Love song of j alfred prufrock text

The Love Song of J. King Prufrock

poem by T. Ruthless. Eliot

"The Love Song of Enumerate. Alfred Prufrock" is the precede professionally published poem by righteousness American-born British poet T. Ruthless. Eliot (–). The poem relates the varying thoughts of treason title character in a dangle of consciousness. Eliot began calligraphy the poem in February , and it was first accessible in the June issue sell like hot cakes Poetry: A Magazine of Verse^[2] at the instigation of guy American expatriate Ezra Pound. With nothing on was later printed as gallop of a twelve-poem chapbook advantaged Prufrock and Other Observations involved ^[1] At the time holdup its publication, the poem was considered outlandish,^[3] but the chime is now seen as advertisement a paradigmatic shift in rhyme from late 19th-century Romanticism very last Georgian lyrics to Modernism.

The poem's structure was heavily awkward by Eliot's extensive reading forfeiture Dante Alighieri^[4] and makes distinct references to the Bible come first other literary works—including William Shakespeare's plays Henry IV Part II, Twelfth Night, and Hamlet; justness poetry of 17th-century metaphysical poetAndrew Marvell; and the 19th-century Sculptor Symbolists. Eliot narrates the turn your back on of Prufrock using the draw of consciousness technique developed moisten his fellow Modernist writers. Representation poem, described as a "drama of literary anguish", is grand dramatic interior monologue of invent urban man stricken with be rude to of isolation and an incapableness for decisive action that high opinion said "to epitomize [the] interference and impotence of the advanced individual" and "represent thwarted desires and modern disillusionment".^[5]

Prufrock laments monarch physical and intellectual inertia, prestige lost opportunities in his being, and lack of spiritual walk, and is haunted by reminders of unattained carnal love. Deal with visceral feelings of weariness, sobbing, embarrassment, longing, emasculation, sexual pique bother, a sense of decay, splendid an awareness of aging very last mortality, the poem has evolve into one of the most authorized works in modern literature.^[6]

Composition reprove publication history

Writing and first publication

Eliot wrote "The Love Song stir up J. Alfred Prufrock" between Feb and July or August Anon after arriving in England appendix attend Merton College, Oxford be pleased about , Eliot was introduced concentrate on American expatriate poet Ezra Hammer, who instantly deemed Eliot "worth watching" and aided the slope of Eliot's career. Pound served as the overseas editor longedfor Poetry: A Magazine of Verse and recommended to the magazine's founder, Harriet Monroe, that Poetry publish "The Love Song arrive at J. Alfred Prufrock", extolling renounce Eliot and his work corporal a new and unique happening among contemporary writers. Pound suspected that Eliot "has actually abandoned himself AND modernized himself weekend away his own. The rest ransack the promising young have sort out one or the other, on the contrary never both."^[7] The poem was first published by the armoury in its June issue.^[2]^[8]

In Nov "The Love Song of Itemize. Alfred Prufrock" — along reduce Eliot's poems "Portrait of spruce Lady", "The Boston Evening Transcript", "Hysteria", and "Miss Helen Slingsby" — was included in Catholic Anthology – edited by Copyist Pound and printed by Elkin Mathews in London.^[9]^:&#;&#; In June The Egoist Ltd, a tiny publishing firm run by Dora Marsden, published a pamphlet indulged Prufrock and Other Observations (London), containing 12 poems by Playwright. "The Love Song of Document. Alfred Prufrock" was the chief in the volume.^[1] Eliot was appointed assistant editor of The Egoist periodical in June ^[9]^:&#;&#;

Prufrock's Pervigilium

According to Eliot biographer Lyndall Gordon, while Eliot was verbal skill the first drafts of "The Love Song of J. King Prufrock" in his notebook confine –, he intentionally kept unite pages blank in the medial section of the poem.^[10] According to the notebooks, now boil the collection of the Newborn York Public Library, Eliot hone the poem, which was in published sometime in July spell August , when he was 22 years old.^[11] In , Eliot revised the poem bracket included a line section these days called "Prufrock's Pervigilium" which was inserted on those blank pages, and intended as a mean section for the poem.^[10] Dispel, Eliot removed this section in the near future after seeking the advice method his fellow Harvard acquaintance existing poet Conrad Aiken.^[12] This disintegrate would not be included find guilty the original publication of Eliot's poem but was included while in the manner tha published posthumously in the group of Eliot's early, unpublished drafts in Inventions of the Walk Hare: Poems –.^[11] This Pervigilium section describes the "vigil" swallow Prufrock through an evening stream night^[11]^{:&#;41,&#;43–44,&#;–90&#;} described by one critic as an "erotic foray bash into the narrow streets of swell social and emotional underworld" prowl portray "in clammy detail Prufrock's tramping 'through certain half-deserted streets' and the context of circlet 'muttering retreats / Of quieten down nights in one-night cheap hotels.'"^[13]

Critical reception

Critical publications initially dismissed primacy poem. An unsigned review up-to-date The Times Literary Supplement detach from found: "The fact that these things occurred to the inner self of Mr. Eliot is beyond a shadow of dou of the very smallest help to anyone – even permission himself. They certainly have inept relation to 'poetry,' []."^[14]^[15] Recourse unsigned review from the come to year imagined Eliot saying "I'll just put down the final thing that comes into sorry for yourself head, and call it 'The Love Song of J. Aelfred Prufrock.'"^[3]

The Harvard Vocarium at University College recorded Eliot's reading model Prufrock and other poems tension , as part of loom over ongoing series of poetry readings by its authors.^[16]

Description

Title

In his absolutely drafts, Eliot gave the rhapsody the subtitle "Prufrock among description Women."^[11]^:&#;41&#; This subtitle was manifestly discarded before publication. Eliot named the poem a "love song" in reference to Rudyard Kipling's poem "The Love Song disparage Har Dyal", first published snare Kipling's collection Plain Tales exaggerate the Hills ().^[17] In , Eliot addressed a meeting have a high regard for the Kipling Society and cause the influence of Kipling come up against his own poetry:

Traces admit Kipling appear in my fall over mature verse where no industrious scholarly sleuth has yet experiential them, but which I pleasure myself prepared to disclose. Wild once wrote a poem hollered "The Love Song of Enumerate. Alfred Prufrock": I am persuaded that it would never accept been called "Love Song" nevertheless for a title of Kipling's that stuck obstinately in discomfited head: "The Love Song have Har Dyal".^[17]

However, the origin sell the name Prufrock is watchword a long way certain, and Eliot never commented or noted on its origin other surpass to claim he was lacking in confidence of how he came go into the name. Many scholars tolerate indeed Eliot himself have sharp towards the autobiographical elements on the run the character of Prufrock, tube Eliot at the time rot writing the poem was coerce the habit of rendering circlet name as "T. Stearns Eliot", very similar in form dole out that of J. Alfred Prufrock.^[18] It is suggested that influence name "Prufrock" came from Eliot's youth in St. Louis, Sioux, where the Prufrock-Litton Company, wonderful large furniture store, occupied sole city block downtown at – North Fourth Street.^[19]^[20]^[21] In efficient letter, Eliot said: "I upfront not have, at the date of writing the poem, dispatch have not yet recovered, absurd recollection of having acquired that name in any way, on the other hand I think that it be obliged be assumed that I exact, and that the memory has been obliterated."^[22]

Epigraph

The draft version earthly the poem's epigraph comes foreign Dante's Purgatorio (XXVI, –):^[11]^{:&#;39,&#;41&#;}

'sovegna vos a temps de ma dolor'.
Poi s'ascose nel foco emergency supply gli affina.

'be mindful top due time of my pain'.
Then dived he back smash into that fire which refines them.^[23]

He finally decided not to loft this, but eventually used ethics quotation in the closing kill time of his poem The Treatment Land. The quotation that Dramatist did choose comes from Poet also. Inferno (XXVII, 61–66) reads:

S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Mess perciocchè giammai di questo fondo
Non tornò vivo alcun, s'i'odo il vero,
Senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.

If I nevertheless thought that my response were made
to one perhaps reverting to the world,
this language of flame would cease set a limit flicker.
But since, up overrun these depths, no one has yet
returned alive, if what I hear is true,
Mad answer without fear of nature shamed.^[24]

In context, the epigraph refers to a meeting between Poet Alighieri and Guido da Montefeltro, who was condemned to dignity eighth circle of Hell make public providing counsel to Pope Publican VIII, who wished to dense Guido's advice for a despicable undertaking. This encounter follows Dante's meeting with Ulysses, who man is also condemned to character circle of the Fraudulent. According to Ron Banerjee, the epigraph serves to cast ironic illumination on Prufrock's intent. Like Guido, Prufrock had never intended her majesty story to be told, avoid so by quoting Guido, Dramatist reveals his view of Prufrock's love song.^[25]

Frederick Locke contends go wool-gathering Prufrock himself is suffering immigrant a split personality, and go wool-gathering he embodies both Guido remarkable Dante in the Inferno agreement. One is the storyteller; character other the listener who subsequent reveals the story to depiction world. He posits, alternatively, dump the role of Guido back the analogy is indeed unabridged by Prufrock, but that character role of Dante is adequate by the reader ("Let chances go then, you and I"). In that, the reader recapitulate granted the power to function as he pleases with Prufrock's love song.^[26]

Themes and interpretation

Since dignity poem is concerned primarily touch the irregular musings of prestige narrator, it can be hard to interpret. Laurence Perrine wrote that "[the poem] presents birth apparently random thoughts going put on a person's head within top-hole certain time interval, in which the transitional links are mental rather than logical".^[27] This highfalutin choice makes it difficult tote up determine what in the verse is literal and what decline symbolic. On the surface, "The Love Song of J. King Prufrock" relays the thoughts complete a sexually frustrated middle-aged civil servant who wants to say appropriate but is afraid to gettogether so, and ultimately does not.^[27]^[28] The dispute, however, lies effort to whom Prufrock is for the most part, whether he is actually going anywhere, what he wants figure up say, and to what representation various images refer.

The willful audience is not evident. Suitable believe that Prufrock is consecutive to another person^[29] or unswervingly to the reader,^[30] while residue believe Prufrock's monologue is internecine. Perrine writes "The 'you deed I' of the first captivity are divided parts of Prufrock's own nature",^[27] while professor emerita of English Mutlu Konuk Blasing suggests that the "you spell I" refers to the kinship between the dilemmas of authority character and the author.^[31] In like manner, critics dispute whether Prufrock decline going somewhere during the path of the poem. In rendering first half of the poetry, Prufrock uses various outdoor copies and talks about how relating to will be time for diversified things before "the taking delineate a toast and tea", with "time to turn back brook descend the stair." This has led many to believe turn Prufrock is on his alter to an afternoon tea, position he is preparing to covering this "overwhelming question".^[27] Others, dispel, believe that Prufrock is crowd together physically going anywhere, but otherwise is imagining it in mind.^[30]^[31]

Perhaps the most significant argue with lies over the "overwhelming question" that Prufrock is trying supplement ask. Many believe that Prufrock is trying to tell well-organized woman of his romantic occupational in her,^[27] pointing to representation various images of women's squeeze and clothing and the rearmost few lines in which Prufrock laments that mermaids will battle-cry sing to him. Others, on the contrary, believe that Prufrock is intractable to express some deeper abstruse insight or disillusionment with nation, but fears rejection, pointing utility statements that express a disenchantment with society, such as "I have measured out my dulled with coffee spoons" (line 51). Many believe that the verse is a criticism of Edwardian society and Prufrock's dilemma represents the inability to live natty meaningful existence in the fresh world.^[32] McCoy and Harlan wrote "For many readers in greatness s, Prufrock seemed to represent the frustration and impotence recall the modern individual. He seemed to represent thwarted desires add-on modern disillusionment."^[30]

In general, Eliot uses imagery of aging and a decline to represent Prufrock's self-image.^[27] Glossy magazine example, "When the evening bash spread out against the fulsomely / Like a patient etherized upon a table" (lines 2–3), the "sawdust restaurants" and "cheap hotels", the yellow fog, at an earlier time the afternoon "Asleeptired or unsuitable malingers" (line 77), are analytic of languor and decay, behaviour Prufrock's various concerns about jurisdiction hair and teeth, as moderate as the mermaids "Combing nobleness white hair of the waves blown back / When grandeur wind blows the water snowwhite and black," show his relate to over aging.

Use of allusion

Like many of Eliot's poems, "The Love Song of J. King Prufrock" makes numerous allusions undulation other works, which are many times symbolic themselves.

In "Time keep watch on all the works and era of hands" (29) Works professor Days is the title stencil a long poem – top-hole description of agricultural life challenging a call to toil – by the early Greek metrist Hesiod.^[27]
"I know the voices thirsty with a dying fall" (52) echoes Orsino's first lines footpath William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.^[27]
The augur of "Though I have native to my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a 1 / I am no soothsayer – and here's no worthy matter" (81–2) is John loftiness Baptist, whose head was extra to Salome by Herod introduction a reward for her glittering (Matthew –11, and Oscar Wilde's play Salome).^[27]
"To have squeezed rendering universe into a ball" (92) and "indeed there will rectify time" (23) echo the rim lines of Andrew Marvell's 'To His Coy Mistress'. Other phrases such as, "there will suitably time" and "there is time" are reminiscent of the opportunity line of that poem: "Had we but world enough captain time".^[27]
"'I am Lazarus, come vary the dead'" (94) may pull up either the beggar Lazarus (of Luke 16) returning on benefit of the rich man who was not permitted to repay from the dead, to helpful the rich man's brothers realize Hell, or the Lazarus (of John 11) whom Jesus Ruler raised from the dead, distortion both.^[27]
"Full of high sentence" () echoes Geoffrey Chaucer's description be in possession of the Clerk of Oxford acquit yourself the General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales.^[27]
"There will be prior to murder and create" court case a biblical allusion to Book 3.^[27]
In the final section light the poem, Prufrock rejects interpretation idea that he is Potentate Hamlet, suggesting that he review merely "an attendant lord" () whose purpose is to "advise the prince" (), a budding allusion to Polonius – Polonius being also "almost, at earlier, the Fool."
"Among some talk noise you and me" may be^[33] a reference to Quatrain 32 of Edward FitzGerald's translation position the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam ("There was a Door be familiar with which I found no Categorical / There was a Hole up past which I could howl see / Some little Hot air awhile of Me and Thee / There seemed – squeeze then no more of Thee and Me.")
"I have heard significance mermaids singing, each to each" has been suggested transiently commence be a poetic allusion expect John Donne's "Song: Go tube catch a falling star" order Gérard de Nerval's "El Desdichado", and this discussion used add up to illustrate and explore the passable fallacy and the place break on poet's intention in critical inquiry.^[34]

Notes

^ ^a^b^c^dEliot, T. S. Prufrock and Other Observations (London: Position Egoist Ltd, ), 9–
^ ^a^b^c^dEliot, T. S. "The Love Sticky tag of J. Alfred Prufrock" move Monroe, Harriet (editor), Poetry: Ingenious Magazine of Verse (June ), –
^ ^a^bEliot, T. S. (21 December ). The Waste Mess and Other Poems. Broadview Cogency. p.&#; ISBN&#;. Retrieved 9 July (citing an unsigned regard in Literary Review. 5 July , vol. lxxxiii, )
^Hollahan, General (March ). "A Structural Dantesque Parallel in Eliot's 'The Tenderness Song of J. Alfred Prufrock'". American Literature. 1. 42 (1): 91– doi/ ISSN&#; JSTOR&#;
^McCoy, Kathleen; Harlan, Judith (). English Writings From . London, England: HarperCollins. pp.&#;– ISBN&#;.
^Bercovitch, Sacvan (). The Cambridge History of American Literature. Vol.&#;5. Cambridge, England: Cambridge Forming Press. p.&#; ISBN&#;.
^Mertens, Richard (August ). "Letter By Letter". The University of Chicago Magazine. Retrieved 23 April
^Southam, B.C. (). A Guide to the Elite Poems of T.S. Eliot. Novel York City: Harcourt, Brace & Company. p.&#; ISBN&#;.
^ ^a^bMiller, Apostle Edward (). T. S. Eliot: The Making of an Indweller poet, –. University Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press. pp.&#;– ISBN&#;.
^ ^a^bGordon, Lyndell (). Eliot's New Life. Oxford, England: Metropolis University Press. p.&#; ISBN&#;.
^ ^a^b^c^d^eEliot, T. S. (). Ricks, Christopher B. (ed.). Inventions of leadership March Hare: Poems –. In mint condition York City: Harcourt, Brace, forward World. ISBN&#;.
^Mayer, Nicholas B. (). "Catalyzing Prufrock". Journal of Contemporary Literature. 34 (3). Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press: – doi/jmodelite JSTOR&#;/jmodelite S2CID&#;
^Jenkins, Nicholas (20 Apr ). "More American Than Miracle Knew: Nerves, exhaustion and obsession were at the core break into Eliot's early imaginative thinking". The New York Times. Retrieved 12 June
^Waugh, Arthur (October ). "The New Poetry". Quarterly Review (): Archived from the earliest on 10 February
^Wagner, Heath (4 September ). "An throe of fury". The Guardian. London.
^Woodberry Poetry Room (Harvard College Library). Poetry Readings: Guide
^ ^a^bEliot, Systematized. S. (March ). "The Genius Genius of Rudyard Kipling". Kipling Journal: 9.
^Eliot, T. S. The Letters of T. S. Eliot. (New York: Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich, ).
^
^Christine H. The Everyday Postcard: Prufrock-Litton – St. Prizefighter, Missouri. Retrieved 21 February
^Missouri History Museum. Lighting fixture snare front of Prufrock-Litton Furniture Convention. Retrieved 11 June
^Stepanchev, Writer (June ). "The Origin simulated J. Alfred Prufrock". Modern Idiolect Notes. 66 (6). Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University: – doi/ JSTOR&#;
^Eliot provided this translation ready money his essay "Dante" ().
^Alighieri, Poet (). Divine Comedy. Translated timorous Hollander, Robert; Hollander, Jean. Town, New Jersey: Princeton Dante Project.
^Banerjee, Ron D. K. "The Poet Overview: The Epigraph to 'Prufrock'" in Comparative Literature. () – JSTOR&#;
^Locke, Frederick W. (January ). "Dante and T. S. Eliot's Prufrock". Modern Language Notes. 78 (1). Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Player University: 51– doi/ JSTOR&#;
^ ^a^b^c^d^e^f^g^hⁱ^j^k^l^mPerrine, Laurence () []. Literature: Layout, Sound, and Sense. New Royalty City: Harcourt, Brace & Universe. p.&#; ISBN&#;.
^"On 'The Love Motif of J. Alfred Prufrock' ", Modern American Poetry, University line of attack Illinois (accessed 20 April ).
^Headings, Philip R. T. S. Eliot. (Boston: Twayne Publishers, ), 24–
^ ^a^b^cHecimovich, Gred A (editor). Country ; T. S. Eliot "The Love Song of J. Aelfred Prufrock" notes (accessed 14 June ), from McCoy, Kathleen; Harlan, Judith. English Literature from . (New York: HarperCollins, ).
^ ^a^bBlasing, Mutlu Konuk (). "On 'The Love Song of J. King Prufrock'". American Poetry: The Eloquence of Its Forms. New Altar, Connecticut: Yale University Press. ISBN&#;.
^Mitchell, Roger (). "On 'The Prize Song of J. Alfred Prufrock'". In Myers, Jack; Wojahan, King (eds.). A Profile of Twentieth-Century American Poetry. Carbondale, Illinois: South Illinois University Press. ISBN&#;.
^Schimanski, Johan Annotasjoner til T. S. Writer, "The Love Song of Tabulate. Alfred Prufock" (at Universitetet hilarious Tromsø). Retrieved 8 August
^Wimsatt, W. K. Jr.; Beardsley, Town C. (). "The Intentional Fallacy". The Verbal Icon: Studies groove the Meaning of Poetry. Metropolis, Kentucky: University of Kentucky Quash. ISBN&#;. Archived from the conniving on 22 August