The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

Unit 1: INTRODUCTION TO T. S. ELIOT INTRODUCTION Born on 26th September 1888 in St. Louis, Missouri, Thomas Stearns Eliot was an American born English poet, essayist, playwright and literary critic. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest English poets and has served as a prominent influence on the course of modern literature. The critic Hugh Kenner remarked that “opinion concerning the most influential man of letters of the 20th century has not freed itself from a cloud of unknowing” [1]…

individualism. It took place between 1900 and 1950, and reached its peak in the 1920s. There are famous authors from the modernism age, like Oscar Wilde who has written "The Importance of Being Earnest", T. S. Eliot with his famous work "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" and James Joyce writing "Ulysses.” All three writers disrupt the relationship through their use of themes, language and structure techniques that marked the breakaway in literature from the traditional romanticism that held…

“Love can not fill the thickening lung with breath / Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone / Yet many a man is making friends with death” (Line 5-7). Additional illustrations would include [the Cambridge ladies who lived in furnished souls] by…

poetic utterance as this "song" in which he could embody political, religious, and psychological dilemmas and struggles to achieve a perfect state of peace and harmony. The blacks had employed witticism and sloganising phraseology and dared to sing songs full of racism and social protest. They likewise danced in an attempt to forget or minimise their sorrows which America's harsh laws and surroundings chiefly brought to African slaves or their modern survivors. The mock songs of early Black…

“The love song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, the speaker takes the reader for a long walk down a dark and foggy path. The speaker seems to be indecisive and nervous to express himself; he is also depressed that women keep entering and leaving his life. Prufrock States, “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/For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse”(6.1-5.NP). Prufrock…

One of the main criticisms of modernist writers is that they were purposefully exclusionary, elitist, and enforced a separation of popular culture from highbrow literature. While I believe that this idea is useful in thinking about certain modernist writers and their works, I would argue that there are instances where this view is too simplistic, and reduces particular modernist works to elitism and intellectualism when this is not necessarily the case. This viewpoint therefore can ignore…

overall reign over it will be absent. For instance,we take into account T.S Eliot’s famous poem The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock. The character of Prufrock is not necessarily the reflection or the portrayal of Eliot himself. Alfred Prufrock is created in our imagination and perception with the language that the poet has employed- the use of various metaphors, allusions, connotations etc. Prufrock is indecisive, battered by life’s complexities and we need to understand him not through…

Commencing in the late nineteenth century, the modern era sought to discard the certainty of Neoclassicism, rigidity of Industrialism and the ingenuity of Romanticism while developing contemporary socio-cultural norms and attitudes capturing revolutionary expressions of artistic innovation. The philosophical movement saw society’s tenuous fear of technological modification arise from an existential crisis following the First War period, sparking a newfound physiological state centring on the…

to the “New world”. - Anglo (New England) settlers’ books, sermons, journals, narratives, and poetry Native American / American Indian oral literature / oral tradition creation stories（起源神话） trickster tales（恶作剧者传奇） rituals / ceremonies（典仪） songs / chants（曲词） Anglo Settlers’ Writings Highly religious and pragmatic - John Smith, founder of Jamestown, Virginia; Pocahontas - John Winthrop, “A Model of Christian Charity”: “… We shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all…