T. S. Eliot‟s “Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”

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.

Love Song

.......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.

Origin of the Name Prufrock

.......Eliot took the last name of the title character from a sign advertising the William Prufrock furniture company, a business in Eliot's hometown, St. Louis, while he was growing up. The initial J. and name Alfred are inventions, probably mimicking the way Eliot occasionally signed his name as a young adult: T. Stearns Eliot.

Type of Work: Dramatic Monologue

......."The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is 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, talks—hence 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.

Publication

.......Eliot published "Prufrock" in Poetry magazine in 1915 and then in a collection of his poems, Prufrock and Other Observations, in 1917.

The Speaker/Narrator

.......The poem centers on a balding, insecure middle-aged 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 middle-aged 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.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

By T. S. Eliot

With Stanza Summaries, Annotations, and Explanations of Allusions

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

Translation: If I thought my answer were to one who could return to the world, I would not reply, but as none ever did return alive from this depth, without fear of infamy I answer thee. The words are spoken by Count Guido da Montefeltro, a damned soul in the Eighth Circle of Hell in Dante's Divine Comedy (Inferno, Canto 27, lines 61-66.)
Translator and Quotation Source: G.B. Harrison et al., eds. Major British Writers. Shorter ed. New York: Harcourt. 1967, page 1015.
Comment: Eliot opens "The Love Song" with this quotation from Dante's epic poem to suggest that Prufrock, like Count Guido, is in hell. But Prufrock is in a hell on earth—a hell in the form of a modern, impersonal city with smoky skies. The quotation also points out that Prufrock, again like Count Guido, can present his feelings "without fear of infamy."

1
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 oyster-shells:
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.

1
Summary, Interpretation: The speaker invites the listener to walk with him into the streets on an evening that resembles a patient, anesthetized with ether, lying on the table of a hospital operating room. (Until recent times, physicians used ether—a liquid obtained by combining sulfuric acid and ethyl alcohol—to render patients unconscious before an operation.) The imagery suggests that the evening is lifeless and listless. The speaker and the listener will walk through lonely streets—the business day has ended—past 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 life—perhaps 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.
Allusion, overwhelming question (line 10): Eliot appears to have borrowed this phrase from James Fenimore Cooper's 1823 novel, The Pioneers, one of five novels that make up The Leatherstocking Tales (1823-1841), about life on the frontier in early America. When he was a youth, Eliot read and enjoyed The Pioneers. In the novel, one of the characters, Benjamin, asks a series of questions ending with the "overwhelming question." Following is the passage:

.......“Did’ee ever see a British ship, Master Kirby? an English line-of-battle ship, boy? Where did’ee ever fall in with a regular built vessel, with starn-post and cutwater, gar board-streak and plank-shear, gangways, and hatchways, and waterways, quarter-deck, and forecastle, ay, and flush-deck?—tell me that, man, if you can; where away did’ee ever fall in with a full-rigged, regular-built, necked vessel?”
.......The whole company were a good deal astounded with this overwhelming question, and even Richard afterward remarked that it “was a thousand pities that Benjamin could not read, or he must have made a valuable officer to the British marine.

2
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

2
Summary, Interpretation: 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.
Allusion, The Women . . . Michelangelo (lines 13-14): Eliot borrowed most of this line from the Uruguayan-born French poet Jules LaForgue (1860-1887). In one of his works, LaForgue wrote (in French): Dans la piece les femmes vont et viennent / En parlant des maîtresde Sienne. Here is the loose translation: In the room the women go and come while speaking of the Siennese (painting) masters.
Michelangelo: Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (1475-1564), Renaissance sculptor, painter, and architect and one of the greatest artists in history. He sculpted the famous David for the Duomo Cathedral in Florence, painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City, and designed the dome of St. Peter's Basilica, also in Vatican City.

3
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.

3
Summary, Interpretation: 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 arms—alone, 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).

4
And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes; 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.

4
Summary, Interpretation: 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 things—time to dream and then revise those dreams—before sitting down with a woman to take toast and tea.
Allusion, there will be time (line 23): This phrase alludes to the opening line of "To His Coy Mistress," by Andrew Marvell (1621-1678): "Had we but world enough, and time." In Marvell's poem, the speaker/persona urges his beloved not to be coy but instead to seize the moment—to take advantage of youth and "sport us while we may." Prufrock, of course, continually postpones even meeting a woman, saying "There will be time."
face (line 27): affectation; façade.
Allusion, works and days (line 29): Works and Days is a long poem by Hesiod, a Greek writer who lived in the 700's B.C. "Works" refers to farm labor and "Days" to periods of the year for performing certain agricultural chores. The poem, addressed to Hesiod's brother, was intended to instruct readers, stressing the importance of hard work and right living and condemning moral decay.

5
In the room the women come and go 35
Talking of Michelangelo.

5
Summary, Interpretation: The women are still coming and going, still talking of Michelangelo, suggesting that life is repetitive and dull.

6
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.

6
Summary, Interpretation: 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.
simple pin (line 43): Pin inserted through the tie and shirt to hold the tie in place.

7
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?

7
Summary, Interpretation: 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?
Evenings, Mornings, Afternoons: This phrase, as well as others focusing on time, refers obliquely to the philosophy of Henri Bergson (1859-1941), author of a revolutionary and highly influential work, Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness. In this work, he argued that the mind perceives time as a continuous process, a continuous flow, rather than as a series of measurable units as tracked by a clock or a calendar or by scientific calculation. It is not a succession, with one unit following another, but a duration in which present and past are equally real. Ordinarily, we think of a day as consisting of morning, evening, and afternoon—in that order. But, since time is a continuous flow to Prufrock, it is just as correct to think of a day as consisting of morning, afternoon, and evening as a single unit.
Allusion, dying fall (line 52): Phrase borrowed from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. Duke Orsino speaks it in line 4 of Act I, Scene I. Here is the passage in which the phrase appears:

If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
That strain again! it had a dying fall:
O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound,
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odour!

8
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?

8
Summary, Interpretation: He has seen their gazes before, many times—gazes 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 them—the ordinariness, the mediocrity, of his life?
fix (line 56): Evaluate.

9
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?

9
Summary, Interpretation: 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.
Arms that lie along table (line 67): This phrase echoes line 3.
should I then presume? (line 68): This clause repeats words in lines 54 and 68.
how should I begin? (line 69): This clause repeats words in line 59.

10
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 shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?
I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

10
Summary, Interpretation: 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.
smoke that rises from the pipes (line 71): The smoke becomes part of the haze.

11
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 prophet—and here’s 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.

11
Summary, Interpretation: 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 dessert—should 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.
evening . . . floor (lines 75-78): This metaphor/personification echoes the simile in lines 2 and 3.
cakes (line 79): Cakes or cookies.
ices (line 79): Ice cream.
Allusion, head brought in upon a platter (line 82): Phrase associated with John the Baptist, Jewish prophet of the First Century AD who urged people to reform their lives and who prepared the way for the coming of Jesus as the Messiah. John denounced Herod Antipas (4 BC-AD 39), the Roman-appointed ruler of Galilee and Perea, for violating the law of Moses by marrying Herodias, the divorced wife of his half-brother, Philip. (Herod Antipas and Philip were sons of Herod the Great, the Roman-appointed ruler of Judea.) In retaliation, Herod Antipas imprisoned John but was afraid to kill him because of his popularity with the people. Salome, the daughter of Herodias and stepdaughter of Herod Antipas, danced at a birthday party for Herod Antipas. Her performance was so enthralling that Herod said she could have any reward of her choice. Prompted by Herodias, who was outraged by John the Baptist's condemnation of her marriage, Salome asked for the head of the Baptist on a platter. Because he did not want to go back on his word, Herod fulfilled her request. John was a cousin of Mary, the mother of Jesus. Accounts of his activities appear in the Bible in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and in the Acts of the Apostles.
prophet (line 83): Another allusion to John the Baptist.
Footman (line 85): Servant in a uniform who opens doors, waits on tables, helps people into carriages. The footman is a symbol of death; he helps a person into the afterlife.

12
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.”

12
Summary, Interpretation: 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.
porcelain (line 89): glassware or hard, brittle people
Allusion, To have squeezed the universe into a ball (line 92): This phrase is another allusion to Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress." (Click here to see the previous comment on Marvell's poem.) In the last stanza of that poem, the speaker/persona says, " Let us roll all our strength and all / Our sweetness up into one ball." In Eliot's poem, the speaker asks whether it would have been worth it to do the same thing with a woman of his choosing.
Allusion, Lazarus (line 94): Name of two New Testament figures: (1) Lazarus of Bethany, brother of Martha and Mary. Jesus raised him from the dead (Gospel of John, Chapter 11: Verses 18, 30, 32, 38); (2) Lazarus, a leprous beggar (Gospel of Luke, Chapter 16: Verses 19-31). When Lazarus died, he was taken into heaven. When a rich man named Dives died, he went to hell. He requested that Lazarus be returned to earth to warn his brothers about the horror of hell, but his request was denied.

13
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.”

13
Summary, Interpretation: 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?
sprinkled streets (line 101): This may be a reference to the practice of wetting dirt streets with oil or water to control dust.
magic lantern (line 105): Early type of slide projector. The magic lantern (also called sciopticon) projected an image from a glass plate.

14
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.

14
Summary, Interpretation: 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.
Allusion, Prince Hamlet (line 112): Hamlet, the protagonist of Shakespeare's Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, famous for his hesitancy and indecision while plotting to avenge the murder of his father, King Hamlet, by the king's brother, Claudius. Prufrock is like young Hamlet in that the latter is also indecisive. However, Prufrock decides not to compare himself with Hamlet, who is charismatic and even majestic in spite of his shortcomings. Instead, Prufrock compares himself with an unimpressive character in the Shakespeare play, an attendant lord, Polonius. (See next entry.)
Allusion, attendant lord (line 113): Polonius, the lord chamberlain in Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Polonius, a bootlicking advisor to the new king, Claudius, sometimes uses a whole paragraph of important-sounding words to say what most other people could say in a simple declarative sentence. His pedantry makes him look foolish at times. Prufrock, of course, is worried that the words he speaks will make him look foolish, too.
Allusion, progress (line 114): In the time of a Shakespeare, a journey that a king or queen of England made with his or her entourage,
Allusion, high sentence: The high-flown, pretentious language of Polonius (See Allusion, attendant lord, just above.)
Allusion, Fool (line 119): Eliot capitalizes this word, suggesting that it refers to a court jester (also called a fool) in Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. There is no living fool in Hamlet, but there is a dead one, Yorick. In a famous scene in the play, two men are digging the grave of Ophelia when they unearth the skull of Yorick while Hamlet is present. Picking it up, Hamlet says,

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow
of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath
borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how
abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rims at
it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know
not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your
gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment,
that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one
now, to mock your own grinning? quite chap-fallen?

In the courts of England in Shakespeare's time, a fool was a comic figure with a quick tongue who entertained the king, the queen, and their guests. He was allowed to—and even expected to—criticize anyone at court. Many fools were dwarfs or cripples, their odd appearance enhancing their appeal and, according to prevailing beliefs, bringing good luck to the court.

15
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.

15-19
Summary, Interpretation: 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.
wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled (line 121): look youthful and jaunty.
Allusion, mermaids (line 124): In Homer's Odyssey, sea nymphs who sit on a shore and sing a song so alluring that it attracts all passing sailors who hear it. Then the sailors sit on the shore, transfixed by the song, until they die. But Odysseus plugs the ears of his men with wax, so that they are unable to hear, after ordering them to tie him to a mast. Thus, as they pass the island, Odysseus himself hears the song but cannot go ashore, though he wants to, because he cannot break free of his bonds.

Style

......."The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is a modernistic poem that expresses the thoughts of the title character via the following:

Conversational Language Combined With the Stylized Language of Poetry. For example, the poem opens straightforwardly with "Let us go then, you and I." It then presents a bizarre personification/simile with end rhyme (lines 2 and 3), comparing the evening to an anesthetized hospital patient. End rhyme continues throughout most of the poem, as does the use of striking figures of speech. The figures of speech generally refer in some way to Prufrock. The anesthetized hospital patient, for example, represents the indecisiveness of Prufrock. The yellow fog and yellow smoke of lines 15 and 16 are compared in succeeding lines to a timid cat, which represents the timidity of Prufrock.

Variations in Line Length and Meter. Some lines contain only three words. Others contain as many as fourteen. The meter also varies.

Shifts in the Train of Thought: The train of thought sometimes shifts abruptly, without transition, apparently in imitation of the way the human mind works when it dreams or daydreams or reacts to an external stimulus.

Shifts in Topics Under Discussion: The subject under discussion sometimes shifts abruptly, from trifling matters one moment—Prufrock's bald spot, for example, or the length of his trousers—to time and the universe the next.

Shifts From Abstract to Concrete (and Universal to Particular): The poem frequently toggles between (1) the abstract or universal and (2) the concrete or specific. Examples of abstract language are muttering retreats (line 5) and tedious argument of insidious intent (lines 8-9). Examples of phrases or clauses with universal nouns are the muttering retreats and the women come and go. Examples of concrete language are oyster-shells (line 7) and soot (line 19). Examples of particular (specific) language are Michelangelo (line 14) and October (line 21).

Shifts From Obvious Allusions or References to Oblique Allusions or References: Prufrock quotes, paraphrases, or cites historical or fictional persons, places, things, or ideas. Some of his references are easy to fathom. For example, everyone with a modicum of education knows who Michelangelo was (line 14). Other references are difficult to fathom. For example, few readers realize that To Have Squeezed the Universe into a Ball (line 92) is a variation of a line written by poet Andrew Marvell (1621-1678). In his use of allusions, Eliot apparently wanted to show that Prufrock was well read and retained bits and pieces of what he read in his memory, like all of us. .

Use of Repetition

.......Eliot repeats certain words and phrases several or many times, apparently to suggest the repetition and monotony in Prufrock's life. Notice, for example, how often he begins a line with And—20 times. He also repeats other words as well as phrases and clauses, including the following:

Let us go

In the room the women come and go talking of Michelangelo

There will be time

Do I dare

Should I presume

I have known

Would it have been worth it

Figures of Speech: Examples From the Poem

Simile: Lines 2-3

When the evening is spread out against the sky

Like a patient etherised upon a table

(Prufrock uses like to compare the evening to a patient)

Personifications, Simile: Lines 8-9

Streets that follow like a tedious argument

Of insidious intent

(Personification 1: Streets become persons because they follow. Personification 2: An argument becomes a person because it has insidious intent. Simile: Use of like to compare streets to an argument)

Metaphor: Lines 15-22

Yellow fog and yellow smoke are both compared to a living creature. It is obvious that the creature is a cat. (It licks its tongue, leaps, and curls up.) /

Metaphor: Line 51

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons

(Life is compared to coffee.)

Alliteration

Lines 20-21: Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,

And seeing that it was a soft October night,

Line 34: Before the taking of a toast and tea

Line 56: fix you in a formulated phrase)

Line 58: When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall

Metaphor: Line 58

When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall

(Prufrock compares himself to an insect preserved for display in a collection)

Personification/Metaphor: Line 75

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!

(Personification: The evening is a sleeping person; Metaphor: The evening is compared to a person.)

Anaphora (Lines 91-94)

Tohave 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

(For a definition of anaphora, see Literary Terms.)

Hyperbole and Metaphor: Lines 92-93

To have squeezed the universe into a ball

To roll it toward some overwhelming question

(Hyperbole and Metaphor: The universe becomes a ball that is rolled.)

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“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”

Summary

This poem, the earliest of Eliot’s major works, was completed in 1910 or 1911 but not published until 1915. It is an examination of the tortured psyche of the prototypical modern man—overeducated, eloquent, neurotic, and emotionally stilted. Prufrock, the poem’s speaker, seems to be addressing a potential lover, with whom he would like to “force the moment to its crisis” by somehow consummating their relationship. But Prufrock knows too much of life to “dare” an approach to the woman: In his mind he hears the comments others make about his inadequacies, and he chides himself for “presuming” emotional interaction could be possible at all. The poem moves from a series of fairly concrete (for Eliot) physical settings—a cityscape (the famous “patient etherised upon a table”) and several interiors (women’s arms in the lamplight, coffee spoons, fireplaces)—to a series of vague ocean images conveying Prufrock’s emotional distance from the world as he comes to recognize his second-rate status (“I am not Prince Hamlet’). “Prufrock” is powerful for its range of intellectual reference and also for the vividness of character achieved.

Form

“Prufrock” is a variation on the dramatic monologue, a type of poem popular with Eliot’s predecessors. Dramatic monologues are similar to soliloquies in plays. Three things characterize the dramatic monologue, according to M.H. Abrams. First, they are the utterances of a specific individual (not the poet) at a specific moment in time. Secondly, the monologue is specifically directed at a listener or listeners whose presence is not directly referenced but is merely suggested in the speaker’s words. Third, the primary focus is the development and revelation of the speaker’s character. Eliot modernizes the form by removing the implied listeners and focusing on Prufrock’s interiority and isolation. The epigraph to this poem, from Dante’s Inferno, describes Prufrock’s ideal listener: one who is as lost as the speaker and will never betray to the world the content of Prufrock’s present confessions. In the world Prufrock describes, though, no such sympathetic figure exists, and he must, therefore, be content with silent reflection. In its focus on character and its dramatic sensibility, “Prufrock” anticipates Eliot’s later, dramatic works.

The rhyme scheme of this poem is irregular but not random. While sections of the poem may resemble free verse, in reality, “Prufrock” is a carefully structured amalgamation of poetic forms. The bits and pieces of rhyme become much more apparent when the poem is read aloud. One of the most prominent formal characteristics of this work is the use of refrains. Prufrock’s continual return to the “women [who] come and go / Talking of Michelangelo” and his recurrent questionings (“how should I presume?”) and pessimistic appraisals (“That is not it, at all.”) both reference an earlier poetic tradition and help Eliot describe the consciousness of a modern, neurotic individual. Prufrock’s obsessiveness is aesthetic, but it is also a sign of compulsiveness and isolation. Another important formal feature is the use of fragments of sonnet form, particularly at the poem’s conclusion. The three three-line stanzas are rhymed as the conclusion of a Petrarchan sonnet would be, but their pessimistic, anti-romantic content, coupled with the despairing interjection, “I do not think they (the mermaids) would sing to me,” creates a contrast that comments bitterly on the bleakness of modernity.

Commentary

“Prufrock” displays the two most important characteristics of Eliot’s early poetry. First, it is strongly influenced by the French Symbolists, like Mallarmé, Rimbaud, and Baudelaire, whom Eliot had been reading almost constantly while writing the poem. From the Symbolists, Eliot takes his sensuous language and eye for unnerving or anti-aesthetic detail that nevertheless contributes to the overall beauty of the poem (the yellow smoke and the hair-covered arms of the women are two good examples of this). The Symbolists, too, privileged the same kind of individual Eliot creates with Prufrock: the moody, urban, isolated-yet-sensitive thinker. However, whereas the Symbolists would have been more likely to make their speaker himself a poet or artist, Eliot chooses to make Prufrock an unacknowledged poet, a sort of artist for the common man.

The second defining characteristic of this poem is its use of fragmentation and juxtaposition. Eliot sustained his interest in fragmentation and its applications throughout his career, and his use of the technique changes in important ways across his body of work: Here, the subjects undergoing fragmentation (and reassembly) are mental focus and certain sets of imagery; in The Waste Land, it is modern culture that splinters; in the Four Quartets we find the fragments of attempted philosophical systems. Eliot’s use of bits and pieces of formal structure suggests that fragmentation, although anxiety-provoking, is nevertheless productive; had he chosen to write in free verse, the poem would have seemed much more nihilistic. The kinds of imagery Eliot uses also suggest that something new can be made from the ruins: The series of hypothetical encounters at the poem’s center are iterated and discontinuous but nevertheless lead to a sort of epiphany (albeit a dark one) rather than just leading nowhere. Eliot also introduces an image that will recur in his later poetry, that of the scavenger. Prufrock thinks that he “should have been a pair of ragged claws / Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.” Crabs are scavengers, garbage-eaters who live off refuse that makes its way to the sea floor. Eliot’s discussions of his own poetic technique (see especially his essay “Tradition and the Individual Talent”) suggest that making something beautiful out of the refuse of modern life, as a crab sustains and nourishes itself on garbage, may, in fact, be the highest form of art. At the very least, this notion subverts romantic ideals about art; at best, it suggests that fragments may become reintegrated, that art may be in some way therapeutic for a broken modern world. In The Waste Land, crabs become rats, and the optimism disappears, but here Eliot seems to assert only the limitless potential of scavenging.

“Prufrock” ends with the hero assigning himself a role in one of Shakespeare’s plays: While he is no Hamlet, he may yet be useful and important as “an attendant lord, one that will do / To swell a progress, start a scene or two...” This implies that there is still a continuity between Shakespeare’s world and ours, that Hamlet is still relevant to us and that we are still part of a world that could produce something like Shakespeare’s plays. Implicit in this, of course, is the suggestion that Eliot, who has created an “attendant lord,” may now go on to create another Hamlet. While “Prufrock” ends with a devaluation of its hero, it exalts its creator. Or does it? The last line of the poem suggests otherwise—that when the world intrudes, when “human voices wake us,” the dream is shattered: “we drown.” With this single line, Eliot dismantles the romantic notion that poetic genius is all that is needed to triumph over the destructive, impersonal forces of the modern world. In reality, Eliot the poet is little better than his creation: He differs from Prufrock only by retaining a bit of hubris, which shows through from time to time. Eliot’s poetic creation, thus, mirrors Prufrock’s soliloquy: Both are an expression of aesthetic ability and sensitivity that seems to have no place in the modern world. This realistic, anti-romantic outlook sets the stage for Eliot’s later works, including The Waste Land.

Another one

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock Summary

Meet Prufrock. (Hi, Prufrock!). He wants you to come take a walk with him through the winding, dirty streets of a big, foggy city that looks a lot like London. He’s going to show you all the best sights, including the "one-night cheap hotels" and "sawdust restaurants." What a gentleman, he is! Also, he has a huge, life-altering question to ask you. He’ll get to that later, though.

Cut to a bunch of women entering and leaving a room. The women are talking about the famous Renaissance painter Michelangelo. We don’t know why they’re talking about Michelangelo, and we never learn. Welcome to Prufrock’s world, where no one does anything interesting.

Did we mention that it’s foggy. Like really, really foggy. The fog has a delightful yellow color, and it acts a lot like a cat.

Yawn. What a day. We’ve accomplished so much already with Prufrock. There’s still a lot of stuff he still wants to get done before "toast and tea." People to see, decisions to make, life-altering questions to ask. But not yet…There’s still plenty of time for all that later.

Where did the women go? Oh, yes, they’re still talking about Michelangelo.

Yup. Pleeeen-ty of time for Prufrock to do all that really important stuff. Except that he doesn’t know if he should. He’s kind of nervous. You see, he was about to tell someone something really important, but then he didn’t. Too nervous. Oops! At least he’s a sharp-looking guy. Well, his clothes are sharp-looking. The rest of him is kind of not-so-sharp-looking. People say he’s bald and has thin arms.

But he still has pleeen-ty of time. And he’s accomplished so much already! For example, he has drank a lot of coffee, and he’s lived through a lot of mornings and afternoons. Those are pretty big accomplishments, right? Plus, he’s known a lot of women. Or at least he’s looked at their hairy arms, and that’s almost as good.

Prufrock says something about how he wishes he were a crab. Oh, Prufrock! Always the joker. Wait, you were serious? That’s kind of sad, my friend. Don’t you have important things to do?

Oops! It looks like he didn’t do that really important thing he meant to do. He was going to tell someone something life-altering, but he was afraid of being rejected. So he didn’t. Oh well.

Meanwhile, Prufrock keeps getting older. He doesn’t worry about that really important thing anymore. Instead, he worries about other important things, such as whether to roll his pant-legs or eat a peach.

It turns out that Prufrock really likes the ocean. He says he has heard mermaids singing – but they won’t sing to him. Boy, you sure do talk a lot about yourself, Prufrock. Finally, he brings us back into the conversation. He talks about how we lived at the bottom of the sea with him (geez, we don’t remember that one!). It turns out we were asleep in the ocean, but all of a sudden, we get woken up by "human voices." Unfortunately, as soon as we wake up, we drown in the salty ocean. Boy, what a day. We thought we were talking a walk, and now we’re dead.

Epigraph Summary

Get out the microscope, because we’re going through this poem line-by-line.

S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse

A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,

Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.

Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo

Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,

Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.

The epigraph of this poem is a six-line quotation from Canto 27 of the Inferno by the Renaissance Italian poet Dante Alighieri.
And no, Eliot doesn’t translate it out of the Italian, which is the kind of stunt that makes people think Eliot is a snob. We really can’t defend him on this charge, except to say that he was absolutely and totally obsessed with Dante and maybe he thought other people loved Dante as much as he did – enough to translate the quote for themselves.
Sneaky little references to Dante pop up everywhere in Eliot’s poems, but this one is more obvious – it’s a direct quotation.
The Inferno tells the story of how a guy (Dante) who has messed up his life badly enough to require some help from the nice folks in heaven. In order to scare him away from sin and other bad things, heaven sends another poet named Virgil to give Dante a guided tour through the horrors of Hell (known as "Inferno" in Italian). Along the way he meets a lot of evil and misguided people.
The quote from this epigraph is said by one of the characters in the eighth circle of Hell (which has nine circles), where some of the worst of the worst are stuck for eternity. This particular guy’s name is Guido da Montefeltro, and when Dante asks to hear his story, here’s what he says:
"If I thought that my reply would be to someone who would ever return to earth, this flame would remain without further movement; but as no one has ever returned alive from this gulf, if what I hear is true, I can answer you with no fear of infamy."
What does this quote mean? Well, Dante is really curious to know why Guido ended up so far down in Hell. But Guido is selfish. He’s afraid that people back on earth will find out about the horrible stuff he did – he’s concerned about his reputation.
On the other hand, Guido knows that no one has ever entered Hell and made it out again, so he figures that it's safe to tell his story because Dante is stuck here.
Unfortunately for Guido, Dante is the first human ever to be allowed to pass through Hell and "return to earth," so people do eventually find out about Guido’s sins…from reading the Inferno.
One other thing we should mention: Guido doesn’t even have a body in Hell – he’s not worthy of that – so his entire spirit is just a "flame" that "moves" when he talks. When he says, "this flame would remain without further movement," he means, "I would shut up and not talk to you anymore."
Last thing: What did Guido do? Essentially, Guido committed terrible atrocities in war.
But that’s not the worst part. The worst part is that he tried to have himself forgiven before he committed these atrocities. He basically thought he could out-smart God and get into heaven despite doing things that he knew were really bad. It’s like if before you broke your mother’s favorite lamp you asked her, "Mom, if I broke this lamp right now, would you forgive me? . . . Yes? OK." CRASH!
(Note to Guido: You can’t outsmart the creator of the universe.)
Why does Eliot choose this epigraph for his poem? Well, it suggests a couple of things. First, that "Prufrock" might not be a poem about good people, but about bad ones pretending to be good. The setting of the poem is a kind of hell.
Second, it tells us that this fellow Prufrock, who is singing his "love song," might be concerned about his reputation like Guido. In other words, Prufrock is going to tell us things because he thinks we won’t have a chance to repeat them to other people.

Lines 1-3

LET us go then, you and I,

When the evening is spread out against the sky

Like a patient etherised upon a table;

"We" are being invited on a trip somewhere. Oh, fun!
But who am "I"? Am I the reader of "J. Alfred Prufrock," or am I someone else? For the purposes of the poem, you are someone else.
Right from the very start, by addressing itself to a fictional person, the poem is announcing that it’s a "dramatic monologue." We know that a "dialogue" is two people talking, so a "monologue" must be one person talking, because "mono" means "one." The poem is "dramatic" because it is written in the voice of a speaker other than the poet.
We know this from the title, which tells us that the speaker is a guy named J. Alfred Prufrock – this is his song. (In olden times, poems were called "songs").
It’s not clear who Prufrock is singing to, but the title gives us a hint. Love songs are usually sung to people you’re in love with, so it’s a safe bet that Prufrock is addressing someone he loves.
Because these were more traditional times, we’ll assume this "someone" is a woman. Also, just to liven things up a bit, let’s pretend that we, the readers of the poem, are the woman he loves. Feel free to giggle now if you want.
Prufrock tells us the time of day that we’re taking this trip: evening. But, this is not your ordinary evening: this "evening" is "spread out against the sky like a patient etherised upon the table."
Holy cow! What does that mean?
Really, it’s hard to overstate how shocking this opening was to readers of Eliot’s time. We’re still a bit shocked ourselves. It’s one of the most famous opening images – ever.
The image compares the evening sky to a patient strapped to an operating table and given ether, a kind of anesthetic, to numb the pain of the surgery that is about to happen. (In case you were wondering, the word is pronounced: ee-thur-ized). It’s an amazing, jarring, outrageous image.
This is how you start a love song? You suckered us into taking an evening stroll, Prufrock, and now it’s like we’re about to watch a gory surgery happen. Give us a moment to calm down.

Lines 4-7

Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,

The muttering retreats

Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels

And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:

Prufrock repeats his invitation for us to come along with him. One of things you’ll notice about this poem is that it repeats itself a lot.
Now, usually when you go on a walk with someone, especially someone you love, you try to pick someplace romantic – a moonlit beach, a tree-lined avenue, that sort of thing. Not Prufrock. He’s going to take us through "half-deserted streets," where people walk around "muttering" to themselves.
Hm. These are the kind of streets that are filled with "cheap hotels" where you might stay for one night only as a last resort, if you had no other options.
Well, at least the street has "restaurants."
Actually, these are the kind of restaurants that have "sawdust" on the floor to clear up all the liquor that people are spilling as they start to get drunk. It’s also littered with oyster-shells that no one bothers to clean up.
Eliot is sending us a lot of small signals in this section. "Half-deserted" makes the streets sound pretty sketchy, and "one-night cheap hotels" only adds to this impression. "Oysters" are an aphrodisiac, which means, to put it bluntly, that they make people want to have sex…
Oh dear. It looks like Prufrock has taken us on a stroll through the seedy red-light district, where prostitutes and vagrants hang out.
Remember the epigraph, which comes from Dante’s Inferno? Well, we’re in a different kind of hell – the underbelly of a modern city.

Lines 8-12

Streets that follow like a tedious argument

Of insidious intent

To lead you to an overwhelming question …

Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"

Let us go and make our visit.

The streets twist and turn like a "tedious argument." It’s an argument with "insidious intent" – the streets are so confusing it’s as if they were trying to trick us into getting lost.
But, by this point, we might feel that Prufrock is also being "insidious" by trying to trick us into taking a walk through the seedy part of town.
We could even go a step further and say that both the streets and Prufrock resemble Guido da Montefeltro, who tried to fool God (see "Epigraph").
The streets are leading somewhere, however. They lead "to an overwhelming question," a question of huge and possibly life-altering significance.
Oh, tell us, tell us!
Nope, Prufrock isn’t going to tell us, and he doesn’t even want us to ask what it is. If we want to find out, we’re going to have to take a walk with him. Sounds pretty tricky, if you ask us.
For good measure, he repeats his favorite phrase, "let us go," for a third time. Seriously, folks, when people warn you about bad peer-pressure situations, this is what they mean.

Lines 13-14

In the room the women come and go

Talking of Michelangelo.

There’s not much to explain about what’s going on in these lines. Women are entering and leaving a room talking about the Italian Renaissance painter Michelangelo.
Eliot loves those Italians. The quote is adopted from a poem the 19th century French writer Jules Laforgue, but that doesn’t really help us figure out what it means here.
And, no, you’re not missing anything – these lines really do come out of nowhere and seem to have nothing to do with Prufrock’s question.
They do, however, add to the general atmosphere. For one thing, the women must be pretty high-class to be talking about Renaissance art, but their repeated action of "coming and going" seems surprisingly pointless.
Remember how we said that Eliot includes sneaky references to Dante everywhere? Well, Dante’s Hell features a lot of really smart people who repeat utterly pointless physical gestures over and over again in small, cramped spaces. Just something to think about.
Finally, these lines have an incredibly simple, singsong rhyme that could get really annoying if you had to listen to it for a long time. It sounds like a nursery rhyme, which totally doesn’t fit with the intellectual subject of famous painters.

Lines 15-22

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,

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,

And seeing that it was a soft October night,

Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

It appears that the poem is back to talking about the "half-deserted streets" from stanza I.
The streets are filled with a "yellow fog," which sounds really nasty, actually. This detail might allow us to take a stab at the location of the poem.
Eliot was really interested in England, and he moved there before this poem was published. The capitol of England is London, which gets really foggy. You’ve probably heard the phrase, "London fog."
So maybe we’re in London. Around the beginning of the 20th century, London was a really modern city that also had some of the roughest, seediest neighborhoods anywhere.
This fog seems pretty acrobatic. It has a "back" and a "muzzle," which sounds like either a dog or a cat. Also, it "licks" things and makes "sudden leaps." OK, definitely sounds like a cat.
The poem is comparing the quiet, sneaky, and athletic movement of the fog to a common housecat. It’s a pretty sweet image. If you’ve ever been around a cat, you know how they can sneak up on you. One moment you’re sitting on the couch, reading a book, and the next moment, something soft and furry is rubbing against your leg.
The fog is wandering around the streets like a cat wanders around a house.
Finally, the fog gets tired and "curls" around the city houses to "fall asleep" like a cat would curl around something smaller, maybe the leg of a table or chair.
One interesting detail: it’s a "soft October night," which means the poem is set in autumn.

Lines 23-25

And indeed there will be time

For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,

Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;

Eliot knew a lot about literature. He read more books than almost any other writer in the 20th century – maybe more than any other writer, period. He could make subtle references to all kinds of literary figures without even trying. His brain worked like that. Good for him.
But you don’t have to "get" these references to understand his poems. Sometimes, though, they are fun to point out.
Here, the phrase "there will be time" refers to a poem called "To His Coy Mistress" by the 17th century English poet Andrew Marvell.
"To His Coy Mistress," like many poems, is about a man trying to get a woman to sleep with him, and it begins: "Had we but world enough, and time, / This coyness, lady, were no crime." The woman is being "coy" by pretending that she won’t sleep with the poet. The poet is saying, "Look, we both know you want to sleep with me, and if we had until Eternity to be together, it would be fine for you to waste time playing games. But we don’t, so let’s hop to it."
Prufrock, however, uses the reference to "time" in exactly the opposite way. He thinks there’s plenty of time for delays and dawdling.
Just like in Marvell’s poem, Prufrock addresses himself to a "mistress," someone he "loves," but here it’s Prufrock, and not the mistress, who is being "coy."
By talking about the smoke, he’s trying to justify the fact that he wasted our time with an entire stanza of description of the fog instead of asking that "overwhelming question" he told us about.

Lines 26-34

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;

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.

He keeps repeating that "There will be time," as if he hasn’t quite convinced himself, or his lover.
Plenty of time to get your "face" ready to meet other people. Also, plenty of time to "murder and create," which sounds pretty sinister. Is this supposed to be a good thing or a bad thing? We’re not sure.
In the next line, he says there’s "time for all the works and days of hands." Allusion alert: Works and Days was the name of the name of a work written by the Greek poet Hesiod. It’s poem about the importance of working for a living and not living a lazy a pointless existence.
Hmm…pointless existence…sounds like someone we know, eh, Prufrock?
Also, have you noticed how Prufrock seems to refer to individual body parts instead of people? So far we have "faces" and "hands." The hands are dropping a "question" onto a "plate," as if it were something we could dig into like a fancy steak dinner. Bring it on!
But no, we still don’t learn what the question is.
Plenty of time for that later. There’s also time for "indecisions," for not deciding things. We have all this time "before the taking of a toast and tea."
Now this really seems like England, doesn’t it?

Lines 35-36

In the room the women come and go

Talking of Michelangelo.

This lines seem to "come and go" from the poem just like the women they describe. Hello, women! Goodbye, women!

Lines 37-39

And indeed there will be time

To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?"

Time to turn back and descend the stair,

There’s still plenty of time to do all the important things Prufrock wants to do, except now he’s second-guessing himself.
The setting gets more specific, too. We might imagine him standing outside the upstairs room his "love" is in. He paces back and forth and tries to decide whether to ask his big question. "Do I dare?" he wonders. But no, he doesn’t dare. He turns around and heads back downstairs.
Of course, Prufrock doesn’t exactly describe this scene to us: he’s much too tricky for that. Instead, he poses it as a hypothetical situation – "Well, if I wanted to chicken out and not ask my question, there’s plenty of time for that, so what’s the big deal?"
Sure there's time, Prufrock, sure there is.

Lines 40-44

With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—

[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!"]

Now he’s going to describe his appearance, and the first thing we learn is he has a big bald spot. He’s probably a middle-aged man, or at least close to it.
Also, he seems worried about what people will say about him and his bald spot and his thin arms and legs.
His only attractive features, funny enough, are his clothes. He has a nice coat and necktie, which he wears according to the fashion of the time. He’s not a trend-setter, though, he’s a trend-follower.
As for "they," we don’t know who "they" are, but according to Prufrock, they’re a gossipy bunch – and not so nice.
Prufrock’s concern about what other people think might make us suspicious. Back to the Epigraph we go!
Recall that Guido da Montefeltro was also worried about his reputation, even though it didn’t matter because he was already in hell.
Prufrock, too, seems to have nothing to lose by asking his question – it’s not like we were in love with the guy already. To the contrary, he seems like kind of a coward. But now, on top of cowardice, he also seems superficial.

Lines 45-48

Do I dare

Disturb the universe?

In a minute there is time

For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

Prufrock doesn’t want to rock the boat or "disturb the universe." That would involve taking a risk, and risks aren’t Prufrock’s thing.
But he still insists (again) that he has plenty of time. Truth be told, he’s starting to sound pretty kooky, like a broken record.
Even though he hasn’t done anything in the poem yet, he insists that everything could change "in a minute" – if only he could make a decision.
But things can also change back again in another "minute," once he "revises" the decision he made. Kind of like when he was about to enter the room to tell his love something, and then went back down the stairs.
But, Prufrock, doesn’t that just leave you where you started?

Lines 49-54

For I have known them all already, known them all:—

Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,

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?

Now he’s trying to convince us that he’s a wise man with lots of experience. He doesn’t need to do anything, because he’s done everything already!
And by "done everything," we mean he has survived "evenings, mornings, afternoons." Impressive.
What else have you done, Prufrock? Well, he has drank a lot of coffee – in fact, his whole existence can be "measured" by how much coffee he has drank.
This is a wicked image. Prufrock thinks he is impressing us, but he’s really damning himself before our eyes. He basically lives from one cup of coffee to the next, with nothing interesting in between.
Prufrock says he has heard voices "dying" or fading away when music starts to play in a "farther room." We already know that he has a hard time entering rooms that contain people he wants to talk to (see lines 37-39), so he has to settle on overhearing other people’s voices through the walls. He lives through other people.
The phrase "dying fall" is, you guessed it, another literary reference, this time to Shakespeare’s famous play, Twelfth Night. In the first scene of the play, a lovesick count named Orsino is listening to music that has a "dying fall." The music reminds him of his love for one of the other characters.
In this poem, however, it’s as if Prufrock were overhearing the "voices" of another couple – maybe Orsino and his love? – in another room, which get covered up by yet another room even "farther" away.
It’s a tricky image, we know, but the point is that Prufrock can only experience love at second- and third-hand. If Orsino’s love is the real thing, then Prufrock’s is just a copy of a copy of a copy.
Finally, he asks, "So how should I presume?" To "presume" is to take for granted that something is the case. The speaker of Andrew Marvell’s "To His Coy Mistress" presumes that his mistress wants to sleep with him.
This can be a bad thing, if you presume too much, but Prufrock is just looking for any reason not to ask his important question. He doesn’t want to "presume" that he’ll get a favorable response. This is pretty cowardly of him.

Stanza VIII Summary

Get out the microscope, because we’re going through this poem line-by-line.

Lines 55-56

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—

The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,

Here he goes with the body parts again – this time it’s "the eyes." The guy has seen a lot of eyes in his time. (Are we supposed to be impressed?)
He’s trying to cover up his fear but not doing a very good job.
He doesn’t like how eyes seem to "fix" or freeze him, and a "formulated phrase" means a phrase that judges, summarizes, and reduces something complicated to something simple. We don’t know what phrase he has in mind, but it shouldn’t be surprising by now that he’s afraid of judgments of any kind by other people.

Lines 57-61

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?

And how should I presume?

Oh my. Now he’s really starting to lose it. He’s starting to confuse his verb tenses. He just told us that he has "already" known the eyes that would formulate him, but now he talks as if this event hasn’t happened yet. Which is it, Prufrock?
We’re starting to think he hasn’t really "known" anything at all.
He imagines himself "sprawling on a pin" and put, "wriggling," on a wall.
He’s referring to the practice, in his time, where insects that were collected by scientists were "pinned" inside a glass frame and hung on a wall so they could be preserved and inspected. If you go to a really old science museum, you can sometimes see examples of these insect specimens.
So Prufrock is imagining that the eyes are treating him like a scientist treats an object of study. He doesn’t like that so much.
The image of a guy tied down and "wriggling" might also remind you of the very first lines of the poem, when the evening was "spread out" like a patient on the operating table.
Prufrock seems pretty spooked by doctors and scientists – maybe because these people can see things for what they really are.
He thinks that once these scientific eyes have got a hold on him, he’ll have to talk about or rather "spit out" the story of his life ("days and ways").
The "butt-ends" could refer to any kind of end – the little odds and ends of his daily life, the evenings he spent, etc. But it’s also the word people use for the end of a cigarette, the part that doesn’t get smoked. Prufrock is comparing his life to a used-up cigarette.
Oh, and, by the way, he’s still worried about "presuming" too much about the situation. Thanks for the reminder, Mr. P.

Lines 62-64

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!]

Considering how much he dislikes scientific observation of himself, he sure does it a lot to other people. Here he sees women merely as "arms," and he uses the same repetitive phrase about how he has "known them all."
He sounds tired and bored, as if he were saying, "If I have to see one more white arm with a bracelet on it . . .!"
But he seems pretty excited about the arm in line 64. This is probably the arm of the woman he invited on a walk (the "you" of the poem).
If they did go for a walk through half-deserted streets, it would make sense to see her arm under the "lamplight." The soft, "light brown hair" makes this arm different from all the other ones and would seem to contradict his claim to have seen all the arms.

Lines 65-66

It is perfume from a dress

That makes me so digress?

Finally! Just when we were wondering where the heck this poem was going, Prufrock admits that he has been "digressing," or wandering away from the main point.
And what is that main point? We’re not sure anymore: that’s how far he has digressed.
He blames his digression on the scent of a woman’s perfume. For a guy that claims to have known all the women, he’s still fairly preoccupied with all things feminine.

Lines 67-69

Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.

And should I then presume?

And how should I begin?

Lots of arms. Loooots of arms. It reminds us of Dr. Seuss's "Green Eggs and Ham." "Did you see them in a shawl? Did you see them down the hall?"
Oh, and in the off chance that you forgot, he still doesn’t know whether he should "presume" to do something.
He still hasn’t told us what that something is. He doesn’t even know where to "begin" talking about it

Lines 70-72

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets

And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes

Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?…

Here he wonders how to "begin" to talk about that difficult subject. And the difficult subject is…himself! Oh, brother.
This is the story of his "days and ways" from line 60, and it begins "I have gone at dusk through narrow streets."
But, of course, we know that already. He’s basically taking us back to the beginning of the poem. The most interesting new detail he has to offer us is that he saw "lonely men" smoking pipes out of their windows.
Some people bring the party with them wherever they go; Prufrock brings the loneliness with him.

Lines 73-74

I should have been a pair of ragged claws

Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

Here’s another image from way out of left field. It might also be the most accurate self-evaluation that Prufrock offers in the entire poem.
It would have been more fitting, he says, to have been born as a pair of crab claws that "scuttle" across the floor of the ocean.
The crab is the perfect image of Prufrock, because it seems suited to a single over-riding goal: self-protection.

Lines 75-78

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!

Smoothed by long fingers,

Asleep … tired … or it malingers,

Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.

Prufrock continues to confuse the past, present, and future. He winds the clock back to the afternoon and then plays it forward to the evening, which is when we started the poem.
The afternoon and evening are "sleeping," much as the cat-like fog was asleep outside the house in line 22. He’s wondering if he should "wake" the day up somehow, say, by asking (cough, cough) a certain question? But he’s hesitant because the day seems so peacefully asleep, as if it were being "smoothed by long fingers."
This image of the fingers makes us think of petting a cat, but it may remind you of something different. The evening is "asleep" and "tired" – nothing is happening. But it might also be "malingering," or pretending to be tired.
At any rate, it looks pretty comfortable stretched out there on the floor – and, hey, there’s "you" again! We haven’t seen the second person for quite some time. Nice of you to mention us, Prufrock.

Lines 79-80

Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,

Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?

Well, some time must have passed in the poem, because "tea" is over. In line 34, he hadn’t had tea yet, but now he’s digesting all the sweet and tasty things he consumed.
It must be a pretty easy life for Prufrock, what will all the eating and doing nothing.
He’s feeling so lazy, in fact, that’s he’s not sure he has the "strength" to ask the "overwhelming question," which would produce a big decision or a "crisis."

Lines 81-83

But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,

Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,

I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;

Prufrock doesn’t want to be confused with a prophet. (We want to tell him: "Don’t worry, no danger of that!") Even though he weeps, fasts, and prays like a prophet, he isn’t one. Even though, um, he has seen his head on a platter – what’s that about?
In the Bible, the prophet John the Baptist, who baptized Jesus, dies after the stepdaughter of a powerful king asks for his head on a platter.
We’re not sure what Prufrock is trying to say – he may just be feeling sorry for himself.
He doesn’t want us to think he feels sorry for himself, though – he says it’s "no great matter." But if we lost our head, we would probably beg to differ.

Lines 84-86

I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,

And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,

And in short, I was afraid.

He continues to mope around and feel sorry for himself. He already feels as if his best days are behind him, like a candle that flickers and goes out.
In the old days (even older than Eliot’s poem), a "footman" was like a butler who would help rich people do things. One of the things a footman would do is to hold your coat as you got in a carriage or entered a house.
But this footman isn’t so friendly. He’s the eternal Footman – "death" – and if he’s holding your coat, it means you are probably about to enter some place that you won’t come out of again.
Prufrock has another rare moment of honesty when he admits to being afraid. It’s pretty uncommon for him to say anything "in short" like that.

Lines 87-93

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,

To have bitten off the matter with a smile,

To have squeezed the universe into a ball

To roll it toward some overwhelming question,

Time in the poem continues to play tricks on us. Now Prufrock talks as if he has already passed up on his opportunity to do that important thing.
He starts this big long thought about whether "it would have been worth it," which he won’t finish until the end of the stanza, so just keep this thought in mind.
It seems that even more eating and drinking have been going on, as well as "some talk of you and me," which suggests that "we" have been having tea with our dear Prufrock.
He talks about "biting off the matter," as if it were something he could eat, like his precious marmalade (a kind of jam). "The matter," we assume, is the important thing that he meant to discuss so many lines ago.
He compares the effort it would required to take on "some overwhelming question" to squeezing the entire universe into a ball. Sounds pretty hard, but do we believe him?

Lines 94-95

To say: "I am Lazarus, come from the dead,

Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all"–

Prufrock compares his task of asking the question to Lazarus coming back from the dead. Really, now, this is a bit much. It shouldn’t take a resurrection to tell someone how you feel.
But there’s more to the story. In the Bible, a rich man named Dives dies and gets sent to Hell. Around the same time, a poor man named Lazarus dies and gets sent to Heaven. Dives asks the prophet Abraham to please send Lazarus back to earth to warn his brothers to mend their ways or they’ll end up in Hell. Abraham is like, "No way, man. If your brothers didn’t get the message already, what with all the prophets and such who have been running around, one dead guy coming back to life isn’t going to save them."
Now, ahem: (Pointing our finger, Batman-style) to the Epigraph! The epigraph comes from a poem about another guy who, unlike Dives, did make it back from Hell to tell warn people about sin. His name was Dante Alighieri, the poet.
But Prufrock is no Lazarus, nor is he a Dante. He’s more like Dives, the guy who never escapes from his terrible situation.

Lines 96-98

If one, settling a pillow by her head,

Should say: "That is not what I meant at all.

That is not it, at all."

Now he finally completes the sentence, "Would it have been worth it, after all," from the beginning of the stanza. The sentence goes, "Would it have been worth it, after all, if one, settling a pillow by her head, should say: ‘That is not what I meant at all. That is not it, at all.’"
Clearly Prufrock thinks that, no, it would not have been worth it. So, he thinks, it’s a good thing he never tried or risked anything.
Prufrock is imagining his worst-case scenario: he has asked her his big question – though we still don’t know what it is – and she replies that she has been misunderstood.
But why would the woman with the pillow think she has been misunderstood?
Maybe his question is something like, "I’m really into you, and when you did such-and-such thing, it made me think you were into me, too. Do you want to kick it with me?" But that’s just a wild guess.
At any rate, he never asked the question, because he was too afraid of getting rejected. So he’ll never know if that’s what she "meant."

Lines 99-104

And would it have been worth it, after all,

Would it have been worth while,

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!

He’s still thinking in worst-case-scenario mode. He wonders if it would have been worth it if after him and his love have experienced all of these nice but trivial pleasures of everyday, middle-class life, including "sunsets," "novels," and "teacups" – but he can’t finish his thought.
If we had to guess, we might say that he’s afraid that if his big question didn’t go over well, it would throw a wrench in his tidy, polite, inoffensive life. It’s the most bogus excuse in the book, like when you ask someone on a date and they say, "No, I don’t want to ruin our friendship."
But Prufrock is right about one thing: he’s totally incapable of saying what he means.

Lines 105-110

But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:

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."

Ah, now he comes up with the right words to say what he means. It’s as if the words locked in his "nerves" were being projected by a "magic lantern" onto a screen for him to read.
But, in typical Prufrock-fashion, even the right words are disappointing. It’s just another image of a woman sitting on a couch or a bed and saying she has been misunderstood.
Once again, it is implied that he doesn’t think asking her would have been worth the risk of rejection.
But, once again, he’ll never know, will he

Lines 111-119

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,

Politic, cautious, and meticulous;

Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;

At times, indeed, almost ridiculous –

Almost, at times, the Fool.

Aside from Dante, the poet whom Eliot loved most was Shakespeare. So here’s a Shakespeare reference.
In Hamlet, the title character is an indecisive chap, much like Prufrock has been for most of the poem. Hamlet can’t decide whether or not to kill his uncle, even though his uncle has committed some really awful crimes. Like Prufrock, Hamlet can seem like a coward who talks too much. But now Prufrock says he’s not like Hamlet, after all.
And if you like puns, the end of line 111 has a good one. In the play, Hamlet begins his most famous speech: "To be or not to be, that is the question." You might even say it’s an "overwhelming question." But Prufrock has already made a decision on that question: he was not "meant to be."
Prufrock compares himself to a minor character in the play, one of the "attendants" who serve the king. We think he’s talking about Polonius.
In Hamlet, Polonius is the father of Ophelia, the heroine, and everyone respects him because he always takes the cautious route and acts like "an easy tool." Even Shakespeare uses him to "start a scene or two" in the play, then kills him off around the midway point.
Polonius talks a good game – he uses fancy words ("high sentence") and proverbs – but in the end, he’s kind of a dunce. As Prufrock so cautiously puts it, he’s "almost ridiculous" and almost like "the Fool."
With this recognition, Prufrock has finally arrived at a pretty honest assessment of himself. It’s a bit late, however, to do anything about it. It’s never good to just say, "Yeah I’m a tool, but, oh, well."

Lines 120-121

I grow old … I grow old …

I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Ah, yes. We love these lines because they bring some silliness back into the poem. Trousers. Ha!
Though Prufrock has done a pretty good job so far at disguising the passage of time, he can no longer hide the fact that he’s getting older and older. He blew his chance to ask the question, and now he’s like the guy who stays at a party too long, except that the party is his own poem.
Because he already failed to make one big decision, he’s going to pretend he’s an assertive, confident guy by making a bunch of comically minor decisions. Thus, the infamous rolled trousers bit. A true classic.
Hey, at least his pant-legs won’t get wet if he steps in a puddle. Always thinking ahead, that Prufrock.

Lines 122-123

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?

I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.

As one of the annotated guides to Eliot’s poems put it, parting your hair behind was considered "daringly bohemian" at the time.
Prufrock is still trying to make all kinds of tiny decisions, now that he has missed his big chance. As always, he’s interested in the small pleasures of food and fashion, like the peach and the white flannel trousers.
He’s also going to check out the ocean – maybe he’ll talk about how he wants to be a crab again.

Line 124

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

OK, so no crabs. Instead, he sees some mermaids.
Wait, that’s actually pretty exciting. But this is Prufrock, who can’t keep track of what time it is, so he says he has "heard" the mermaids singing to each other, as if this event were already in the past.

Line 125

I do not think that they will sing to me.

Even the mermaids won’t sing to him. Where’s your self-confidence, man!

Lines 126-128

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.

Of all the things Prufrock claims to have seen, the mermaids are definitely the coolest.
But do we believe him? He has tricked us before.
These mermaids look like they’re surfing on the waves with their tails. The only troubling sign is that the waves have "white hair," which makes us think of old people.

Lines 129-131

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea

By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown

Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

This is kind of an "it was all a dream" ending, but even weirder.
Prufrock brings "us" back into the picture, saying that we have been hanging out in the ocean with him.
The word "chambers" has two meaning here: it can refer to small cramped spaces, or it can refer to rooms, especially bedrooms.
Remember that Prufrock has spent significant amounts of time lurking outside of rooms and imagining women who are wrapped in shawls and laying on pillows. We don’t know who the "sea-girls" are, but they don’t seem quite as majestic as the mermaids.
The "human voices" may remind us of the "voices with a dying fall" from line 52.
Oh, and by the way, we’re dead. We drowned with Prufrock. No!
Seriously, though, we can’t help you much with this ending. It could signal that Prufrock has truly grown insane, or that his "true self" is really more crab-like that human, or that, yes, he has been dreaming the whole time. (We don’t really buy the dream story, but if that’s your thing, go for it.)
One thing is clear: Prufrock’s story does not turn out well. It does not turn out well, at all.

Sinister Streets

Symbol Analysis

The poem begins with Prufrock inviting us to take a walk with him, but we soon learn that this isn’t some romantic tree-line avenue by the river. Quite the opposite, it seems to be the seediest part of town. True to Prufrock’s circular and evasive style, the poem returns several times to the imagery of these gritty streets, with contrast with the prim and proper middle-class life he seems to lead. Just like our narrator, the streets are misleading and go nowhere.

Lines 4-7: Parts of the scene are depicted using personification. It’s not the "retreats" that are "muttering," but it seems that way because they are the kinds of places where you would run into muttering people. Also, the nights aren’t actually "restless"; they make people restless.
Lines 8-10: In this simile, the winding, twisting streets are compared to a "tedious argument" that makes people lost with confusion. An "argument" is a line of reasoning – lawyers make arguments, for example. Usually arguments are supposed to answer questions, but this one only leads to "an overwhelming question."
Lines 13-22: An extended metaphor comparing the streets to a cat runs through this entire stanza. Prufrock never actually uses the word "cat," but it’s clear from words like "muzzled," "back," "tongue," "leap," and "curled" that he is talking about a sly little kitty.
Line 64: The lamplight from the same streets reveals the hair on the woman’s arm.
Lines 70-72: Prufrock returns to the setting of the beginning of the poem to give the imagery of a man leaning out of a window and smoking a pipe.

Eating and Drinking

Symbol Analysis

Have you ever seen one of those PBS shows or period films where British people sit around and sip tea and eat finger foods? "Prufrock" offers a parody of this easy-going tradition, as Prufrock thinks constantly about what he has just eaten, what’s he’s about to eat, or what he may or may not eat in the future. Especially tea. He’s a total caffeine junky, which may explain why he seems to talk so much. It’s one of those small daily pleasures he just can’t live without.

Line 7: Most of the food and drinks in this poem sound nice, but not the oysters at this low-class restaurant. There’s even sawdust on the floor to soak up all the spilled drinks.
Line 34: Prufrock has big plans to accomplish before "toast and tea" in the afternoon.
Line 51: In this famous metaphor, Prufrock says that the spoons he uses to measure his coffee are like a "measure" of his life, as well. Here the spoon is a synecdoche that actually refers to the whole process of sitting around in the afternoon and sipping on a nice, hot, caffeinated drink. Essentially, he lives from one cup of coffee or tea to the next.
Line 81: It’s very ironic for Prufrock to claim he has fasted, considering that we know how much toast and marmalade he likes to eat. What nerve!
Lines 89-90: The cups, marmalade, tea, and porcelain all refer, once again, to Prufrock’s favorite pastime. Did somebody say "tea time!"
Line 91: It seems that Prufrock has trouble thinking of anything except eating. Here he discusses "the matter" of his big question using the metaphor of taking a bite.
Line 122: Before Prufrock was wondering whether he "dared" to ask his question. Now that the opportunity has slipped by him, he has other important things to worry about: such as whether to eat a peach. (Just eat the darned thing, man).

Body Parts

Symbol Analysis

Prufrock is very concerned about his reputation, and he doesn’t want to stick out in a crowd. He’d rather people not notice him at all, which is why he seems uncomfortable with doctors and scientists, whose jobs involve examining and taking things about. But he’s also like a scientist himself in the way that he "cuts people up" (yikes) in his mind, reducing people, and especially women, to a collection of body parts. He loves to use the "synecdoche," which takes one part of an object and uses it to represent the whole. He talks about "faces," "eyes," and "arms," but never full human beings.

Lines 2-3: Although it doesn’t directly deal with body parts, the simile comparing the evening to a patient who has been put under anesthesia ("etherised") on a surgery table prepares us for all the metaphorical "surgery" and "dissecting" that Prufrock does when he sees people only as body parts.
Lines 27-29: The "faces" are a synecdoche; you don’t go out just to meet a face, you go out to meet the entire person.
Lines 40-44: Prufrock’s "bald spot" is a repeated symbol of his middle age, just as his nice clothes are a symbol of his relatively high social class. Unfortunately, the clothes are only good feature (that we know of). Indeed, he also has thin arms and legs. Which is surprising, because the guy eats all the time.
Lines 55-58: Again, the eyes are a synecdoche – they are a part of a person used to stand for the whole person. After all, eyes can’t "formulate," only a thinking person can do that. He uses the metaphor of a scientist examining an insect specimen to describe the way he feels under the gaze of those critical "eyes."
Lines 62-67: Sigh, here we go again. The arms are a part that stands for a whole – in this case, a whole woman. Synecdoche!
Line 82: Prufrock gets decapitated! The poem just turned into a Quentin Tarantino movie. Actually, we’re not sure what he means here, except that he is making a metaphorical allusion to John the Baptist from the Bible, whose decapitation is regarded as an example of Christian sacrifice. Prufrock is comparing his own sacrifice to John’s.

The Ocean

Symbol Analysis

Prufrock suggests that he might be better suited to living in the deep, cold, lonely ocean than in the society of other people. We think he’s on to something. But when he ends up in the ocean through some crazy, dream-like turn events at the end of the poem, he doesn’t do very well. In fact, he drowns.

Lines 73-74: The "claws" are synecdoche. They stand for a crab, which is the animal you’d most likely think of as "scuttling" on the ocean floor. Prufrock is calling himself crab-like.
Line 123-131: The poems ends with some amazing ocean imagery, including the singing mermaids and the sea-girls wearing seaweed. In one of the poem’s most creative metaphors, the white-capped waves are compared to "white hair."

Rooms

Symbol Analysis

Prufrock spends most of the poem cooped up in rooms, eating, drinking, and overhearing other people’s conversations. He also fantasizes a lot about entering rooms – perhaps bedrooms – where the woman he loves can be found. Always the pessimist, he images a woman leaning on a pillow who rejects him. At the end of the poem, he just might have found the perfect room for him: at the bottom of the ocean.

Lines 13-14, 35-36: These lines are one of the most famous refrains in a poem with many of ‘em. These verses are repeated in exactly the same form twice in the poem.
Lines 38-39: We know that Prufrock is inside of a house – and probably standing outside a room – when he tries to decide whether to go in. He chickens out, though, and he’s back downstairs.
Lines 52-54: The "dying fall" of voices from another room is an allusion to Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. Count Orsino, one of the lovers in that play, refers to the "dying fall" of music that reminds him of his love. Therefore, it is ironic, when the voices Prufrock hears are covered up by "music from a farther room."
Lines 75-79: The afternoon/evening is personified as a person who is sleeping alongside Prufrock and his fictional listener in a room after "tea and cakes and ices."
Lines 107-110: The woman in Prufrock’s imagined worst-case scenario must be in a room of some kind, probably a bedroom or some other comfortable place. She lays on a pillow and turns to the window.
Line 129: "Chambers" is a word that can refer to any small space – like the "chambers" of the heart muscle – or it can refer specifically to a bedroom.

Hamlet

Symbol Analysis

Prufrock spends much of the poem acting like the notoriously indecisive Hamlet. But, in the end, he decides that even indecision is too decisive for him. No, he’s more like an assistant to a lord – a guy who does nothing but follow orders and generally acts like a tool.

Lines 111-119: In this important metaphor, Prufrock likens himself to Prince Hamlet, the title character from Shakespeare’s most famous play. But then he decides he’s actually more of an "attendant lord" who could be confused for a fool, which we think is an allusion to Polonius, the father of the character Ophelia in the same play.

Dramatic Monologue

A dialogue is a conversation between two people, but a monologue is just one person talking. ("Mono" means "one). But "Prufrock" is a "dramatic" monologue because the person talking is a fictional creation, and his intended audience is fictional as well. He is talking to the woman he loves, about whom we know very little except for the stray detail about shawls and hairy arms.

A good dramatic monologue gradually reveals more and more about the person speaking, without them intending to reveal so much. At the beginning Prufrock is just a slightly creepy guy who wants to take a walk. As the poem goes on, we learn about his personal appearance, his love of food and fashion, and his desire to be a pair of crab claws. The impression we get about him is exactly the opposite of the one he wants to give. He wants us to think that he’s a decision-maker, a "decider," if you will, who dresses well and seizes opportunities when they come. But he’s just a big fraud. He never decides anything, and when he misses his big opportunity, he tries to pretend it’s no biggie.

So, the overarching form is the dramatic monologue, but if you look closer at the poem, you’ll find that Eliot is experimenting with all kinds of forms and meters. For example, there are a lot of rhyming couplets, like the first two lines, and the famous verse about the women and Michelangelo.

We think that Eliot is making fun of Prufrock by using this old-fashioned form. The rhyming couplets are sometimes called "heroic" couplets, but our title character is anything but heroic. The rhymes also have a singsong quality that makes them seem childish. He rhymes "is it" with "visit"? Come on. But this is Prufrock’s song, and Eliot is just pulling the strings to make him look bad – quite masterfully, we might add.

Other lines don’t rhyme and sound more like free verse, which has no regular meter. Occasionally we’ll get a couple of lines of blank verse, which have no rhyme but a regular meter, usually iambic pentameter, where an unstressed syllable is followed by an accent. This is the meter that Shakespeare used most often, and Eliot was a huge fan of Shakespeare. Thus, "I SHOULD have BEEN a PAIR of RAG-ged CLAWS."

Shakespeare also used rhyming couplets in iambic pentameter, and, lo and behold, this it the form we get in lines 111-119, which discuss Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Using Shakespeare’s verse to talk about Shakespeare? T.S., you clever man.

Prufrock

There are at least three sides to our speaker, Prufrock. On one side we have the sneaky trickster, who invites us on a romantic walk only to lead us down windy roads and point out that the evening looks like a patient about to undergo surgery. He keeps stalling and leading us away from the main subject (his "overwhelming question"), as if he had something to hide. And he constantly confuses the time of day and even the past versus the future, like a casino manager who removes all the clocks from the building so customers won’t realize they have someplace else to be.

On the other side we have Prufrock the Fool, whose desperate attempts to make us think he’s a cool, confident ladies’ man is comically transparent. Really, who is this guy think he’s kidding?

Finally, we have the sad, honest man who realizes the jig is up and can’t even convince himself of his own stories. This Prufrock, who only lets his mask drop for a few lines at a time, is the one who admits that he should have been "a pair of ragged claws" and that he has seen "the moment of [his] greatness flicker" (lines 72, 84). Like a juggler, the poem keeps a delicate balance between these three personalities, so that one never gets an upper hand other the others.

Our speaker is an average middle-class man. In fact, we think that if you put a bunch of Prufrocks together in a room, you would have "The Man," that mysterious killjoy who secretly controls the world. He doesn’t want to rock the boat, and he is most concerned with keeping the status quo, which means nice clothes, fine tea, and utter boredom all the time. He wields power in society but has no power of his domestic life. He kind of suspects that he’s a "ridiculous" and a "Fool" but could never fully admit it to himself (lines 118-119). This is a poem where we get to put "The Man" under the microscope and watch him squirm.

There’s one part of the poem, however, that isn’t in the voice of Prufrock. This is the Epigraph. We think the Epigraph is Eliot’s little joke on Prufrock, and a warning to those who have read Dante (or who care to look up the reference) that we shouldn’t trust everything we hear.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock Setting

Where It All Goes Down

We start this journey in a dark, smelly neighborhood of London. It’s October. Steam is rising from the streets, and a sick yellow fog circulates around the crooked houses. Drunks are stumbling out of the "sawdust restaurants" and sloppy-looking couples argue outside of "cheap hotels." A woman with bright clothes and too much makeup is leering at you from her doorway. And all the while Prufrock is there besides you, gesturing for you to follow him further down this rabbit-hole of squalor and darkness . . . Pretty soon you’re both lost, which was just what he intended.

Part of the poem takes place in this obviously hellish part of the big metropolis. But the poem’s other setting is just as bad, though it looks nicer on the surface. This is the London of the tired and bored middle-class, sitting in their cramped rooms drinking tea and coffee all day. All anyone seems to do is lie around and grow older. In other parts of the house, people are talking and laughing and music is playing, but we’re not allowed to go in there…Prufrock offers you yet another cup of coffee, and you don’t even know what time of day it is. If you eat one more "cake" you think you’ll explode. Prufrock is getting older before your eyes – his hair turns white and his arms get even thinner.

Out of nowhere, he takes us to the beach. (Finally! Our skin was getting pasty from all that staying indoors.) Look, mermaids! This is the nicest thing we have seen all day. But suddenly things get all disoriented and the world turns upside down. We’re at the bottom of the sea, surrounded by girls wrapped in seaweed. We hear voices, wake up, and…uh-oh.

Sound Check

Read this poem aloud. What do you hear?

Eliot was kind enough to provide us with the perfect metaphor for the sound of this poem. It’s the cat-like fog that pads around the city in endless circles (lines 13-22). Eliot’s verses are very cat-like, and they keep circling around Prufrock without ever letting us see him head-on. Sometimes the verses rub their "muzzle" or "back" against the real Prufrock, but we only see him faintly, as through a fog.

Like a Siamese cat, Eliot is an exceptionally athletic and agile poet. He can go from rhymed to unrhymed verses without you even knowing it. With feline slyness, the poem slips in and out of blank verse, and it also makes "sudden leaps," like when it suddenly transitions from Prufrock to the women talking of Michelangelo and back again.

The circling pattern is both obvious and maddening. The poem repeats the same refrains over and over and, like "how should I presume?" and "there will be time." You could find yourself dizzy from all this circling. Sometimes we think we’re getting close to the center of the circle, like when Prufrock wonders, "Do I dare?" But then the poem just leads us back out again, and the motion continues.

The poem’s simple rhymes, like a nursery song, create a foggy confusion that distracts us from the sinister or "insidious" intent of the speaker (line 9). Watch how all these tricks come together in the following verses: "In a minute there is time / For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse" (lines 47-48). The first line leads us to an expectation – time for what!? – which the second line "reverses." The ridiculously obvious internal rhyme of "decisions" and "revisions" blinds us to the fact that the poem has not told us what has been decided and what has been revised. Every time you try to get your hands on this quick little cat, it slips away from you. This is a poem where you should keep your eyes open to what’s really going on – otherwise, you could get lost in the fog.

What’s Up With the Title?

The original title of this poem wasn’t "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." It was – ready for this? – "Prufrock Among the Women." We’re glad Eliot changed his mind about this original title, which sounds like a terrible 1950’s musical. But it does tell us that Eliot thinks Prufrock’s relation to the fairer sex is at the center of this poem. "Love Song" makes a similar point, but not as directly.

The title is actually the only place where Prufrock’s name is mentioned – in the poem he talks about himself in the first person. Eliot is clearly poking fun of himself with this title – as a young man he signed his name "T. Stearns Eliot," but that doesn’t mean the poem is biographical. For one thing, we’re pretty sure Eliot didn’t drown in the ocean. The other thing to know about the title is that it’s completely ironic in light of the poem, which is not so much a "love song" as the depressed ramblings of a lonely and cowardly man. If you have ever seen The Daily Show or one of the other "fake news" programs, then you know the kind of irony that’s at work here. The title of the poem is only pretending to be serious, while the poem itself is more like a "fake love song."

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock Theme of Love

It’s hard to tell whether Prufrock is really in love with the person he is talking to. He speaks about himself a lot, and he ignores her, or "us," for most of the poem. Maybe he’s too shy to speak his mind, although "cowardly" seems more accurate. There are a couple of points where he almost overcomes his massive fear of rejection, especially when he is standing on top of the stairs and wondering, "Do I dare?" (line 38). But he’s so vain and so taken up with trivial pleasure like coffee and peaches that it’s hard to believe that the feeling he has is really "love." It might just be lust or just a strong attraction. Whatever it is, the feeling never goes anywhere, and Prufrock is left to drown with his would-be beloved in the deep, deep ocean.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock Theme of Manipulation

The poem’s epigraph is a quotation of Guido da Montefeltro, a particularly manipulative chap who finds a place near the bottom of Dante’s Hell in Inferno. Right away, this epigraph sets off alarm bells that we should be suspicious of everything that shy old Mr. Prufrock says. First he’s trying to lead us down dark, winding streets, then he’s trying to convince us of how decisive he is. Prufrock is one of the most deceptive narrators you’ll ever encounter.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock Theme of Passivity

Oh, Prufrock, why didn’t you just go into your lover’s "chamber" and ask her your darned "overwhelming question" when you had the chance?! Prufrock is the dramatic equivalent of a bump on a log. He never does anything. In this poem, no one does. Actions are discussed as either future possibilities or as thing already done and past. And not for a second do we believe that Prufrock has "known" all the things he claims to have known. The only thing this guy is good at is eating and wearing nice clothes.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock Theme of Time

In relation to time, this poem is a total trip. It ricochets back and forth between the past and the future, almost never settling on the present. One moment Prufrock is talking about all the things he’s going to do before having tea; the next moment he has had tea and still doesn’t have the energy to do anything. But somehow, by the end of the poem, Prufrock’s big chance has passed him by, and he becomes a sad, old man in flannel pants.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock Theme of Appearances

There seem to be no complete human beings in this poem. There are only bits and pieces of people: an arm here, some eyes there, maybe a couple of voices in the next room. The person whose appearance we know most about is Prufrock, and we kind of wish we hadn't learned about his bald spot or his bony arms and legs. The lack of bodies is one of the signs that might make us think the poem is set in Hell.

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Thursday, April 25, 2013

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock summary and analysis and themes

“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”

Summary

Form

Commentary

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock Summary

Epigraph Summary

Lines 1-3

Lines 4-7

Lines 8-12

Lines 13-14

Lines 15-22

Lines 23-25

Lines 26-34

Lines 35-36

Lines 37-39

Lines 40-44

Lines 45-48

Lines 49-54

Stanza VIII Summary

Lines 55-56

Lines 57-61

Lines 62-64

Lines 65-66

Lines 67-69

Lines 70-72

Lines 73-74

Lines 75-78

Lines 79-80

Lines 81-83

Lines 84-86

Lines 87-93

Lines 94-95

Lines 96-98

Lines 99-104

Lines 105-110

Lines 111-119

Lines 120-121

Lines 122-123

Line 124

Line 125

Lines 126-128

Lines 129-131

Dramatic Monologue

Prufrock

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