T.S. Eliot - The Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock - Poetry Supplement - Episode2 - a podcast by Christy and Garry Shriver

T.S. Eliot - The Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock - Poetry Supplement - Episode 2

Hi, This is Christy Shriver, and we’re here to discuss books that have changed the world and have changed us. 

 

I’m Garry Shriver, and this is the How to Love Lit Podcast.  This is week two in our discussion of the trans-Atlantic icon, Thomas Stearns Eliot or as he’s widely referred to, TS Eliot.  As we mentioned last week, TS Eliot was the recipient of the 1948 Nobel Prize in Literature.  When the Swedish Academy presented him this award, Gustaf Helstrom compared Eliot’s contribution to those of Sigmund Freud.  Eliot understood and expressed so much of the heart of humanity during those years.   

 

He also spoke and commented on man’s hope for the future, which is something you don’t really think about especially when you think about how dark a lot of his poetry is.   

 

For Eliot, hope for the future was often found in the study of the past, and as a history and psychology teacher, this is something that resonates strongly with me.  He believed that by looking backwards we could make a better future.  I want to read just the final couple of sentences of Helstrom’ introduction during the ceremony where he received his Nobel Prize.  “For you the salvation of man lies in the preservation of the cultural tradition, which, in our more mature years, lives with greater vigor within us than does primitiveness, and which we must preserve if chaos is to be avoided. Tradition is not a dead load which we drag along with us, and which in our youthful desire for freedom we seek to throw off. It is the soil in which the seeds of coming harvests are to be sown, and from which future harvests will be garnered. As a poet you have, Mr. Eliot, for decades, exercised a greater influence on your contemporaries and younger fellow writers than perhaps anyone else of our time.” 

 

Of course that resonates with me as well.  There has been so much criticism about studying the writings of the past and many see little value to the thoughts, stories and experiences of those who lived on this planet before us.  But I strongly disagree, and  I love listening to Eliot and Helstrom.  

 

Ha!  Well, you know what I call that? 

 

Of course, I do, you call it, “the arrogance of the presence” 

 

Well, I’m pretty sure I didn’t coin that phrase, but yes- I believe that’s exactly what it is- and creating that continuity between the past and the present seems to be the impetus, at least in part, for all the classical and historical allusions in Eliot’s writing. 

 

Well, there is no doubt about that.  For sure.  However, I wanted to go back to the psychology side of it for a minute.  When we talking Gatsby, we mentioned we’d get into a little neuroscience about what makes us enjoy all these weird metaphors and ironies.  We mentioned that Eliot would be an interesting place to talk about that because for one thing- his writing is so obviously psychological and weird- two things we don’t associate with beauty necessarily.  Today, our goal is to look at the words, the metaphors, the ironies of this poem.  I promise, it will be interesting although I’m not sure I’ve made it sound so quite yet, so let’s start our discussion thinking about our brains. 

 

For sure,  of course the unanswerable question is the mysterious connection behind the brain and art.  Art and beauty are so important to being human.  There is no doubt it’s essential for happiness.  The research behind this connection beyond that however,  is complex and there is not total agreement on what all of it means.  Of course we know art raises serotonine levels- and that’s where happiness comes from- if we’re talking biochemistry-  

 

 can tell you definitely from a scientific standpoint what makes any one particular thing beautiful, why do we call certain things beautiful, and why it even matter?  Of course, we all know it does, even children feel this. 

 

 We know that it absolutely DOES matter; there is no debate that we must have beauty in our world.  But let’s look specifically at the beauty of words.  That matters too, but a lot of times, we really don’t think of it  as much as we think visual art or music.  We know that neurons get excited when two arbitrary ideas are connected- like in the case of puns or metaphors.  Think of it like we get a hit of brain-happiness.  So, when we read poems like Prufrock, even though the images may not be what we traditionally consider beautiful, like sunsets or roses or things like that, because there is so much that is unexpected and unique, our brain is activated in different ways and we find pleasure in these connections. 

 

Let me give you an example that is not from this poem, but most people would understand.  Let’s go back to visual art. Have you ever wondered why the Mona Lisa is so famous?  Is it because this woman is just that gorgeous?  This has always confused people.  One scientist, Dr. Maragaret Livingstone, suggests the delight, at least in part is because depending on the angle, Mona Lisa’s expression is different, and we get pleasure from these unexpected changes- they’re unexpected.  Our brain activity is affected- and we get a happiness hit.  

 

So, when Eliot or Fitzgerald or anyone puts two expressions together that take us by surprise- we are affected neurologically?   

 

Researchers definitely think that’s a part of it..  When we listen to the words in some of those more poetic parts of Gatsby, we can feel sensations of brain activity that scientists would connect to sensations of pleasure.  We can say it more than once and feel it again.  At the end of the day, there is pleasure in making connections- that is the human experience.  It makes us feel our humanity.  If you’re far away from home and you find someone from your same hometown- you make a connection- even if it’s no more than, funny, we went to the same high school,  bam- there’s a sensation of pleasure.  We’ve made a human connection. 

 

Having that idea in mind, when you read a poem like TS Eliot, and if you take the time to try to understand or make sense of all the connections, neuroscientists would tell you that the intellectual pursuit towards understanding the patterns in the words, solving the problems in the poem, or seeing the images provoke neural stimulation that is actually positive- especially if you have a natural affinity for word games- and that is true even if the poem itself is dark.    

 

 Which of course it really is.  It is strange when you think of a poem like Prufrock that can be so frustrating;  you have to wonder, why do people like reading it over and over again?  Why do we like reading any poem over and over again?   

 

Exactly- Why do we like to read some books or watch some movies over again.  There are many, and I’d say the majority even if we enjoyed them the first time, do not entice us to re-read or re-watch at all?  The answer, from the neuroscience perspective is because things like poems such as Prufrock prevent easy absorption- you will understand one part of the text, but the next reading, you may find something else in a different place. So, it’s a piece of art that re-stimulates your brain differently and that will keep you coming back.  Did that make sense or was that just confusing? 

 

No, it makes sense- humanities people use words like the connection between body and spirit- science speak might be biology and psychology and our spirit- And it’s easy for me to accept how all these human elements work together in a mysterious way.  I will also say, as a teacher who interacts with hundreds of people every single day, I get a lot of pleasure from all kinds of unexpected connections.  Truth be told, that may be one of my favorite things.  I don’t know.  I’d have to reflect. 

 

So, after all that intro- Let’s see these connections and stimulate some brain waves.  Read stanza one, and I’ll give you some thoughts on it. .  

 

Let us go then, you and I, 

When the evening is spread out against the sky 

Like a patient etherized upon a table; 

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: 

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. 

 

So, the first thing you may ask yourself is who is he talking to?  The poem. is in the second person- who’s YOU? This is never explained.  Eliot never names a second person.   Is the reader being talked to- am I supposed to be the second person, like a letter or a traditional dramatic monologue? Is there an imaginary person that’s this second person; is he talking to himself?  The first rule in reading modern poetry is that modern poets are like powerful women- they never explain themselves.   

 

Well, there you go-I can almost hear that coming out of Maggie Smith’s mouth in her role as the Dowager in Downton Abbey.  

 

I know- that’s who I was channeling, to be honest.  But in the case o Modern poets, they deliberately leave these ambiguities in the text for a reason, and the purpose is not to confuse the reader, although that may be how it feels.  What they want you to do, as a reader, is meet them halfway in building meaning- you, as a reader, are to make the work of art more about you as an individual- a personal connection, so to speak.  So, in this case- Who IS the YOU?- And, I’d have to ask, who do you want it to be?  What will help you make the most meaning out of the words.  What helps you make the most sense of the images?   

 

That sounds like you’re making the reading exhausting. 

 

Well, there is that risk, so, I’m going to defy the modernists and just give you my opinion or how I interpret this- just to maybe make it easier- but let me just say- I’m not right.  I’m not wrong, but I’m also not right.  This is just ONE way of seeing things.  In fact, I may give you a couple of theories and let you go from there.   

 

That has always frustrated me about English teachers.  There is never a right or wrong answer. 

 

Not true, there definitely can be a wrong answer- a wrong answer is one that cannot be supported from the text.  So, it would be wrong to say, that he’s talking about Martians and space aliens here- but then again, maybe- that’s not true either and  you could have a space reading of this poem, I’ve never tried.   

 

But here’s one way of looking at it- When I look at those lines that you just read- here are my first thoughts- the words are initially decisive- come- you-and I- let us go? Like me saying, come, Garry, let’s go get dessert.  Let’s go to the park.   It’s a nice invitation-  I see it as a guy talking in his own mine- role-playing how he wished he would talk to people in the real world- how he would like to engage other people- but there isn’t anyone there yet, so he’s just saying it to himself- practicing and getting up his nerve to do something he wants to do for real.  However, this spirit of bravery collides immediately with the first image.  Now remember- an image is something you can see or experience in your mind- we can see a sky- we can also feel or at least remember how it feels to be etherized- he puts these to images together-to mix the messages. 

 

The evening is spread out against the sky like a patient etherized upon a table.   

 

How do those two things even go together?  Obviously they don’t- 

 

 If you are etherized- that means you’re under the influence of ether-today we don’t use ether for this- but during WW1, they used it to numb people for medicinal purposes. 

 

Does it knock people out, make them unconscious? 

 

Well, just smelling it won’t make you lose consciousness, but it was used as an anesthetic until safer methods were invented.  

 

And so here’s how this all works- this poem is about how it feels to be a modern man- or modern person- to use more politically correct terminology.  Think of J Alfred as gender- generic- it applies beyond gender-This guy is alone.  so I look at it like he’s talking to himself.  He walks out in the sky- it should be a romantic scene- he wants it to be we will see later- we’re going to see that he’s going to a party with a lot of women (at least maybe he is), but in this stanza, the sky doesn’t invigorate him, it doesn’t give him peace or a sense of fresh air- he feels nothing- it’s a sensation of numbness- like being a patient who has been given strong numbing medication.  And as we keep reading, he takes us- or as I interpret it- the other side of himself- the YOU- he’s talking to- into the streets and look what he sees.  These are not romantic images.  These are sleezy images.  One-night cheap hotels, sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells.  There is nothing here that connotes human connections, intimacy, fellowship. Nothing here that makes you feel happy. 

 

Eliot creates a simile but he also personifies the streets- the streets are compared to a tedious argument- tiresome, boring, pointless- he says the intent of the streets is insidious- the definition of insidious means gradual, subtle, but with harmful effects.   

 

The streets are not our friends.   

 

No, they don’t seem to be.  They pretend to be, but they are insidious- deceitful with harmful effects. And all of this brings us to this next like where he asks what he calls “an overwhelming question”- but he won’t tell us what the question is.  Is it because he doesn’t know the question?  Is it because there is not question?  There is a feeling of pointlessness in this entire stanza- and remember, for modern poetry,  the feeling is the thing.   

 

Well, I cannot say that I don’t understand this emotion that he’s expressing.  I think every young person does at one point in their life or another.  We all think whatever the streets represent is glamorous at some point- but then we get knocked back by reality…hopefully sooner rather than later. 

 

Well, that’s true, and especially for modern people.  People who live in urban environments.  People who live in communities without big family or historical connections- and there is nothing in this poem to suggest that that is Prufrock’s case- look at what I’m doing- I’m putting my own meaning in this poem.  I did grow up in a city of 3 million people.  My window as a child faced to the streets with people walking and laughing looking like the night life was where happiness lived.  I grew up in a city with no historical connections and so forth- so I’m meeting  Eliot in this poem and creating the images in my mind not of seedy Boston, but Belo Horizonte (although my neighborhood wasn’t seedy).  It was modern.  Does that make sense at all? 

 

Sure it does.   

 

.  Now that I gave one spin on this first stanza- and I promise I won’t do this the entire way through- we’d never finish this episode- but I want to express a framework for how to enjoy a poem like this.  Here’s a second way reading this same stanza, and this may be the majority view.  Lots of people think  he’s talking to a woman- the woman he wants to ask out.  It is a love song, that’s in the title, so, it stands to reason if you look at it that way, that he’s talking to a woman- the woman he’s going to meet.  The overwhelming question in this case would be a proclamation of a love interest of some sorts.  Read the next several stanzas.  

 

In the room the women come and go 

Talking of Michelangelo. 

 

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. 

 

And indeed there will be time 

For the yellow smoke that slides along the street, 

Rubbing its back upon the window-panes; 

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. 

 

In the room the women come and go 

Talking of Michelangelo. 

 

This business of Michelangelo is funny.  Why do they have to be talking of Michelangelo?   

 

I know- Eliot does a lot with figurative language in this poem- meaning he isn’t always being literal about everything.  This will sound technical, but not boring, I hope.   As we all know- even today, authors use similes and metaphors to help us understsnd their ideas- that take something we don’t understand, compare it to something we do understand and bam- they make sense- oh my love is a red red rose- you don’t know what your love is like, but you do know what a rose is and a red red rose must be a very very deep and beautiful one so there- the metaphor makes me love you 

 

Or at least Robert Burns.  Didn’t he say that? 

 

True, although I think that line has gotten some use over the year.  Elliot’s uses metaphors and similes but really for as much imagining as we have here- not all that much.  There really are only three similes in this entire poem of over 100 lines which is strange.  He uses what we call metonymy and synecdoche-  

 

Synec-do-what?  Isn’t there a sad movie with Phillip Seymor Hoffman called that. 

 

Yes- and ironically not too different from Prufrock- it’s Big word- But it means when some part of something is used to represent something bigger than just the one thing.  So, here’s what’s going on- he says the women are talking of Michelangelo- what we are to understand is that the women may or may not literally be talking about Michelangelo.  Michelangelo is a thing that is standing in to represent the kinds of things women like this talk about.  These women are cultured= or at least they pretend to be- they talk about sophisticated things like classical art- likely dull things- I’m not saying that Michelangelo is necessarily dull- but for some people, maybe like a guy like Prufrock it could be- it’s tedious pretentiousness- talking about things you’re supposed to be interested in- things you can snub others about- but not really enjoyable- “The Galleria d’ accademia is such a small museum for such an impressive piece of art like Michelangelo’s David.” Don’t you agree?  But I will say the sunlight there highlight  the craftmanship so characteristic of the high renaissance.  To which someone replies- “oh most definitely”..and there’s a wonderful tea shop just across the street with a marvelous pastry chef name Leonardo, who makes the best biscotti.  

 

Hahahaha- it sounds like you’ve been talking of Michelangelo, yourself.  Is that true about Leonardo. 

 

Ha!  Well, it is- but it’s just a bakery I found on Google.  I’m just pretending to have eaten the biscotti- I read that in a Google Review.  But the idea is the  snobbery.  Metonymy is when you use a thing to represent a bunch of things that are associated with a thing- and that’s what Michelangelo is standing in for here.  Synecdoche and metonymy are so close to the same things- don’t bother trying to separate them- it’s something representing a larger group. 

 

So, is the yellow fog metonymy too? 

 

The yellow fog is the most confusing part of the whole poem.  Again, you’re supposed to interpret it for yourself- but here’s one idea.  We have this guy, he’s getting his courage to go into a party of sophisticated women and he expects to be snubbed.  This is kind of how he sees himself- like a cat- but a fog cat it’s- licking its tongue, suddenly leaping- rubbing its muzzle- a tom cat could be suave and debonair, but this one is kind of foggy- and definitely unattractive. 

 

This is really stream of consciousness- psychological- this guy thinking of himself like a tom cat, like a fog, slying going into a party-  on a soft October night, curling up in a corner and falling asleep-  this is the most positive point in the entire poem. 

 

Exactly- and it really is- even though it feels disconnected and scattered- but is actually highly structured and organized.  Prufrock is definitely not a sly tom cat getting ready to pounce in real life.  And when he thinks about it for half a second more he knows it.   He starting talking about time- which is really an allusion to the Bible passage in Ecclesiastes as well as Andrew Marvelll’s poem To His Coy Mistress.  Marvel’s poem is one of the most famous seize the day poems ever written in English.   In Marvell’s poem, a suave sexy man seduces a woman by telling her they need to seize the day because she might die.  In Marvel’s poem, he basically says, if we had all the time in the world, I wouldn’t mind playing this coy game of you pretending to be prudish, but we don’t have all the time in the world and you aren’t, you’re going to die, worms are going to take your virginity- you’ll be ugly so if you want to maximize what you have we need to consummate this thing right now. 

 

Ha! Well, if you know that poem, this part is extremely ironic.  Prufrock isn’t bold or brave like Marvel.  Instead of overpowering the women, He makes excuses for himself- he says the exact opposite- there’s plenty of time, life is long, I can put off making my move.   

 

And the line that people have really enjoyed is that last phrase, “Time for you and time for me and time yet for a hundred indecisions, and for a hundred visions and revisions, before the taking of a toast and tea.  

 

There is a sense that he’s putting things off, but there is another sense where he sees his life as an indistinguishable endless charade of toast and tea and pointlessness.  No end in sight to the mad dreariness of his existence.  Prufrock as we’re going to see as we keep reading is going no where.  He’s going no where in life- and I think you could think that he’s physically going no where-  

 

like he may not even really be at the party-- even though at the beginning of the poem he definitely says, let us go, 

 

I think so.  It’s ambiguous.  Maybe he’s no where- this encounter is in his mind, and that’s why he’s in hell.  Hell is a place you never get out of.   

 

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 — 

(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 

Disturb the universe? 

In a minute there is time 

For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. 

 

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? 

 

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

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? 

               And how should I presume? 

 

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!) 

Is it perfume from a dress 

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? 

 

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? 

 

There are no less than 15 questions in this poem.  The most important ones seem to be centered here with “can I ask a woman out for a date?  Which some how gets connected to “What is the meaning of life?”  Prufrock is a poem about being lonely, isolated, unable to make human connections.  Unable to get out of my head, my physical location- the hell I’ve created for myself. 

 

Well, in a sense, it’s possible these are two versions of the same questions.  Human intimacy and interaction is what makes us love our life.  What is a life without intimacy, connectivity, courage.  These are the things that a modern man like  J. Alfred Prufrock does not have.  Prufrock clearly wishes he could get beyond himself- to ask out a woman is an expression of that.  It changes reality- one way or another.  But it takes boldness to do that.  You have to, as we used to say, “man up”- and Prufrock has none of that.  The sexual loneliness is a manifestation of a metaphysical problem really.   

 

Which takes us to another synechoche- these claws  Here the claws represent the crab.  Prufrock thinks he should have been a crab.  

 

I should have been a pair of ragged claws 

Scuttling across the floors of silent seas. 

 

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. 

Should I, after tea and cakes and ices, 

Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis? 

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; 

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. 

 

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 towards some overwhelming question, 

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

Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you 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.” 

 

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! 

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.” 

 

And here we see way more of Eliot criticizing modern man.  We are too anxious, likely overeducated in impractical things.  Our anxiety of failure brought on by our culture, our education, urban expectations paralyze us into doing nothing.  We have no courage.  There’s a reference here to John the Baptist which I think is really interesting.  John the Baptist had his head cut off and served to King Herod.  Here, Eliot references that, but in Prufrock’s case, what would bother him about being decapitated in this scenario would be that his dead head that would be served up to King Herod would reveal he’s balding.  He just can’t, to use his phrase,  

“ bite off the matter with a smile, 

and squeeze the universe into a ball”.  He can’t be like Lazarus in the Bible and come back from the dead. And when we see what horrifies him- he’s horrified that he’ll approach a woman, she’ll listen to him then reply that “that is not what I meant at all.  That is not it, at all.” 

 

Oh my, how could a guy like J. Alfred misinterpret my politiness for interest?  “That is not what I meant t all”. It’s embarrassement, shame, rejection- all of the bad things in life.  Prufrock’s life has so little meaning in any other area thst. Concern about his looks, a rejection from a woman he doesn’t appear he even cares about, is enough to wipe him out.  Let’s finish.  

 

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. 

 

I grow old ... I grow old ... 

I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. 

 

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. 

 

I do not think that they will sing to me. 

 

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. 

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. 

 

Prince Hamlet, of course, is the most famous slow-mover in the world.  Prince Hamlet’s most famous line is, “To be or not to be, that is the question.”  Prince Hamlet was told by his father, as a ghost, that he was supposed to revenge his father’s death.  Hamlet waffled, went back and forth, debated, worried about if life was even worth- should I kill myself. But the thing about Hamlet, in the final scene of the play he does act. He does actually have a purpose to exist.  He does revenge his father.  He does DO something.   

 

Prufrock is not Prince Hamlet.  He’s not even a prince at all.  

 

 And, He will NEVER act, and he knows it.  He is going be a failure, a loser, and not because he tried and failed, but because he doesn’t have any energy, any courage, any desire to even try for anything.  He is just going to do nothing?  He will spend his energy worrying if he should eat a peach.  Not even  fictitious sirens in his imagination will try to seduce him- that’s an allusion to the Odyssey- but you’d think, if you were a person who can live in a made up world- in your made up world the sirens would want you- isn’t that what video game world is about in part.?  For for Prufrock, Not even in his dreams is he seductive.  He just linger by the sea in his imagination until he wakes up and the final lines of the poem, “we drown.” 

 

That IS dark.  So nihilistic.   

 

Well, it’s modernism for- not the most positive take on the modern world- those guys knew how to see the dark side of life.  But you know what, unlike Fitzgerald who chose to sink in a sea of poor choices, Eliot did not.  The man who wrote Prufrock as a young man, wrote The Waste Land slightly older, and then wrote the “Four Quartets” later in life.  These last meditations are about time, divinity, and humility among other things and are considered his finest works.  All the things that confuse Prufrock and defeat Prufrock really don’t defeat the real T.S. Eliot.  And I guess that’s where I find the redemption.  Eliot’s work takes us through the modern world but he navigates himself to a place of peace. I like that about him. We’ve all been Prufrock at one time or another.  The virtual world of today is way worse than anything Eliot experienced, and  Especially now because of the pandemic, many of us have felt a lot of the stream of conscious judgement poor Prufrock feels- but we don’t have to drown or be him- we can be Lazarus- and come out of it.  And that’s the thought I want to take away from this. 

 

Well, there you have it, the positive spin on nihilism.  We hope you have been able to understand just a little bit of this very confusing poem.  Maybe it’s inspired you, maybe it hasn’t.  Thanks for being with us this week.  Next week, we are going to change directions and get into a little fantasy literaeture with J.R.R. Tolkein and The Hobbit.  That will be a welcome change of pace.   

 

HA!1. It will be good though.  He’s a great writer, and although also a devoted Catholic, and from Oxford, England has a very different take on things.  I look forward to it. 

 

 

 

Further episodes of How To Love Lit Podcast

Further podcasts by Christy and Garry Shriver

Website of Christy and Garry Shriver