenchantment of his unrequited love, getting hard and getting his rocks off aren't an issue: Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach [i.e. have oral sex]? I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach [i.e. put on a condom, and have intercourse]. At the end of it all, he is satisfied. We ought not take "we drown" as literal, though. In Shakespeare, the notion of dying is a metaphor for having an orgasm. There is that sharp, guttural sound from man and woman as they approach climax (i.e. "human voices") and there is that pleasurable death (wink, wink) among those "sea-girls." Finally, what is that "overwhelming question" that is also a pervasive theme in The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock, which he can hardly acknowledge even to himself? It is this, I'd argue: He wants to ask this one woman "Do you love me?" Surely, he knows that it's only a job for her, but he wonders if she has any feelings for him and whether she truly cares about him. He can tolerate the other ladies seeing him as nothing more than a skinny man with a bald spot on his head. But with this one woman, his love is of mythic proportions and his lust fills him with existential pain.
Oh, thank you, Rebecca. Thank you as well for your patient walk through of the poem. Your interpretation, as well as others' on RU-vid, have helped clarify my thoughts over the past several months. While we may all have different perspectives, we share a common love for this poem! And isn't that what masterful poetry is all about :)
There doesn't seem to be much room for ambiguity in your interpretation. Good poems tend to work at several levels. That surely is the point. Otherwise why bother?
I've always found it interesting that so much of this poem reads as if it was written by a middle aged (or older?) man. Yet, I believe T.S. Eliot was only 23 (and still in college?) when he wrote it.
Thank you, thank you, thank you! You explained this poem in such a way that left me informed of your great ideas, but also allowed me to form my own opinions of the life of Prufrock. You were enjoyable to listen to as well. :)
OMG! Thank you so much for that video! I need this poem for a final exam, and I read it twice in english, then I read it in bulgarian (i'm bilingual) I read summary, notes etc. and I still felt like an idiot not getting what this is really about, and then I found your video and now It opened my eyes :D i already know much more for 38 minutes than from 3 hour researching :D
I think, on surface level, by "overwhelming question" he means Prufrock wants to propose the woman he loves, like, 'Will you be mine, or will you marry me?'. On other levels, this question may be something higher philosophical question regarding the nothingness of human existence (notice the tone of hopelessness all through the poem). Again, the question overwhelms him because he does not know the answer... The burden of his dual personality (you and I) makes him wonder about insignificant things. It's connected to the mental drama going inside, rather than any practical or physical action. That's what I think!
That's what I always thought, until I learned about his life with his wife. I think he wants to ask for a divorce and is debating the consequences of growing old alone, will anyone else want him when she's gone.
This was more than awesome. i am preparing for my final exam in university and missed my class lecture for this poem....and i must say you've helped me out.. I've got this poem so well now. tysm mam. keep uploading more. God bless ya :)
I enjoyed joining you on our journey through this magnificent, powerful poem. Years ago when I was working, to pass the time during my drive to work I memorized Prufrock and would recite it on my way. It always saddened me. Perhaps there were times in my life when I felt just like Prufrock, a scuttling crab. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge with us readers and listeners.
Could the 'overwhelming question' that is referred to throughout the poem be; the overwhelming 'QUESTION'? As in, the existence of the question. The ability to question. As he uses the terms 'do I dare', often. He is questioning himself. So could it be he is noting the overwhelming existence of 'the question'. I am sorry I dont know how to explain what I am thinking more clearly. The question, as the potential for all possible questions all possible times, and the abstract idea of the question at all and to begin with. The overwhelming nature of being able to question oneself. Ok well, an edit here, now listening further, with more context, and yes I have listened to the poem; Perhaps the overwhelming question is the one of 'right and wrong', what is right and wrong, is this right is this wrong? Or a more literal approach, a foggy night, wandering around the streets, you eventually arrive at some question 'what am I doing, what do I want, where am I going, which way should I turn, am I hungry, what time is it, am I to tired to walk more'... I dont know... Could be, the amount a person questions himself, it appears the entire poem is discussing his indecision, another concept and term which may relate is; confidence, a person who has pure, ultra confidence apparently, truthfully, or seemingly does not question themselves, if he just knew exactly what to do, or accepted himself and his surroundings, he would have nothing of his actions to question, for they would all be acceptable, but because he believes himself to be inadequate in his own eyes and potentially the eyes of others, he is questioning his apperance and ability to function with others in an even socially valueable manner. This poem is pretty much a window into the mind of someone with social anxiety disorder, every single action of theirs under a microscope, being hard on himself over every little thing, every potential a pandoras box of questions, where as, it may be technically possible for him to ask none of them, and this would then be, whose to say, false or worthy confidence. 'do I dare to eat a peach', followed by the mermaids, makes me think of what you were saying about him at this party persuing the love of a woman, 'the love song'. The question may be, is he confident or worthy enough to attempt to pick up a woman at this event. The mermaids being juxtaposed to the harshness of the city and such, might be his vision of the purity and pedastooling of woman, and him observing them like mythical creatures talking amongst themselves, who might also be therefore intimidating to approach. But holy crap, I have listened to the reading of this poem on youtube maybe 20 times, and have not come anywhere near to comprehending the linearality and flow and narrative of it like this at all. Maybe last few lines, about lingering in sea chambers and seaweed glad girls, is him lingering in his fantasy, his true desires and wants, and ideal life and interaction with the mythical creature that is the woman, until the very human reality set in, interrupting his fantasy and ideals, and showed him, via his lack of confidence, that his wishes to 'claim' a woman, seem unlikely.
+Imafungi123 That was very good, but I've always thought the question Elliot was afraid to ask was about sex, about deepening his relationship with a woman to include physical intimacy. Maybe this is wrong, but it also fits with pretty much everything in the poem.
Amazing video. Loved the way you broke down every sentence of this poem. By far one of the best explanations i have heard or read. After watching this video i understood the poem in its entirety. I am recommending your videos for others in my class to see! Keep up the good work!
I am an adjunct instructor and have decided to include this poem in my upcoming course on World Literature After 1660. I confess it has always baffled me. I didn't have thorough instruction on it while in school, and that was part of the problem. The language always put me off a bit as well. I'm much more comfortable with Medieval and Renaissance works. However, I felt that it was important to include "Prufrock" in my course, though I was completely mystified as to how to approach teaching a work I didn't understand myself. You have enlightened me tremendously! I can't tell you how much I appreciate your mini-lecture on this. Simply fabulous! Thank you!
Well, wow! You're so welcome. I avoided teaching this poem for a while myself. I finally decided to dig in and try to figure it out. I heard a lecture on it back in the 90's by Agah Shahid Ali, a 20th century poet. That helped. Some of it still challenges me. Good luck with your course!
For F**k sake! I want to have a conversation with you about this! What rubs it's back against the window has GOT to be poverty.! The disenfranchised. Now you've got me spinning! This man has come to measure his worth by these social galas. ( I'm an amateur to poetry analysis. There can be no such thing as amateur to be moved by poetry ) The embrace of perfect etiquette has slowed replaced his passion for life. What passing him by is youth in a vulgar expression. She's "loud" and kinda loud. Bad jewelry, too much perfume.. But for one instant, an expected blast from the past!!.. " I did THAT! I was young and stupid and beautiful! And didn't give a shit about etiquette.'
Amazing. I adore your warm, insightful approach to teaching poetry and prose. Makes me think about these works in an entirely different way. Thank you!
What if the mermaids at the end of the poem are the women he would be having tea; he hears them singing/ talking. But they do not sing for him/ talk to him. He imagines himself with them when in that depth, alive with conversation.
I think you have mixed up the Lazaruses and that Eliot is referring to Lazarus by the Gate from his parable about the pauper Lazarus ascending to the bosom of Abraham whilst the rich man is rejected. The rich man then says that if a dead person were able to come back to life and warn others...etc etc. But thank you for this vid.
Thank you so much. I like the way you went smoothly in this reading. However my question is why you didn't try read the poem title. It starts with the "love"! What love? Why it doesn't appear in this love song? Did he (a) love song not (the) love song?! The sense of hopelessness is very clear in the poem so what love is it that can make a thin hared man dress up and attempt to eat a peach. This metaphor I think refers to his sexual "inability". I love poetry and although English is not my language I feel this poem has touched me very deeply. Thanks again
Hello, my name is Jason Beech. I run bloom and curll bookshop in Bristol, England. If your ever in town, you have free tea and cake, and possibly books, for you pleasure. Thank You Jason
How many many times I have felt what TS Eliot is here describing.What a horrible feeling and thinking process. Again Rebecca thank for the elucidation... I can listen and listen to you till the time of End...
The women's arms braceleted, white and bare are a definite turn-on for the speaker. However, lacking courage he brings in a negative by referencing light brown down. In the 1920s this is what Eliot saw in London....imagine an ankle alone would send a man into a frenzy....another time another place, when less was more... The trousers rolled- he is aging, shrinking, thin, stooped,and his trousers are descending, hence, he rolls the cuffs. The mermaids now sing each to each, not to him. His days as a Romeo about town, if they ever were, are long gone. As the Stones sang 'what a drag it is getting old'. Basically the equivalent of 'Death in Venice' for aging heterosexual males.
Griffin Henderson Eliot was quite the man about town, especially when tagging along with the inimitable Bertrand Russell, but primarily as an observer- ah, the poet's fate, Lord Byron excepted.
Hello, I love how you started off, the image of an unconscious patient. I think he wants us to follow the patient's deepest dream/consciousness. I think the sawdust/oysters/streets represent the habits of everyday thinking. I think the question refers to the unfulfilling nature of everyday thinking. I think the smoke represents the disembodied soul/feeling which can only daydream. The social gathering represents the soullessness of human interaction. We feel our real life only in daydreams.....??
Thank you. I've always loved this poem. I love it more now. And I identify with it deeply. Hesitation, self doubt, being stuck in indecisiveness. Wow! My life writ large. Have you studied or analyzed the myth of the fisher king, the fool and the holy grail? The only thing the film has to do, at the right moment, is to submit to his innate instinct and ask his question. Just that action of realizing outwardly who he is inwardly, will save the wounded king and by extension, the kingdom. There a parallels here, I think, between Parcival and Prufrock.
Thank you sooooo much. I have to do a presentation on this poem, and I didn't understand it at all until watching your video. You made everything make a lot more sense!
He is an awkward, solitary middle age man. Perhaps so painfully shy, he has never been able to approach a lady. Therefore his life evolves in a brothel. He has been with all the women, but has not feel what is love. His life is so isolated, even tough he wants to dare to live a different way. His life in this environment us the only one he can handle. He knows it, he is not happy about it. He wants to break away, but he cannot find the strength to do it. So he thinks, is the "love" he finds in this place the love he deserves? Is this place and with this women tat I can find love, ultimately?
Lastly, I think he longs for his Beatrice "Spiritual Love" "Sophia". Unfortunately, all we have on earth are but abstractions and opinions "hundred visions and revisions". We have nothing real? "That is not what I meant at all. That is not it!" The only thing we can do is eat....?
Thank you for your thoughts. I had to go back an finish. Fun, giant steps to ponder! I trusted your credit by your appreciation, modesty, and disarming sincerity. When I see someone allowing themselves to be as they feel.. as they are...I am inspired. " I can do that! And not give a..."
Thank you soo much for sharing your knowledge this helps us to make our studies easier please keep uploading like this wish to see more of your vedios. Good luck
I stumbled onto this site and I'm so glad I did. What a great teacher you are, I really enjoyed listening to you. I can't wait to listen to the rest of your videos. Thank you, made my day.
missed the prufrock lecture in my lit class while i was a senior in high school and it’s been on my mind ever since. thank you for analyzing this incredible poem ☺️
The question is a marriage proposal. "Michelangelo" = his statue David, the ideal against whih Prufrock thinks women measure him and find him wanting. Despite his efforts to keep himself as tidy as he can womankind instantly pigeonholes him with the formulated phrase "thin and a bit bald"; (except for his early youth, when his own greatness flickered). The whole is about his travels (dates, restaurants, teacups, afternoons and evenings together) toward a proposal and his hesitation, at the moment of it. Should he presume?,
I think with the Lazarus part that he's thinking of bringing up a dead argument and trying to make whatever point he had in it, but the effort of bringing it out again wouldn't be worth it because the person would deflect with how that's not what she meant, he wouldn't make any progress in that old dead argument that still matters to him, he would be tedious. His speech would not hit like a Hamlet monologue with questions that inspire, but be wearisome like Polonius.
My guess in connection with: "To drop a question on your plate", refers to "What's the meaning of Work?" What does all the convoluted interaction between human beings truly mean? Is it shallow or deep? Are we living in a Hollow Space, or a space filled? These are deep subconscious and fearfully conscious questions. Also, the smoke represents the free part of your soul. The non-material part of you, that's left adrift, without being noticed. Thanks for putting yourself out there. It's truly a beautiful gesture.
Thank you for your courageous interpretation of “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” But the deep metaphysical essence of the poem was totally obliterated by your interpretation, and T. S. Eliot is rolling in his grave. One of the minor misinterpretation you made regarding the line, “I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.” Is referring to aging, and getting shorter. In order to really understand the poem you first have to figure out what the overwhelmingly question is. You obviously don’t have a clue. You are correct in that the tone is melancholic, though.
Thank-you so much, Rebecca! Extremely pleasant to listen to ! Such an empathetic and unpretentious discussion of one of my very favourite poems that I recite lines of to myself frequently. It's lovely how you sort of harmonise and move along a little journey with the poem, treating the listener to generous quotes, and gentle queries about the connections. So refreshing and appreciative, rather than steam -rollering the poem with alienating analysis that almost disgards it and infers it's not enough in itself. I'm not sure about the Dante mention at the beginning. Perhaps Alfred J. is likeable partly due tp his humility and yet sad but in a creative way due to his somewhat distanced observor stance musings, yet showing a touch of appealing wit. Perhaps he asks himself if he dares to eat a peach, concerned about dribbling the peach juice, whereas, as you say, he might have totally relished it when younger. That's an interesting interpretation of "Am an attendant lord..." - as not using the I pronoun certainly fits the role, as maybe a depletion in ego - also, the assonance of "am" scans nicely. Yet the touch of graceful melancholy is very life-romantic IMO - despite the final "and we drown" phrase, where I think he's inviting the reader to empathise rather than literally drown. I'm still wondering what the "crisis" is tho, that he doesn't feel able to provoke - perhaps the mystery adds a metaphysical touch! Thank-you again, best of wishes, Anne Seagull - songs on www.anneseagull.com
I think that Prufrock's dilemma is not the pain of awkward social situations, but the anguish of singularly recognizing his fundamental unworthiness. His dilema is a consequence of his knowledge of the meaninglessness of life and his inability, or his unworthiness to bring this message to fellow human beings. The world insists on operating at a superficial social level. Prufrock would, were he worthy, insist that people deal with the horror of reality. Prufrock has wasted his life. He's a crab, mute, cowardly, helpless and hopeless.
If you were an older man looking back upon your life: all the mistakes, all the decisions and revisions, the good, the bad; and if you had loved and lost and never had closure or a reason why, you might change your interpretation.
Amazing this silly woman doesn't see the sexual considerations of Prufrock: "licked its tongue into the corners of the evening." Anything more arousing than that, friends?
Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts. This poem is so important to me even if it never truly opened up to me until now. I study English lit and I love poetry, however, I'm still intimidated by poems more often than not... But this video certainly helped me get started with this particular poem, and I think it also gave me more confidence for the future. So thank you again, and keep on doing these videos! :)
+Laura Jalkanen You're so welcome! Keep enjoying poems and reading. I felt the same way about poems -- that they were intimidating and "smarter" than me -- but I kept reading and learning. Rewarding! Thanks for commenting. Good luck with everything!
With the virus crises, wonder if she still lick her fingers, and if people will pick up the book soon after. That aside, so many of us want to be heard. But wouldn't Dante have more to talk about than J.A. P? What about people who have seen so much or helped nurture those who have been in hell on earth. For me, I find oldest women in America, mostly real Rosie the Riveters, and listen to them. Their lives are over, most are at peace, some are lonely, some love the limelight, but they are authentic. They have lived through a century that has seen more change than any other in human history, and we have not listened. They have been there and we have the freedom to find them and listen to them, but we do not. In this new time of pulling together while many of us are isolated, can we not find the the common threads of lives of people who are used to being ignored, though what we have to tell is profound. Rosebud Anne, 304/776-4743
You need to recognize more allusions and inadequacies for the modern period…Sirens are associated with Ulysses and the sirens to which he is kept from hearing and falling for their song
As we grow older, we shrink. Our trousers become too long. We must decide how to deal with this. One way is to roll them up. Later he references walking on the beach. At the beach, if we do not roll up our pant, they get wet. This is how I have understood these words.
I think the best way to interpret the poem is to imagine it as having been written by Prufrock himself to try and woo a woman. In this sense, a lot of the poem can be seen as him thinking out loud as to how best to write this love song. The epigraph, about embarrassment of telling the audience his story, is similar to the embarrassment a poet feels in sharing their early work (Elliot would have related. He said that, although he wrote his first poems at around 14, he destroyed them cause they apparently were "gloomy and despairing"). The title "The Love Song of ..." is quite simplistic, and makes sense as a working title for someone writing a poem but hasn't come up with a proper title. Prufrock says later on that he is "Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse". That would explain some of the melodic yet seemingly tautologous lines, like "To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet" and "I know the voices dying with a dying fall". They're tautologous because they were written by Prufrock himself.
Thank you so much!! I was told to write about the modernism in this poem and did even fully understand what the poem was about at first but now I have a better understand of what is going on.
Is it Freudian? Anima contrasted with Persona? And poetic tension between men and women and their society and carnal reality. And Time (in his balding head and faltering body.) And the mermaids lingering make more sense to me in terms of death and an afterlife. Human voices Wake us (as we are Waked with human voices around our casket) and we drown. Depart this life.
With respect to the "paranoid about his hair" part? I think he is referring to the general spectacle and phenomenon of people judging and finding fault regardless: even if one is perfect, there are those who will sniff out a shortcoming.
This was incredibly helpful. I come out of this knowing and appreciating the poem so much more. Thank you very much. I hope you continue to do this for a very long time.
I think this is great when people discuss poetry but I think all in all we miss the rythymn of it by over analyzing the heart of what the man's is going through in soul and the suffering there's a beauty in this if you listen with the heart he doesn't see it but I as a woman would see him as very beautiful
the toast and tea line, @ 10:45 reminds me of being in hospital post operation. Its toast and tea that is brought to you first by the nurses. As you recover you have certainly lots of time, lying in bed to think about your life
Just wanted to add something about the name I read not so long ago and it is less there was a monument and St. Louis is where it was and somewhere near there there was an old furniture store that is not there anymore and that is the name that was on the store anything anybody can add to make a connection and it’s around 26th St. somewhere in there that’s about all I know
