Free Essay On T. S. Eliot

First Impression of T. S. Eliot
T.S. Eliot, along with the Imagism movement believed in the idea that poetry resides not in ideas but in things. It was about making it new. It was about creating a single image. Like Hemingway pronouncement to “write one true sentence” and go on from there.
However, this idealism does not seem present in his poems “The Wastland” and “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” These poems seem to reside in despair. From the first which starts off calling April “the cruelest month.”
The speaker in both of these works seems to be suffering a great deal living a bitter and dark outlook on life.
In this sense both poems feel connected and they read together as a pair. Though they both seem this way, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” seems more so to be a stream of consciousness poem. Stream of consciousness attempts to describe thoughts as then appear within a person. They are disjointed and choppy, often coherent, much like thoughts actually exist within a person.
The speaker in this poem is questioning himself, as people often do within their own stream of though. He keeps wondering, “Do I dare.” This makes me feel like the speaker is separated from the rest of mankind, and is all alone. His aloneness seems to come with his insecurity about everything. He even asks how he should presume.
In doing some research on the context of these poems, it was interesting to note that T.S. Eliot actually spoke out against hi poem the “wasteland” later in life. Saying that it was a moment of weakness that caused him to write it or publish it. Either way though, that poem is now a part of the American literary canon.