In a tapestry of introspection and societal critique, the narrative unfolds through the lens of J. Alfred Prufrock, whose journey is an allegory of existential dread set against a backdrop of social obligation. The narrative opens with an Italian quote from Dante’s The Divine Comedy, setting the stage for themes of inescapable truth and the futility of return. This prefaces Prufrock’s journey to a social gathering laden with intellectual pretension and superficial discourse.

Initial Reverie and Interruptions

Prufrock’s companion interrupts his initial reverie about their urban surroundings—a landscape he views with disdain. This interruption, merely a simple inquiry, provokes Prufrock to dismiss it impatiently, insisting, “Let us go.” As they approach the anticipated social event, Prufrock envisions the women there discussing Michelangelo, a scene that underscores his underlying insecurities.

Anxieties and Imaginary Choruses

Prufrock's anxiety surfaces through images of disembodied body parts and questions haunting him. The imagined dialogue of women discussing Michelangelo recurs, acting as a chorus that amplifies his self-doubt. His musings then shift to his fears of judgment—will his aging appearance betray him, despite his attempts at sartorial propriety? His self-consciousness is palpable, as he fears being perceived as insignificant, much like an insect pinned and scrutinized.

Grandiose Fantasies and Self-Deprecation

In a flight of fantasy, Prufrock contemplates grandiose self-comparisons to John the Baptist and Lazarus, only to retreat into fears of being akin to a frightened crab. These juxtapositions reveal his inner turmoil, as he worries about being misunderstood or dismissed as irrelevant. This leads to a moment of introspection where he questions whether the risk of participating in the conversation is worth the potential humiliation.

Acceptance of Mediocrity and Final Imagery

Ultimately, Prufrock resigns himself to an unheroic role, comparing himself not to Hamlet, but to Polonius, the verbose, ridiculed old man from Shakespeare's play. The narrative concludes with a poignant vision of mermaids singing in the ocean—a melody from which Prufrock feels eternally excluded, representing his acceptance of unattainable grace and beauty.

In a review of Catholic Anthology 1914-15, edited by poet Ezra Pound and featuring "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," critic Arthur Waugh remarked that if "the unmetrical, incoherent banalities of these literary 'Cubists' were to triumph, the State of Poetry would be threatened with anarchy." His comments were clearly meant to alarm poetry enthusiasts and dismiss the authors as inept amateurs. Little did Waugh realize that he was actually highlighting the intended effects of these poets, and his critique is noteworthy today because it indicates that the Modern Age had already begun by the time he wrote. Modernism is a broad term encompassing numerous artistic and philosophical movements (including Cubism in painting) that aimed to discard old standards in favor of work more reflective of how people truly live and think.

This ongoing struggle between life and theory persists even today. For instance, in music, rap is embraced by its audience as an authentic expression of their feelings, yet it is often derided by music connoisseurs for its lack of melodic complexity—what Waugh might call "incoherent banalities." Despite years of being underground and rejected, rap has now achieved a level of acceptance that makes it a prime target for deconstruction by the next wave of innovators. Similarly, the rise of Modernism was a reaction to Victorian-ism, which itself was a reaction to Romanticism, continuing a historical chain of artistic evolution.

Since this chain is unbroken, pinpointing the exact origins of Modernism is challenging, but a good starting point might be the 1798 publication of William Wordsworth's and Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads. In response to the formal, rigid poetry that preceded him, Wordsworth argued that poetry should use "a selection of language really used by man." He believed poetry had become too disconnected from reality and urged writers to rethink their approach. This led to the Romantic movement, which included notable early-nineteenth-century writers such as Keats, Shelley, Byron, Tennyson, Emerson, Melville, Poe, and Dickinson. Romanticism embodied a spirit of intellectual freedom that permeated all areas of society, valuing the individual, particularly the artistic individual, above all. Creativity was revered.

The latter half of the nineteenth century marked the ascendancy of industry and capitalism, often regarded as a less humanistic era. Novels began focusing on social structures, and poetry became more formal and stylized, prioritizing the manner of expression over content. The Industrial Revolution introduced trains and eventually automobiles, accelerating the pace of life and rendering reading a luxury primarily for the socially affluent. Despite this, various elements emerged during this period that would eventually challenge the existing social order: Marx and Engels published The Communist Manifesto in 1848; Darwin released On the Origin of Species in 1859; and Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams appeared in 1900. Each of these works sparked a revolution in its respective intellectual field, leading to the Modernist skepticism of all previously accepted beliefs.

Modernism lacks a singular philosophy, but its development can be traced through various revolutionary movements in the arts. For example, in 1909, the Futurist movement in Italy issued its "Foundation Manifesto of Futurism" (bold artistic movements often announce themselves with manifestoes), celebrating "aggressive action, the mutual leap, the punch and slap." Concurrently, Pound joined a group of poets in London, discussing principles that would later be known as Imagism, which is characterized by its rejection of traditional poetic conventions. Pound also played a key role in establishing Vorticism, which focused on change and motion, intending, as Pound said, to "sweep out the past century as surely as Attila swept across Europe." These literary movements exemplify the new values introduced by Modernism: embracing the industrial world rather than shying away from it; emphasizing powerful, rather than merely beautiful, poetry; and a willingness to use any tools and break any rules to depict the world accurately. In general, Modernism was devoted to a higher social cause (as evidenced by numerous manifestoes) and resisted creating art solely for art's sake.

The opening of "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" sets a profound tone through its epigraph, drawn from Dante's Divine Comedy. In choosing this quote, T.S. Eliot underscores his belief in poetry's instructive power and the poet's duty to engage with the established literary tradition. This literary nod underscores a dialogue between the past and present, enriching the poem's depth and complexity.

Structurally, the poem unfolds in four distinct sections, demarcated by ellipses. These punctuation marks serve a dual purpose: they suggest the passage of time between pertinent thoughts and denote information deemed too evident to explicitly state. Eliot's use of such structural techniques reflects his guiding principle that "No verse is free for the serious poet." Though the poem is crafted in free verse with varying line lengths, rhyme emerges as a pivotal element, lending the work a cohesive architecture.

Among the poem's 131 lines, only a dozen are unrhymed. The first stanza, commencing with "Let us go then, you and I....", exemplifies this intricate rhyme scheme through a pattern of couplets interspersed with unrhymed lines. This deliberate arrangement not only instills coherence but also infuses the stanza with a musical quality, inviting the reader into its rhythmic flow.

Repetition further enriches the poem's rhythm, both in sound and thematic development. This technique is evident in the repeated invocation of "time" within the stanzas that begin with "And indeed there will be time...." Such repetition weaves a rhythmic tapestry of ideas, echoing the poem's meditative pulse.

In terms of syntax, Eliot adheres to conventional punctuation and sentence structures. However, he strategically employs capital letters at the start of lines to emphasize lineation, balancing the significance of the sentence with the poetic line. This approach aligns with Eliot's vision of poetry—grounded in conversational speech yet accentuating the musicality and symbolic potential of language.

The poem's varied line and stanza lengths reflect Eliot's rejection of imposing rigid forms on the emotions and thoughts at its core. His aim was not to forge a new poetic form but to liberate the poet from constraints, allowing each poem to dictate its own form. Through this, Eliot crafts a "love song" that resonates uniquely with each reader, a melody that sings itself onto the page.

1915: The first long-distance telephone call from New York to San Francisco took place. Alexander Graham Bell repeated the words he first spoke in 1868 over the initial working model ("Mr. Watson, come here ...") to Thomas Watson in San Francisco. The call required 23 minutes to connect.

Today: International phone calls, cellular communications, and public phones on airplanes all transmit signals by bouncing them off satellites orbiting the Earth.

1916: The new Ku Klux Klan was formed, taking its name from a group from the 1860s and receiving an official charter from the state of Georgia. Over the next fifty years, the Klan led a campaign of terror against non-whites and non-Catholics, committing lynchings and firebombings across the South with minimal legal consequences.

1957: The first Civil Rights Act passed by Congress since the 1870s made it a federal crime to discriminate against individuals based on race.

Today: The Ku Klux Klan remains active, despite widespread public condemnation.

"The Caedmon Treasury of Modern Poets Reading Their Own Poetry." Audio cassette. Available at Audio-books, order #4322.

"More T.S. Eliot Reads." Audio cassette. Available at Audiobooks, order #4388.

"Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, by T.S. Eliot." Audio cassette. Available at Audiobooks, order #4393.

Sources

Ackroyd, Peter, T.S. Eliot: A Life, Simon & Schuster, 1984.

Berryman, John, "Prufrock's Dilemma," in The Freedom of the Poet, Farrar, Straus, 1976, pp. 270-78.

Brady, Ann P., Lyricism in the Poetry of T. S. Eliot, Kennikat, 1978.

Frye, Northrop, T. S. Eliot, Oliver and Boyd, 1963.

Grant, Michael, ed., T.S. Eliot: The Critical Heritage, Routledge, 1982.

Kenner, Hugh, The Invisible Poet: T.S. Eliot, McDowell, Oblinsky, 1959.

Knapp, James F., "Eliot's 'Prufrock' and the Form of Modern Poetry," in Arizona Quarterly, Vol. 30, No. 1, Spring, 1974, pp. 5-14.

Miller, Vincent, "Eliot's Submission to Time," in Sewanee Review, Summer, 1976, pp. 448-64.

Rosenthal, M. L., "Adolescents Singing, Each to Each— When We and Eliot Were Young," in The New York Times Book Review, October 20, 1985, pp. 3, 37.

Sinclair, May, "'Prufrock and Other Observations': A Criticism," in The Little Review, Volume IV, December, 1917, pp. 8-14.

Schwartz, Delmore, "The Literary Dictatorship of T. S. Eliot," in Partisan Review, Vol. XVI, No. 2, February, 1949, pp. 119-37.

For Further Reading

Blythe, Hal, and Charlie Sweet. "Eliot's 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.'" The Explicator, Volume 52, number 3, Spring 1994, p. 170.
Despite the extensive analysis of the poem by the time this article was published, the authors uncover new insights regarding various interpretations and the origins of the "ragged claws" line.

Bradbury, Malcom. The Modern World: Ten Great Writers. New York: Viking Penguin Inc., 1988.
Eliot is featured in his own chapter within this book, but the introduction, which places these ten writers (including Ibsen, Proust, Pirandello, and Kafka) in relation to each other, is equally fascinating.

Symons, Julian. Makers of the New: The Revolution in Literature 1912-1939. New York: Random House, 1987.
The author, a renowned biographer and critic, personally knew several key artistic figures discussed in this work, allowing him to narrate the rise of Modernism in an engaging, personal manner.

In the room the women come and go
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. . . .

These lines from T.S. Eliot’s "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" encapsulate the speaker's internal struggle with his own inadequacies and social anxiety. The mention of women discussing Michelangelo highlights the superficial and performative nature of the intellectual conversations surrounding him. Prufrock feels out of place, overshadowed by these seemingly cultured discussions. His constant questioning, "Do I dare?" reflects his deep-seated insecurity and fear of judgment. The "bald spot" symbolizes his self-awareness about aging and his diminishing confidence. This hesitation and introspection prevent him from engaging fully with the world around him. The passage profoundly captures Prufrock's paralysis and underlines the theme of time slipping away, emphasizing the speaker’s existential crisis and the futility he perceives in his everyday life.

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
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels. . . .

In "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," T.S. Eliot captures a sense of paralysis and alienation through vivid imagery and metaphysical conceit. The evening sky, compared to "a patient etherized upon a table," evokes a feeling of lifelessness and disconnection, striking the reader with its unsettling image. This opening scene sets the tone for Prufrock's journey—a reluctant venture into the world where he feels out of place. The "half-deserted streets" and "muttering retreats" underscore his hesitance and internal conflict, as he anticipates the social challenges he will face. These lines introduce the theme of Prufrock's introspective struggle, reflecting his anxiety about societal judgment and his own inadequacy. Eliot's use of vivid yet jarring comparisons prompts readers to engage deeply with Prufrock's emotional landscape, drawing them into his world of insecurity and contemplation.