Let us go then, you and I

For my inaugural literary criticism post, I chose one of my favorite poems of all time, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T. S. Eliot. It's what first brought Eliot his fame and is considered one of the greatest works of modernist literature.

Ever since I first read “Prufrock” I have been pretty obsessed with it. I’m not sure why I love it so much—it is in no way positive or admirable; really what makes it good at all is not its subject matter but the genius of it and its beauty.

Before we get started, go read the poem first.

Prufrock is essentially the confession of a man who believes his confession will never be repeated by the listener—therefore he rambles in a stream-of-consciousness style narrative without “fear of infamy.” (To use the quotation from Dante which Eliot himself used to introduce the poem.) It honestly reminds me a great deal of a journal entry, though in reality it is even more disjointed than that. Prufrock is a man so hindered by his fears and indecisions that he retreats into his solitude, giving up hope on any cure to his loneliness or disillusionment.

I think that the way Eliot describes time is one of the most powerful elements of the poem. Though in truth Prufrock makes excuses for his hesitancy: “there will be time”, his constant refrain—he secretly fears that there won’t be. He is aware of his age, of time slipping past him; he says that death is waiting for him (the “footman”.) He is described as a middle-aged man, but I envision him as being at the very end of his middle-age, his mindset is just beginning to make that change from the more youthful “I am immortal, I have all the time in the world” to a very old, hyper-awareness of his mortality and lack of time.

I think this puts him in a state of crisis, his every action (and more importantly inaction) weighed down by that pressure.

The narrative itself sounds as though Prufrock is speaking to someone, specifically the reader. But I think there is some merit to the belief that he’s speaking to another part of himself. After all, he believes his confession will never truly be heard by anyone else. And the way the narrative leaps from place to place suggests not a conversation but a very literal “stream-of-consciousness”. I think this also keeps in accordance with the theme of his solitude. Prufrock seems to lack not only the female companionship he so desires, but also friendship.

His solitude is embodied by the two “animals” mentioned in the poem. The first is the cat-like yellow fog which seeks attention, looks hopefully/longingly in windows, but eventually curls up to sleep alone. The second and far more pessimistic one is the crab at the end, who scuttles across the floor of the sea, listening to the mermaids singing up among the waves. He doesn’t think they will sing to him; when he “wakes up”, see himself for what he is, he drowns. And on that pleasant note the poem ends.

In a way it almost seems as though he has been in a dream-like state since the very beginning of the poem when the night is described as a “patient etherized upon the table”. Prufrock’s “dream-like” state only enhances the sense of helplessness and the way that he merely passes through life invisibly, like a ghost. Perhaps it’s for this reason that the poem is written in its strange, disjointed way. Maybe Prufrock’s companion is his conscious self, being escorted through his life in a sort of sub-conscious, listless tour, until at the very end he wakes. The metaphor of Prufrock as a crab in the ocean further supports the dream-like quality. Water is a symbol of dreams and the unconscious mind. It is only when Prufrock hears the voices of others that he realizes how deeply alone he has become; he awakens then and “drowns”.

His drowning and the pessimism of the poem fit with the foreshadowing in the introduction. In the quote from Dante, the character speaking is Guido, a man damned to the 8^th circle of Hell.

Guido da Montefeltro, a man even more depressed than Prufrock.

The translation is:

“If I thought my answer were given

to anyone who would ever return to the world,

this flame would stand still without moving any further.

But since never from this abyss

has anyone ever returned alive, if what I hear is true,

without fear of infamy I answer you.”

- Dante, Inferno (XXVII, 61-66)

Prufrock, then, is likened to Guido in the sense that he is making a confession of sorts, but also in the fact that they are both “damned.” Prufrock’s empty life has become his hell, and crippled by his own indecision and fear he is condemned to it.

As bleak as it is, I love Prufrock for its layers of meaning and its lyricism—it truly feels like a song at times because of its rhythm. It’s the kind of poem that is meant to be read out loud, in order to best appreciate the melody of the words. I have lost track of how many times I’ve read this poem by now, but I find that I keep coming back to it. The humanity and depth of Prufrock’s character seems to reveal something new to me each time. Prufrock, the character and the poem, are full of so many layers, each woven together expertly by Eliot; as a work of literature it stands alone, a beautiful, modernist tragedy.

*Title photo came from here