Thomas Sterns Eliot is a milestone person of western literature in the 20th century. His brilliant poems took part in the changes of the literature order. His poems seek to save modern people and the literature cannot reflect the reality of modern society. He promotes people to rethink the drawbacks ignored and indulged in literary creation, reading and criticism. What is more, his theory of the objective correlative inspire people to think about new possibilities for literary. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock is Eliot’s notable work. In this poem, Eliot uses a series of material objects, scenes and a train of events to present specific emotions. Similarly, in Something Whispered in the Shakuhachi, Garrett Kaoru Hongo also uses specific
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Alfred Prufrock. For Eliot, the objective correlative refers to a kind of scene, a series of things, and a train of events, which could become a formula of special emotion. Anecdotes, image, and specific scenes, all could act as the objective correlative. Moreover, the application of the objective correlative corrects the imperfections of romanticism poetry’s obscuration and vagueness. In The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, Eliot (1915) applies rhetorical and literary techniques such as symbolism, image and foregrounding to compose a ruthless love song. Firstly, Eliot draws heavily upon the classics. In the beginning of the poem, the quotation of Dante’s The Divine Comedy shows the infinite affection of poet. The quotation clearly expresses the contradictory mentality when narrating inner emotion. On one hand, J. Alfred Prufrock wants to express his feeling, but he is afraid of being laughed if narrating it at the same time. However, the quotation of Dante’s The Divine Comedy seems to make him find the courage and support to narrate, and this kind of self-deceiving excuse obviously reveal his cowardice and panic. The contradictory mentality is echoed by the contradictory situation of J. Alfred all over the poem. Moreover, both the quotation about Michelangelo, Hamlet, and the …show more content…
The narrator in the poem is an old and ordinary Japanese American who is a gardener. The internment is a demarcation point of the narrator’s life. He recalls the time before the internment, the time during the internment, and the time after the internment in his life in the poem. Consequently, most of the poem is set based on the memory of the narrator. “The bamboo growing lush as old melodies and whispering life brush strokes against the fine scroll of wind”, the visual and auditory scenes present a harmony and peaceful life of narrator before the internment (Hongo, 1997). “I told myself I lost nothing” shows the narrator’s fortitude and strength of spirit when facing with cruel situation. As for the formidable time of internment, the narrator just mentions lightly and leave the readers space to image. “The grasses go wild and the arroyos come up”, during the time after the internment, the narrator comes back to his original land and house, he is always looking back the time before the internment in the land, even though his land is not good but rocky and dry, and he could not plant rice but bamboos. However, he is satisfying and content with his original life, and he could use bamboos to make of flutes. The flutes make beautiful sound and he was called as an “enlightened” man. In addition, no matter the bamboos, grasses, arroyos, nor the sunflowers
Alfred Prufrock. For Eliot, the objective correlative refers to a kind of scene, a series of things, and a train of events, which could become a formula of special emotion. Anecdotes, image, and specific scenes, all could act as the objective correlative. Moreover, the application of the objective correlative corrects the imperfections of romanticism poetry’s obscuration and vagueness. In The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, Eliot (1915) applies rhetorical and literary techniques such as symbolism, image and foregrounding to compose a ruthless love song. Firstly, Eliot draws heavily upon the classics. In the beginning of the poem, the quotation of Dante’s The Divine Comedy shows the infinite affection of poet. The quotation clearly expresses the contradictory mentality when narrating inner emotion. On one hand, J. Alfred Prufrock wants to express his feeling, but he is afraid of being laughed if narrating it at the same time. However, the quotation of Dante’s The Divine Comedy seems to make him find the courage and support to narrate, and this kind of self-deceiving excuse obviously reveal his cowardice and panic. The contradictory mentality is echoed by the contradictory situation of J. Alfred all over the poem. Moreover, both the quotation about Michelangelo, Hamlet, and the …show more content…
The narrator in the poem is an old and ordinary Japanese American who is a gardener. The internment is a demarcation point of the narrator’s life. He recalls the time before the internment, the time during the internment, and the time after the internment in his life in the poem. Consequently, most of the poem is set based on the memory of the narrator. “The bamboo growing lush as old melodies and whispering life brush strokes against the fine scroll of wind”, the visual and auditory scenes present a harmony and peaceful life of narrator before the internment (Hongo, 1997). “I told myself I lost nothing” shows the narrator’s fortitude and strength of spirit when facing with cruel situation. As for the formidable time of internment, the narrator just mentions lightly and leave the readers space to image. “The grasses go wild and the arroyos come up”, during the time after the internment, the narrator comes back to his original land and house, he is always looking back the time before the internment in the land, even though his land is not good but rocky and dry, and he could not plant rice but bamboos. However, he is satisfying and content with his original life, and he could use bamboos to make of flutes. The flutes make beautiful sound and he was called as an “enlightened” man. In addition, no matter the bamboos, grasses, arroyos, nor the sunflowers