Prufrock

Following the June 1915 issue of Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, T.
S Elliot gained attention in the

literary world with his poem ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’. While T.S Eliot has in his array
of opulent works, many a resplendent poems, ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ is idiosyncratic
in the sense that it not only catapulted its author to fame, but also served as a harbinger to the new
wave of Modernism that would strike the shores of British Literature in the early 1900s. The poem
presents a discombobulated protagonist, J. Alfred Prufrock who is overwhelmed by the possible
outcomes of his actions, to the point where he is gripped by primal anxiety, all of which is fueled by
self-loathe. It is a reflection of the modern delusional society wherein otherworldy and unpragmatic
comaprisons run amok.
Entrenched in imagism, French Symbolism, Biblical and Literary references, the poem begins with
lines from Dante Aligheri’s Inferno.
‘S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse

A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma percioche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,
Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.’
The lines highlight his isolation and also reveal that the poem is a form of soliloquy, addressed to
Prufrock himself. Following this, the poem presents a vapid world with words that so concisely
draw every single element of the world, in typical modernist imagism.
Prufrock who cogitates every minute decision overtly is weakened by possibilities of mishaps and
rejections to the point where he has ‘hundred indecisions’ and ‘hundred visions and revision’ even
before his tea. The repetition of the line ‘So how should I presume ?’ across two stanzas also
highten his indecision. This also begets a stuttering feel to the poem.
Another notable element in the poem is the use of symbolism to convey certain ideas. C. H.
Sisson’s words echo the ubiquitousness of intellectual references and symbolism in this very poem.
‘Modernity has been going on for a long time. Not within living memory has there ever been a day
when young writers were not coming up, in a threat of iconoclasm’
Biblical allusions in the poem include references to John the Baptist and Lazarus. Another line in
the poem, “There will be time to murder and create” also alludes to the third verse from the book of
Ecclesiastes. Many of the allusions used are employed to highten Prufrock’s own inadequacies that
serve as the impetus to Prufrock’s neurotic nature. Examples include him comparing his balding
head with that of John the Baptist’s severed head, and his claiming that he is no Hamlet. Other
allusions are to the work of Andrew Marvell, Shakespeare, Hesiod and John Donne.
Despite being a ‘love poem’ , the poem never explicitly deals with love owing to all the half-starts
that are never pursued. Paralysed by his inhibitions and his inadequacies, he never puruses love,
fearing that he is not enough for the women, whom according to him adore the likes of
Michelangelo’s sculptures. While it is, indubitably a criticism of the Edwardian society, it
nonetheless remains a love poem, and lines like the ‘I do not think they (mermaids) will sing to
me’and mentions of various women highlight the same.
It could also be argued that the entire poem takes place at a single instance in time, which is
highlighted by the first line ‘Let us go then, you and I’ and the last three lines,
‘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’.
The first line shows the splitting of Prufrock’s character (whom critics argue is possibly Eliot
himself), into the speaker and the listener, and the last line hinting that both are stuck somewhere
deep, possibly in their own thoughts, awaiting some distraction from the outside world to snap them
out of them cogitation. In claiming so, the overall quality of the poem is also amplified since it
could be argued that the entire poem is possibly a lament or a moment of indecision that Prufrock
himself is stuck in, thus not being able to puruse the love that he so much craves.

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Following the June 1915 issue of Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, T.

S Elliot gained attention in the

‘S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse

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