T.S Eliot

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Falak Noreen
70043821
Ma’am Huma Saed
20th Century Literature
15th Oct 2020
“T.S ELIOT AS A MODERN POET”
MODERNISM
Modernism is a difficult movement which happening after 1910 and succeeded in the 1920s and
1930s and involved all forms of art: literature, music, visual arts, and cinema. Modernism was a
reaction to WWI and the Victorian ideals. T.S Eliot is considered as one of the most of import
modernist poets. The content of his verse form every bit good as his poetic way give elements of
the modern sign that was celebrated during his clip. In fact, modernism was viewed as “a
rejection of traditional 19th-century norms, whereby creative persons, designers, poets and minds
either altered or abandoned earlier conventions in an effort to re-envision a society in flux.”
Modernism was also largely showed by direction towards atomization, free poetry and multiple
points of position different from the Victorian and Romantic authorship. These modern features
look greatly in the plants of Eliot. Two of the most outstanding verse forms where Eliot shows
his modern directions are “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” and “The Waste Land.” “The
Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is regarded as one of the basic modernist poems. It shows the
modern fundamentals of breakdown of life and mental constancy. “The Love Song” is a
modernistic poem in the form of a dramatic monologue. The poem speaks about the problem of
the modern man, Prufrock. He laments his physical and logical faults, the lack of chances in his
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life in adding to the lack of divine growth. What is notable is that the setting of the poem can be
understood to be either as a real place or a mental state reflecting the sub-conscious of the
person. The most important modernist technique in the poem is the stream-of-consciousness
technique. Finally, modernist writers were interested in show characters having many characters.
This is clear in Prufrock who roles as both the speaker and the listener. Although Eliot is known
as an outstanding modernist poet, some critics claimed that he uses some traditional medieval
techniques in his works. Some characteristics of Eliot’s work show medieval themes and style at
the same time, these works are also fixed in the modern direction of literature. That is why some
critics called him a “medieval modernist.”
References in THE LOVE SONG BY PRUFROCK
Dante: Eliot was a lifelong reader and lover of the work of Dante Alighieri. Eliot opens
“Prufrock” with an epigraph drawn from the 27th canto of Dante’s Inferno. In Inferno, Guido
agrees to tell his shameful story to Dante because he believes that Dante will never escape hell to
spread word of it. J. Alfred Prufrock resembles Guido da Montefeltro in divulging his neuroses,
insecurities, and sins. The phrase “overwhelming question” is an allusion to James Cooper’s The
Pioneers. The lines “In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo” are also
borrowed. They are alluded to Jules Lafarge’s work.
Hamlet: In one passage, Prufrock envisions himself as a character in a Shakespearean play. As
he observes, “No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be Am an attendant lord.” On one
level, the allusion shows Prufrock’s modest self-image. He admits that he does not possess
Hamlet’s grandiosity and self-importance. He feels more akin to a Fool, a side character who
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“starts a scene or two.” Yet Prufrock is Hamlet-sequel in his self-consciousness and his attraction
to existential quandaries.
Through his Modernist images, broken free verse, classical and literary allusions and repetition,
Eliot exposes the conflict between the individual and society and the emphasis on the individual.
For example, the opening line of the poem, “Let us go then, you and I” encompasses “a self-
aware contentiousness and questioning.” The intentional ambiguity of “you and I” is repeated
regularly throughout the poem. The phrase is especially important in showing that Prufrock, the
persona and the “I”, is surrendering himself to the guidance of the objective “you”, presumably
his lover. His passivity, considering the context of the Eurocentric, male-dominated early 20th
century, is the first indication of Prufrock’s reticence. This inkling is confirmed a few lines later
when images of “the etherized patient…reflect his paralysis while the images of the city depict a
certain lost loneliness.” Prufrock finds it difficult to connect with the “women who come and go”
talking about high culture.
In line 120, Eliot uses ellipses behind the two consecutive “I grow old” to create discontinuity in
the lines and weary misery for Prufrock. The repetitive “I”s in this stanza emphasizes Prufrock
the individual and his lonely existence filled with constant self-questioning and indecisiveness.
Eliot’s simile comparing the evening sky to “a patient etherized upon a table” generates an image
of a surgery or a morgue that drains any sign of life or lightness out of it. The adjectives splashes
throughout the poem are “the language of disordered experience, of imprecision and aimlessness
abounds in modifiers and plurals: restless nights, one-night cheap hotels, visions and revisions,
the sunsets and the dooryards, and the sprinkled streets. The city and its society are also
disjointed and futile. The application of enjambment conveys the tortuous spatiality of the
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metropolis and the meaningless routine and negativity of city life. The images created are of an
abandoned, unfeeling and austere city. This seedy and disenchanting atmosphere is lifeless,
rootless and barren. The yellow fog and Prufrock’s introversion casts a shadow over drawing
room English teas that represent tradition, values and morals. Eliot’s treatment of language and
poetic techniques thus reveals the futile and tangled characteristics of Modernism. Furthermore,
the irregularity in rhythm, fragmentation in lines, coldness in society and fragility in Prufrock’s
personality gives the poem the Modernist tendency towards chaos.
Eliot’s exemplary usage of these themes makes “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” one of
the greatest examples of Modernist poetry in existence.
References:
Eliot, T. S. "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” 17 Apr. 2011, A Magazine of Verse, June
1915, pp. 130-135.
https://sites.udel.edu/britlitwiki/the-love-song-of-j-alfred-prufrock/

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Ma’am Huma Saed

20th Century Literature

15th Oct 2020

“T.S ELIOT AS A MODERN POET”

either altered or abandoned earlier conventions in an effort to re-envision a society in flux.”

critics called him a “medieval modernist.”

References in THE LOVE SONG BY PRUFROCK

borrowed. They are alluded to Jules Lafarge’s work.

Hamlet: In one passage, Prufrock envisions himself as a character in a Shakespearean play. As

talking about high culture.

personality gives the poem the Modernist tendency towards chaos.

the greatest examples of Modernist poetry in existence.

1915, pp. 130-135.

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