Thomas Stearns Eliot

(1885-1965)

T. S. Eliot
(1885-1965)
He was a quite important figure in the
Western literature.
He once has been the leading figure at the
beginning of the last century in poetry and
also in literary criticism (New Criticism).

New Criticism

New Criticism emphasizes explication, or "close

reading," of "the work itself." It rejects old
historicism's attention to biographical and
sociological matters. Instead, the objective
determination as to "how a piece works" can be
found through close focus and analysis, rather than
through extraneous and erudite special knowledge.
It is a type of formalist current of literary theory
that dominated Anglo-American literary criticism
in the middle decades of the 20th century. It
emphasized close reading, particularly of poetry, to
discover how a work of literature functioned as a
self-contained, self-referential aesthetic object.

A Brief Biography
T.S. Eliot was born in 1888 in St. Louis. He was one
of the son of a prominent industrialist who came
from a well- connected Boston family. Eliot always
felt the loss of his familys New England roots and
seemed to be somewhat ashamed of his fathers
business success; throughout his life he continually
sought to return to Anglo- Saxon culture, first by
attending Harvard and then by emigrating to
England, where he lived from 1914 until his death.

A brief biography (continued)

Eliot began graduate study in philosophy at
Harvard and completed his dissertation.
However, he didnt received the degree for
the outbreak of W W. Eliot met Ezra
Pound in 1914 who became his main
mentor and editor lately as well as edited
and published Eliots The Waste Land.
From then on Eliot began to write criticism,
partly in an effort to explain his own
methods.

A brief biography
In 1925, Eliot went to work for the publishing
house Faber & Faber. In the later 1920s Eliot
became interested in religion and eventually
converted to Anglicanism. Eliot died in 1965
in London.

Summary of His Biography

(1)born in St. Louis in Missouri
(2)cultured parents and wealthy family;
good education
(3)graduated from Harvard; M. A. degree
(4)came to Europe for research; stayed in
England because of WWI
(5)first worked as a bank clerk and then
an editor
(6)in 1927, became an English citizen; won
Nobel Prize in 1948

Eliots Poems
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
(1915)
The Waste Land (1922)
The Hollow Man (1925)
Ash- Wednesday (1930)
Four Quartets (1935-1942)

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

Prufrock is a representative character who cannot reconcile his

thoughts and understanding with his feelings and will.
The poem displays several levels of irony, the most important of which
grows out of the vain, weak man's insights into his sterile life and his
lack of will to change that life.
The poem is full of images of enervation and paralysis, such as the
evening described as "etherized," immobile. Prufrock understands that
he and his associates lack authenticity. One part of himself would like
to startle them out of their meaningless lives, but to accomplish this he
would have to risk disturbing his "universe," being rejected.
The latter part of the poem captures his sense defeat for failing to act
courageously.
Eliot helped to set the modernist fashion for blending references to the
classics with the most sordid type of realism, then expressing the blend
in majestic language which seems to mock the subject.

The beginning epigraph

S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse

A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma percioche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s'i'odo il vero,
Senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.
Meaning

The epigraph comes from the Inferno of Dante's

Divine Comedy (XXVII, 61-66). Count Guido da
Montefeltro, embodied in a flame, replies to
Dante's question about his identity as one
condemned for giving lying advice: "If I believed
that my answer would be to someone who would
ever return to earth, this flame would move no
more, but because no one has ever returned alive
from this gulf, if what I hear is true, I can reply with
no fear of infamy."

Explanation of the Title

T. S. Stearns Eliot (1888-1965) originally entitled this poem

"Prufrock Among the Women." He changed the title to "The
Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" before publishing the
poem in Poetry magazine in 1915.
The words "Love Song" seem apt, for one of the definitions
of love song is narrative poem. And, of course, "The Love
Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is a narrative, presenting a
moment in the life of the title character. It is also a poem. In
addition, the work has characteristics of most love songs,
such as repetition (or refrain), rhyme, and rhythm. It also
focuses on the womanly love that eludes Prufrock.

Type of Work:
Dramatic Monologue

A modernistic poem in the form of a dramatic monologue.

A dramatic monologue presents a moment in which a
narrator/speaker discusses a topic and, in so doing,
reveals his personal feelings to a listener. Only the narrator,
talkshence the term monologue, meaning "single (mono)
discourse (logue)." During his discourse, the speaker
intentionally and unintentionally reveals information about
himself. The main focus of a dramatic monologue is this
personal information, not the speaker's topic. Therefore, a
dramatic monologue is a type of character study.

The Speaker/Narrator

The poem centers on a balding, insecure middleaged man. He expresses his thoughts about the
dull, uneventful, mediocre life he leads as a result
of his feelings of inadequacy and his fear of
making decisions. Unable to seize opportunities or
take risks (especially with women), he lives in a
world that is the same today as it was yesterday
and will be the same tomorrow as it is today. He
does try to make progress, but his timidity and fear
of failure inhibit him from taking action.

Setting

The action takes place in the evening in a

bleak section of a smoky city. This city is
probably St. Louis, where Eliot (1888-1965)
grew up. But it could also be London, to
which Eliot moved in 1914. However, Eliot
probably intended the setting to be any city
anywhere.

Characters

J. Alfred Prufrock: The speaker/narrator, a timid, overcautious middleaged man. He escorts his silent listener through streets in a shabby
part of a city, past cheap hotels and restaurants, to a social gathering
where women he would like to meet are conversing. However, he is
hesitant to take part in the activity for fear of making a fool of himself.
The Listener: An unidentified companion of Prufrock. The listener
could also be Prufrock's inner self, one that prods him but fails to move
him to action.
The Women: Women at a social gathering. Prufrock would like to meet
one of them but worries that she will look down on him.
The Lonely Men in Shirtsleeves: Leaning out of their windows, they
smoke pipes. They are like Prufrock in that they look upon a scene but
do not become part of it. The smoke from their pipes helps form the
haze over the city, the haze that serves as a metaphor for a timid cat
which is Prufrock.

Themes

Loneliness and Alienation: Prufrock is a pathetic man

whose anxieties and obsessions have isolated him.
Indecision: Prufrock resists making decisions for fear that
their outcomes will turn out wrong.
Inadequacy: Prufrock continually worries that he will make
a fool of himself and that people will ridicule him for his
clothes, his bald spot, and his overall physical
appearance.
Pessimism: Prufrock sees only the negative side of his own
life and the lives of others.

Interpretation of this Poem

Let us go then, you and I,

When the evening is spread out against
the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted
streets,
The muttering retreats
5
Of restless nights in one-night cheap
hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oystershells:
Streets that follow like a tedious
argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming
question
10
Oh, do not ask, What is it?
Let us go and make our visit.

The speaker invites the listener to walk with

him into the streets on an evening that
resembles a patient, anesthetized with ether
(physicians used ether to render patients
unconscious before an operation), lying on
the table of a hospital operating room. The
imagery suggests that the evening is lifeless
and listless. The speaker and the listener will
walk through lonely streetsthe business
day has endedpast cheap hotels and
restaurants with sawdust on the floors.
(Sawdust was used to absorb spilled
beverages and food, making it easy to
sweep up at the end of the day.) The shabby
establishments will remind the speaker of his
own shortcomings, their images remaining in
his mind as he walks on. They will then prod
the listener to ask the speaker a question
about the speaker's lifeperhaps why he
visits these seedy haunts, which are
symbols of his life, and why he has not acted
to better himself or to take a wife.

Interpretation of this Poem

In the room the women

come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

At a social gathering in a
room, women discuss the
great Renaissance artist
Michelangelo. Prufrock
may wonder how they
could possibly be
interested in him when
they are discussing
someone as illustrious as
Michelango.

Interpretation of this Poem

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon

the window-panes,
15
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle
on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the
evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in
drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls
from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden
leap,
20
And seeing that it was a soft October
night,
Curled once about the house, and fell
asleep.

Smoky haze spreads across the city.

The haze is like a quiet, timid cat
padding to and fro, rubbing its head on
objects, licking its tongue, and curling up
to sleep after allowing soot to fall upon it.
The speaker resembles the cat as he
looks into windows or into "the room,"
trying to decide whether to enter and
become part of the activity. Eventually,
he curls up in the safety and security of
his own soft armsalone, separate.
What this stanza means is that Prufrock
feels inferior and is unable to act
decisively. He consigns himself to
corners, as a timid person might at a
dance; stands idly by doing nothing, as
does a stagnant pool; and becomes the
brunt of ridicule or condescension (the
soot that falls on him).

Interpretation of this Poem

And indeed there will be time

For the yellow smoke that slides along
the street,
Rubbing its back upon the windowpanes;
25
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that
you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of
hands
That lift and drop a question on your
plate;
30
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and
revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

There's no hurry, though,

the speaker tells himself.
There will be time to
decide and then to act
time to put on the right
face and demeanor to
meet people. There will be
time to kill and time to act;
in fact, there will be time to
do many things. There will
even be time to think about
doing thingstime to
dream and then revise
those dreamsbefore
sitting down with a woman
to take toast and tea.

Interpretation of this Poem

In the room the women

come and go
35
Talking of
Michelangelo.

The women are still

coming and going, still
talking of Michelangelo,
suggesting that life is
repetitive and dull.

Interpretation of this Poem

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
40
[They will say: How his hair is growing thin!]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to
the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a
simple pin
[They will say: But how his arms and legs are
thin!]
Do I dare
45
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute
will reverse.

Prufrock says there will be time

to wonder whether he dares to
approach a woman. He feels
like turning back. After all, he
has a bald spot, thinning hair,
and thin arms and legs.
Moreover, he has doubts about
the acceptability of his clothing.
What will people think of him?
Does he dare to approach a
woman? He will think about it
and make a decision, then
reverse the decision.

Interpretation of this Poem

For I have known them all

already, known them all:
Have known the evenings,
mornings, afternoons,
50
I have measured out my life with
coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a
dying fall
Beneath the music from a
farther room.
So how should I presume?

Prufrock realizes that the people

here are the same as the people
he has met many times before
the same, uninteresting people
in the same uninteresting world.
They all even sound the same.
So why should he do anything?

Interpretation of this Poem

And I have known the eyes

already, known them all
55
The eyes that fix you in a
formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated,
sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling
on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of
my days and ways?
60
And how should I presume?

He has seen their gazes before,

many timesgazes that form an
opinion of him, treating him like
a butterfly or another insect
pinned into place in a display.
How will he be able to explain
himself to themthe
ordinariness, the mediocrity, of
his life?

Interpretation of this Poem

And I have known the arms

already, known them all
Arms that are braceleted and
white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed
with light brown hair!]
It is perfume from a
dress
65
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or
wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?

Yes, he has known women like

these before, wearing jewelry
but really bare, lacking
substance. Why is he thinking
about them? Perhaps it is the
smell of a woman's perfume.

Interpretation of this Poem

Shall I say, I have gone at

dusk through narrow
streets
70
And watched the smoke
that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirtsleeves, leaning out of
windows?
I should have been a pair
of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors
of silent seas.

Will he tell a woman that

he came through narrow
streets, where lonely men
(like Prufrock) lean out of
windows watching life go
by but not taking part in it?
He should have been
nothing more than crab
claws in the depths of the
silent ocean.

Interpretation of this Poem

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so

peacefully!
75
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep tired or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and
me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its
crisis?
80
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and
prayed,
Though I have seen my head brought in upon
a platter,
I am no prophetand heres no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness
flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my
coat, and snicker,
85
And in short, I was afraid.

The time passes peacefully. It is as

if the afternoon/evening is sleeping
or simply wasting time, stretched
out on the floor. Should the speaker
sit down with someone and have
dessertshould he take a chance,
make an acquaintance, live? Oh, he
has suffered; he has even imagined
his head being brought in on a
platter, like the head of John the
Baptist. Of course, unlike John, he
is no prophet. He has seen his
opportunities pass and even seen
death up close, holding his coat,
snickering. He has been afraid.

Interpretation of this Poem

And would it have been worth it, after

all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk
of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
90
To have bitten off the matter with a
smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a
ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming
question,
To say: I am Lazarus, come from the
dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you
all
95
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: That is not what I meant
at all.
That is not it, at all.

Would it have been worth

it for the speaker while
drinking tea to try to make
a connection with one of
the women? Would it have
been worth it to arise from
his lifeless life and dare to
engage in conversation
with a woman, only to
have her criticize him or
reject him.

Interpretation of this Poem

And would it have been worth it, after

all,
Would it have been worth
while,
100
After the sunsets and the dooryards and
the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after
the skirts that trail along the floor
And this, and so much more?
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the
nerves in patterns on a
screen:
105
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a
shawl,
And turning toward the window, should
say:
That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.

Would it have been worth it,

considering all the times he would
be with the woman at sunset or with
her in a dooryard? Would it have
been worth it after all the mornings
or evenings when workmen
sprinkled the streets (see sprinkled
streets, below), after all the novels
he would discuss with her over tea,
after all the times he heard the drag
of her skirt along the floor, after so
many other occasions? Would it
have been worth it if, after plumping
a pillow or throwing off her shawl,
she turned casually toward a
window and told him that he was
mistaken about her intentions
toward him?

Interpretation of this Poem

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor

was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will
do
To swell a progress, start a scene
or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an
easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of
use,
115
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit
obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost
ridiculous
Almost, at times, the Fool.

Prufrock and Hamlet (the

protagonist of
Shakespeare's Hamlet,
Prince of Denmark) are
both indecisive. But
Prufrock lacks the majesty
and charisma of Hamlet.
Therefore, he fancies
himself as Polonius, the
busybody lord chamberlain
in Shakespeare's play.

Interpretation of this Poem

I grow old I grow old

120
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
16
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a
peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk
upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to
each.
17
I do not think that they will sing to
me.
125
18
I have seen them riding seaward on the
waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown
back
When the wind blows the water white and
black.
19
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and
brown
130
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

The speaker realizes that

time is passing and that he
is growing old. However,
like other men going
through a middle-age crisis,
he considers changing his
hairstyle and clothes. Like
Odysseus in the Odyssey,
he has heard the song of
the sirens. However, they
are not singing to him.

The Waste Land

Section : The Burial of the Dead
Section : A Game of Chess
Section : The Fire Sermon
Section : Death by Water
Section : What the Thunder Said

The Burial of the Dead

It is made up of four vignettes, each seemingly from

the perspective of a different speaker.
The first is an autobiographical snippet from the
childhood of an aristocratic woman.
The second is a prophetic, apocalyptic(
) invitation to journey into a desert waste.
The third describes an imaginative reading.
The fourth is the most surreal in which the speaker
asks a ghostly figure about the fate of a corpse planted
in his garden.

Form of Burial of the Dead

This section can be seen as a modified dramatic
monologue. The four speakers in this section are
frantic in their need to speak, to find an audience, but
they find themselves surrounded by dead people and
thwarted by outside circumstances, like wars.
Because the sections are so short and the situations so
confusing, the effect is not one of an overwhelming
impression of a single character; instead, the reader is
left with the feeling of being trapped in a crowd,
unable to find a familiar face.

Commentary
The poet lives in a culture that has decayed and
withered but will not expire, and he is forced to
live with reminders of its former glory. The plot
of the poem revolves two influential
contemporary cultural/ anthropological texts,
Jessie Westons From Ritual to Romance and Sir
James Fraziers The Golden Bough. Both of
these works focus on the persistence of ancient
fertility rituals in modern thought and religion;
of particular interest to both authors is the
story of the Fisher King.

Commentary (continued)
Eliot provides copious footnotes
that is an excellent source for
tracking down the origins of a
reference. Many of the
references are from the Bible.

Commentary (continued)

Memory in the first episode creates a

confrontation of the past with the present, a
juxtaposition that points out just how badly
things have decayed. The second contains a
troubled religious proposition. The speaker
describes a true wasteland of stony rubbish.
The third explores Eliots fascination with
transformation. The final allows Eliot finally
to establish the true wasteland of the poem,
the modern city.

A Game of chess
Summary
This section focuses on two opposing scenes,
one of high society and one of the lower
classes. The first half of the section portrays
a wealthy, highly groomed woman
surrounded by exquisite furnishings. The
second part shifts to a London barroom,
where two women discuss a third woman.

A Game of chess

Form
The first part is largely in unrhymed iambic
pentameter lines, or blank verse. As the section
proceeds, the lines become increasingly irregular
in length and meter, giving the feeling of
disintegration, of things falling apart. The second
part is a dialogue interrupted by the barmans
refrain, which constitutes a loose series of phrases
connected by I said (s) and she said (s).

Commentary
The two women of this section of the poem
represent the two sides of modern
sexuality: while one side of this sexuality is
a dry, barren interchange inseparable
from neurosis and self- destruction, the
other side of this sexuality is a rampant
fecundity associated with a lack of culture
and rapid aging. Neither womans form of
sexuality is regenerative.

The Fire Sermon

Summary
This title is taken from a sermon given
by Buddha in which he encourages his
followers to give up earthly passion
(symbolized by fire) and seek freedom
from earthly things.

The Fire Sermon

Form
This section is notable for its inclusion of
popular poetic forms, particularly musical
pieces, including Spensers wedding song
(which becomes the song of the Thamesdaughters), a soldiers ballad, a nightingales
chirps, a song from Oliver Goldsmiths The
Vicar of Wakefield, and a mandolin tune
(which has no words but is echoed in a clatter
and a chatter from within).

Commentary
The opening two stanzas of this section
describe the ultimate Waste Land as Eliot
sees it. The wasteland is cold, dry and
barren, covered in garbage. Unlike the
desert, which at least burns with heat, this
place is static, save for a few scurrying rats.
Even the river, normally a symbol of
renewal, has been reduced to a dull canal.
The ugliness stands in implicit contrast to
the Sweet Thames of Spensers time.

Commentary (continued)
The most significant image in these
lines is the rat. This section ends
with only the single word burning,
isolated on the page, reveals the
futility of all of mans struggles.

Death by water
Summary
The shortest section of the poem describes
a man, Phlebas the Phoenician, who has
died, apparently by drowning. In death he
has forgotten his worldly cares as the
creatures of the sea have picked his body
apart. The narrator asks his reader to
consider Phlebas and recall his or her own
mortality.

Death by water
Form
It is one of the most formally organized
sections of the poem. The alliteration and
the deliberately archaic language (O
you, a fortnight dead) also contribute
to the serious, didactic feel of this section.

Commentary
The major point of this short section is
to rebut ideas of renewal and
regeneration.

What the Thunder said

Summary
This section is dramatic in both its imagery
and its events. Eliot draws on the traditional
interpretation of what the thunder says, as
taken from the Upanishads (Hindu fables).
According to these fables, the thunder gives,
sympathizes, and controls through its
speech. Eliot launches into a meditation on
each of these aspects of the thunders power.

What the Thunder said

Form
The final section moves away from more typical
poetic forms to experiment with structures
normally associated with religion and philosophy.
Both formally and thematically , this part follows
a pattern of obsession and resignation. Its
patterning reflects the speakers offer at the end
to fit you, to transform experience into poetry.

Commentary
The last words of the poem are in a nonWestern language that invoke an
alternative set of paradigms to those of
the Western world and offer a glimpse
into a culture and a value system new to
us and offer some hope for an alternative
to our own dead world.

The End