Read this statement about the poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" and offer suggestions about its construction, thought, etc.
"The main character is having subconscious battle involving religious and personal values. He is torn between society interpretation of how to live and their "standards" and between a religious way of life. Allusions are made in reference to Hell and death and the character..."
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I agree with the "standards" part of the analysis, but I personally don't think religion plays a strong part in the conflict. Rather than a desire to please God, I see more of a worry that God might look upon the speaker's life and laugh. I think that the speaker is having a crisis of identity. He knows himself, yet is uncomfortably aware that his behavior does not quite match what he wants. He's lived the life that is "acceptable", and he longs to break away. He wonders whether the joy from experimentation in this new life would be worth the risk of losing all the comfortable (albeit confining) constancies in his life. What if he goes too far, and does the opposite of what he meant to do? ("That is not what I meant at all") He knows that he has time left, and yet he is afraid that he can achieve no more greatness: he fears that God might look down upon him for existing rather than truly living. To me, the conflict seems more to be societal standards versus staunch individualism.
ReplyDeleteThe poem has a lot of allusions to other works of literature, and the reader cannot always tell if Eliot speaks literally or figuratively, but I think that helps the entire experience. It means that the experience can vary between different readers. It also gives the poem a quality of timelessness, no doubt a contributor to why the poem is so famous.
I found this poem really confusing and I have very little idea as to its meaning... =P
ReplyDeleteWhat Danielle said does makes sense, though.
Anyone else curious about that italian epigraph?
ReplyDeleteIf I believed that my answer was
A person who never returned to the world,
This flame stand without more smoothly.
But never for the reason of this fund
Do not come back alive some [?] the truth
Without fear of infamy I answer.
I used Google Translate so I don't know how correct it is.
Maybe that will help us?
Okay, so I was looking at the questions after the poem to see if they could guide me in any way, because I really have no idea where to start with this poem. The second question mentions that the poem is written as a stream of consciousness, which I'd say is pretty apparent when reading the poem. If Danielle's analysis is correct (it seems reasonable to me) then I think the stream of consciousness was a good technique to convey the message of his internal conflicts.
ReplyDeleteAs I was trying to figure out what this poem means (and getting no where...), I started to wonder about the speaker- who is J. Alfred Prufrock? Does this character represent any part of T.S. Eliot? Then I thought about the title- why is it called a love song? Just from the title, I would expect this to be a romantic, and possibly corny, confession of love. It doesn't seem like that at all. Do you guys know the answer to any of those questions? I feel like that might give a good starting point for analyzing this poem.
...or maybe those things aren't important at all?
When I first read the poem I thought it was beautifully mysterious because I loved it, yet had no sense of its meaning. I read the questions for it and thought it may have had to do something with religion since T.S. Eliot was a Christian and there were many references to hell and death. I thought it was like a constant battle in the characters psyche on whether to transform (theosis) to a devout Christian or just follow with the mainstream and talk about celebrities. (Michelangelo was mentioned constantly yet I have not figured out its true purpose in the poem.) Then there is the allusion of Lazarus which made me believe the poem might refer to the character's past beliefs to die once he believed and accepted Jesus and he was "re-born" to now walk the Earth with a new purpose and ideology. Mr. Bruno even stated that T.S. Eliot himself gave about 4 different interpretations of the poem so who really knows his intentions for this work.
ReplyDeleteI think that it is about love, but it isn't. I think that the stream of consciousness really enhances the feelings in the poem, I agree with you there Jenna.
ReplyDeleteI think the allusions that are in the poem are all related to great works depicting religion, and that the man is having a sort of belittiling moment in his life. I think that this little conflict on whether to tell this girl he loves is a detail and trigger for his reality that he is only one person in God's eyes. I think that maybe his subconscious acceptance of his role in life, of being just one man, washed over him and that the fact that this women whom by social standards he shouldn't love give him an oppertunity to step outside being that one man. But I also think that it is about a sort of religious battle between being the servant of God, and taking a back seat in life and just being a small part or trying to become something great, like the works of art her references, and possible stepping outside the religious rules.
While taking everyone's opinions into account, coupled with my own, it seems to me that this is a poem about inadequacies that this guy feels. When it comes to other people he is scared they are talking about him and equates himself to a second rate character in a Shakespeare play. He doesn't believe that even a mermaid would even sing to him. Mermaids are mythological beings that would sing to people as to make them fall in the ocean and drown, so this is akin to saying that a creature whose soul purpose is to indiscriminately kill wouldn't want him. This guy has a massive inferiority complex. Although I give T.S. Eliot credit for describing him very intelligently.
ReplyDeleteWhen we were coming up with this in class, I felt almost overwhelmed because this poem was just rediculously amazing that I loved it so much I'm using it for my poetry project. :D BUT! It's so hard to interpret! It seems that you can go just about any direction with this poem, but when I read it I 100% felt like T.S. Eliot was trying to make me experience the inadequacies that people experience in daily life and how meeting up to expectations can be so mind wrenching. I honestly don't really even care what he meant by it, but I know that when I was reading the poem I just felt so like.. captured by the words. I don't really know how to explain it, I just felt like T.S. Eliot like wrote that poem to make those perfectly placed words jump inside you and grab at your thoughts and your feelings and make you really FEEL, like truly FEEL, what he was thinking. Maybe you get what I'm saying...?? Agh. I tried to make it make some sense, but I'm so with Tyler on this interpretation. Maybe not so much religiously, but I get where you're coming from. :D
ReplyDeleteI agree with the statement, I was in the group that analyzed this poem. The poem was confusing as first, and I had to read it like 4 times before I actually made any sort of attempt at deciding what it's purpose, or even theme was. But once I understood the simple parts of it I could start to see the deeper meanings. I think it has a lot to do with religion, and acceptance of the differences between society and what religious texts say, and what how you one is supposed to be in relation to society and religion together. Stream of conciousness also plays a huge role in this poem. This poem evokes a lot of feeling, at least for me. It's truly incredible, one of my favorites.
ReplyDeleteI was also in a group that tried to analyze this poem, and that was definitely not an easy task. However, I think the questions and the thoughts that the narrator has are questions that we find ourselves struggling with everyday. It may not be quite in this context, but the struggles of deciding wether to do one action that you know to be right and true in your heart although it may not be socially pleasing, or rather to blend in with the crowd and do what society tells you is the right thing. I found this escpecially relatable considering that high school is like the penacle of this struggle that this poem talks about. So, while it took a while to understand I thought it was an extremely relatable poem and i throughly enjoyed it :)
ReplyDeleteTo me it seems as if the speaker is having difficulty coming to terms with himself. He isn't sure if he should be where he is or who he is. He seems to think of himself as insignificant maybe because he had done something he wasn't proud of. Maybe upon thinking about the way he has lived his life he isn't proud of it and doesn't think he deserves everything he owns. It also seems like his whole life was a lie, some sort of fantasy in which he is moving day in and day out wihtout contemplating anything that is happening until he has seen the light and dies. I do not know. Those are just my thoughts.
ReplyDeleteAhhh...I think this was one of the most intruguing poems we've read. I think that the statement is completely valid. I believe that he, the author, is having an internal struggle in finding what he wants to value. Is he going to agree and go along with society, or will he devote himself to "christian values?" It was hard to disect the meaning of this poem, but once that task was accomplished it, the poem, really spoke volumes to me and made me think about my values.
ReplyDeleteSo. (haha). sort of along the lines of Jaielle has said i am convinced that the author is having an internal battle about weather to believe in society or in God. It is easier for him to believe in what society thinks because there is proof right in front of him on a daily basis and examples right there for him to follow. But on the other hand he wants to beileve in God but doesnt know how to because he has not seen God, or talked to him, only seen writtings (the Bible) about the works he has done and what is followers have done. So the fact that he is struggling with this is legitiment becuase he has to decide for himself to believe in what he sees or what he hears.
ReplyDelete