Essays on Prufrock

Alfred Prufrock, the speaker of Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” and Nick, the protagonist of Hemingway’s “Big Two-Hearted River,” have certain traits in common but there are also difference between them. Both characters have are avoiding certain things; Prufrock avoids propositioning the woman he loves, and Nick avoids confronting memories from the war which still haunt him. Similarly, both characters suffer with anxiety. Prufrock is too anxious to speak frankly to the woman, and Nick suffers from PTSD and this affects him in everyday life. The two characters differ, however, in that Prufrock chooses ...

Introduction

Literature is often referred to as the mirror of the society because it depicts the on-going situations in the society using various characters. Fictional characters such as J. Alfred Prufrock and Nick Adams have been used in various works so that they can represent some characters in the Society. Thesis Statement: J. Alfred Prufrock and Nick Adams have various similarities and differences as characters as well as some ways to which they represent the ‘modern man' that lives in the current society. The two characters are used in different works by different authors and they unintentionally represent many things ...

Tennyson, “The Eagle”. Discussion Question: How is the solitary eagle’s strength emphasized in the first stanza? Does the reader “join” the eagle in the second stanza? How or how not? The reader joins the eagle in his dive in the second stanza through the metaphorical comparison with a thunderbolt. Captivated by the bird’s masterful and exact description in the first part of the poem, the reader has no choice but to follow the eagle’s majestic fall towards the water. This is also achieved by the personification of the predator, as the author uses pronouns “he”, and “ ...

In the poem entitled, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Eliot, there are a variety of examples supporting that his main character, a man living during the Victorian Age, is having and dealing with the social conflict that surrounds him. It is addressed directly right in the beginning with the first six lines of the poem coming from Dante’s “Inferno” which is based on the aspect of living in Hell. This depicts that the main character is dealing with their own internal conflict and feel as if there is no hope left in their life. ...

“In Memoriam A.H.H.”, a poem by the British poet Lord Alfred Tennyson, is a requiem for his beloved friend Arthur Henry Hallam. It touches upon many significant aspects of Victorian society. In that time there appeared a serious conflict between science and religion caused by Darwin’s theory. His scientific suppositions that people evolved from apes struck many people in their faith. Moreover, the Victorian era is marked by a rapid growth of industry (facories, mills, etc.) which made many people greedy and more materialistic. Their moving away from religion closer to capitalism only enlarged the gap and increased ...

The XX century is one of those centuries, which was filled with various events: cultural, political and social ones. It was a time full of emotions: from the tears to the laughter. It was a time of rebel, a time of a freedom to be born again. It was a time of changes. Such character of the century has put its influence on the culture, especially art: the paintings, the photographs, the poetry, etc. Exactly the poetry, as an irreplaceable element of the world’s culture, is showing the emotional side of XX century’s people. It is a ...

The early 1900s was a turbulent era for America. As World War I raged in Europe, the Spanish flu ravaged nations and communities around the world, leading to the death of millions, and becoming one of the deadliest natural disasters in the history of mankind. While America dealt with the aftermath of prohibition and the Great Depression, Russia and Ireland were engulfed in civil war, leading to major political shifts that reverberated throughout the Western hemisphere. It is no wonder, then, that some historians and scholars refer to this decade as “The Crazy Years” (Lamb 195). The sentiments of ...

1. James Weldon Johnson “The Creation” Johnson’s poem “The Creation” describes the creation of the world and humanity. However, it differs slightly from the ‘classical’ description of the story. Judeo-Christian concept of God regards God as an omnipotent and infallible superhuman. Creation of the world was deliberate and the meaning of each item created is described, “And God said, ‘Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.’”; “Then God said, ‘Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their ...

Time does not only shape the world; it shapes the ideas that are created by the human mind. There are different ideas that can be expressed in writing, poetry offers one of the best genres in literature whereby people are able to express their ideas and make them known to the world. When writing there are different issues that influence a writer to write about a certain topic or issue. Many writers are influenced by issues that take place within the society, they develop their ideas from this issues .Another key factor that influence a writer or a poet the period in which ...

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by Eliot

Thomas Stearns Eliot was an American-British scholar. The man was a jack of all trades with influences as an essayist, publisher, social and literary critic, playwriting and a major poet of the twentieth century. His work has been widely admired with the peak being the Nobel Prize in Literature, an honor that was granted upon him in 1948 in appreciation of his pioneer and outstanding contribution and influence on the present-day poetry. Other pieces of work written by the poet include the Waste Land, Murder in the Cathedral, The Hollow Men and Four Quartets among others. The love Song of J. ...

Introduction

Background of poet Thomas Stearns Elion was an American-British scholar. The man was a jack of all trades with influences as an essayist, publisher, social and literary critic, playwriting and a major poet of the twentieth century. His work has been widely acclaimed with the pinnacle being the Nobel Prize in Literature, an accolade that was bestowed upon him in 1948 in recognition of his pioneer and outstanding contribution and influence on the present-day poetry. Other pieces of work written by the poet include the Waste Land, Murder in the Cathedral, The Hollow Men and Four Quartets among others. The ...

Literature reflects the values and issues of the culture that produced it. Reading stories and poetry from different generations helps one to gain a better understanding of the period it was written, and offers a glimpse into history. Throughout American history literature has been used as an outlet for analyzing or commentating on societal issues and promoting change. Reviewing the literature produced at different times during America’s history can offer an enlightening perspective of the changes that occurred in American culture as well as which values and societal topics were important at different times. For example, American literature offers a creative ...

"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (“Prufrock”) was first published in the June 1915 issue of Poetry: A Magazine of Verse (“Poetry”). It was written by American-British poet T. S. Eliot (“Eliot”) (1888–1965). Eliot first started work on the poem in February, 1910. As the Overseas Editor of Poetry, Erza Pound (“Pound”) had instigated the whole business (n.a., n.d., “Bio,” 2014; and McCoy, 1992). Prufrock has been studied by many, many talented scholars. In fact, what makes it such an outstanding piece of poetry is the fact that people can read so many meanings into it. ...

How is The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock Different from Other Love Poems?

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock is one of the greatest poems ever written in English language. Ascribed to Modernism, this poem was written in 1910 and first published in 1915 by American-British writer and poet T. S. Eliot. The title gives the reader the idea that this poem is a love song; but The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock has actually become so important int he history of English Literature due to the fact that it is not. The poem does not revolve around a love story (as opposed to the title); it mostly concentrates on the ...

The modern concepts in the literary world have crept into the works of various writers. The differences in the old and past ways of life have been the subject of the many modern day stories. Many of the conflicts that arise in today’s works focus on the idea of modernization and the effects of it. Two of the famous works that constitute stories of alienation in the modern day world are the “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker and “The Love Song by J. Prufrock” by T.S Eliot. The tectonic shift to modernization traps people in a stultifying past while ...

Literary Criticism of T. S. Eliot’s Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock

Introduction

The poem Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock feels as fresh to the readers now as it did to Ezra Pound when he first read it. Among other traits, Prufrock exhibits qualities of a characteristic example of modernism in literature, a literary work from the era of literary history that stood towering for its capability for never repeating the same act twice. The poem is a great example of characteristic qualities of modernist poetry namely fragmentation, montage and objective correlative. The narrator T.S. Eliot’s Love Song of J ...

The poet, Eliot, reflects on the masterpieces of the Modernist Movement that shows the character traits of Modernism. Eliot the modernist poet, experiments with the structure and form of the poem. This shows him to be experimental as well as innovative. The “Love Song” was indeed an innovation technically and it was intrigued by the idiom and the broken sequences of the French symbolist. The poem is unique in various senses. It proclaims a complete break with the traditional valuation of poetry as something serious (Sarker, 57). The main theme of this poem is paralysis. The root of paralysis ...

Question 1

The lady of shallot depicts the injustice that is done to women in a patriarchal society. The setting of the poem depicts the situation in society during the medieval times. This was a time when it was regarded unsuitable for women to be educated or to participate in employment, as opposed to their male counterparts. Women, especially from the higher social class, were expected to be home keepers, caretakers for husbands and active entertainers. The poem vividly articulates the environment of a woman in society. The woman is surrounded by things like “aspen quiver, willows whiten,” in a manner that possibly portray ...

In taking into consideration of her confinement, the loom, the mirror and/or Camelot, the part that presented the qualities of The Importance of Being Earnest and which happened to be most humorous would be covered. The mirror providing the reflection seems to be carrying the day. It reflects the shadow that makes her feel half sick. It then heightens the perceived tension that exists between the woman’s cloistered position and the world in the exterior. There are presence of many and varying allusions in T.S Eliot’s work of art ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’. ...

Intentional Disintegration or Disjointedness in Modernist Poems

Modernist poems and literature often use disjointed information and views aimed at developing the reader’s curiosity. The idea of dense intellectual and intentionally difficult to comprehend scripts are based on the concept that authors of the poems have wide research and knowledge hence they design their work in a manner that they convey diverse ideas. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock is one of the modernist poems with a lot of disjointed and disintegrated information. The final image of the “Sunday Morning” provides a summary that sheds light on the poet’s arguments. The paper analyzes the poem the Love ...

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 ...

We live in a world obsessed with routine. Anyone who tries to do things differently is frowned upon. As such, the only decent thing to do is to conform. As a result, many people end up feeling alienated. They end up feeling isolated by the world which is supposed to nurture and celebrate them. Consequently, their true identity is not discovered. Despite these events, all is not lost. Some literature authors have realized this problem, and they have dared to be different. They have walked paths which not so many people have walked and changed the way the society thinks. Although ...

What makes an individual? Is it a construct of one’s identity or is it the perception formed by others. Well, these are some of the questions deep thinkers have been asking themselves over the years, and there are no signs that the debate will come to an end any time soon. Despite the side of the debate we might choose to support, one thing is for sure: describing the essence of human beings is largely a complex affair. Confounded by this dilemma, several classical writers have tried to explain their opinions on the subject, and put the matter to rest ...

William Carlos Williams

William Carlos Williams has always been known as an experimenter, an innovator, a revolutionary figure in American poetry. Yet in comparison to artists of his own time who sought a new environment for creativity as expatriates in Europe, Williams lived a remarkably conventional life. A doctor for more than forty years serving the New Jersey town of Rutherford, he relied on his patients, the America around him, and his own ebullient imagination to create a distinctively American verse. Often domestic in focus and "remarkable for its empathy, sympathy, its muscular and emotional identification with its subjects," Williams's poetry is also characteristically honest: "There ...

A literary analysis

A literary analysis

Introduction

“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is one of the earliest of T.S Eliot’s works, published in 1915 (Sparknotes, 2013). This poem has been perceived by different reviewers differently. Several poets, readers and reviewers did not approve of “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” as a piece of good poetry. Newspaper columnist and radio host, Garrison Keillor has criticised the poem as follows: “This poem pretty much killed off the pleasure of poetry for millions of people who got dragged through it in high school (‘The Old Scout’, 2007)”. Many poets consider this poem ...

Classic English Literature

Eliot’s poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” was first published in a poetry magazine in 1915. Later Eliot published other poems in the 20th century for which he was awarded The Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948. This poem, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is a contemporary poem because it was written when Britain was considered among the modern countries of the world. This was before the beginning of World War I. It is narrated in a dramatic monologue where we find the speaker very unhappy and in mental agony. The poem became a master piece because its ...

Classic English Literature

Eliot’s poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” was first published in a poetry magazine in 1915. Later Eliot published other poems in the 20th century for which he was awarded The Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948. This poem, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is a contemporary poem because it was written when Britain was considered among the modern countries of the world. This was before the beginning of World War I. It is narrated in a dramatic monologue where we find the speaker very unhappy and in mental agony. The poem became a master piece because its ...

"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

Eliot’s poem, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” was the author’s first published works. At the time, it was considered unusual as modernism was new. Though the piece seems to centre around the theme of love, the nature of its speaker, and perhaps of modernism itself, leads the reader to an end where the love is never fulfilled. Eliot uses a variety of poetic devices such as symbolism, metaphor and imagery. Furthermore, he uses a concoction of poetic forms within what is, essentially, a dramatic monologue. "The Love Song of J. ...

The concept of the American dream can be seen in the “Snows of Kilimanjaro” by Ernest Hemingway and “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Eliot. The concept of the American dream is the belief that with the needed work and dedication, a person can rise from rags to riches. It is possible to reach to top of the society and earn a lot of money. All that one needs to do is work hard. However, in the before mentioned pieces of writing, this concept undergoes criticism. The writers show that in order to reach this dream one often ...