Eliot's Use Of Language In T. S. Eliot

T.S Eliot was a man who was easily overwhelmed by his experiences. Language was his way of separating himself from life and upon reading his works people are able to access his thoughts and feelings through his imagery. This perspective of Jeanette Winterson’s aligns very closely with common similar perspectives that also feel that Eliot strived in his use of ‘luminous’ language to fully support his use of sensory imagery to express his emotions in his poetry. Eliot’s admirable use of language to deliver sensory imagery is notably seen in his poems, ‘The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock’ and ‘Preludes’. Upon analysis of these texts, Eliot’s use of these literary techniques to share his thoughts and feelings on his experiences become very clear, …show more content…
His thoughts of uncertainty of self continue to show in his poem, ‘Preludes’. Though not as explicit, it can still be seen in the lines, “The winter evening settles down” and “The morning comes to consciousness”. Eliot indirectly makes the point that there seems to be nothing really happening in between these time gaps, thus questioning himself on what the point in living is, as the poem continues on to show his judgement of the society that he lives in and wonders his place in this modernist society. In ‘Prelude IV’, Eliot switches the form to third person as he describes a person in the quote, “His soul stretched tight across the skies, That fade behind a city block”. This line could be interpreted that it is Eliot’s soul that finds the struggle to come to terms with the life he lives in. Thus, as Jeanette Winterson had described, Eliot’s use of luminous language has created a real sense of imagery for readers to understand Eliot’s emotions, in this case being his uncertainty of …show more content…
In ‘Preludes’, there are multiple instances where he has questioned the state in which society has chosen to work and revolve itself around, again using the idea of confused sense of identity. A perspective on this poem from Summer Aggarwal states that, “Eliot’s Preludes, is a poem that expresses his view of society as a hopeless world where the streets are lonely, shattered and exhausted and its people are mechanical, going through a constant, meaningless routine that lacks vividness and uniqueness.” One quote in particular from ‘Preludes II’ says, “To early coffee-stands, With the other masquerades,” where the observer written in third person questions the need of individuals within the society to perform false actions or tricks to show in the day time, again pointing out the facade that people use in order to fit in society, thus hiding their true identity. Eliot also questions individuals within society in these lines of ‘Preludes IV’, “Assured of certain certainties, The conscience of a blackened street, Impatient to assume the world.” In these lines he again uses the observer in third person to point out his observations - the realisation that the individuals are only fixated on their own realities, lacking the interest or care for anything around them. He shows that these people have a confused sense of identity in which they force themselves to only concentrate on their lives and forget