T S Eliot

[Juliet]

Recently becoming totally obsessed with "The Love song of J Alfred Prufrock," I decided to start a thread on it. For those of you who haven't read it, here it is below. I'd start to comment on it, but I have few feelings for it but unadulterated awe and adoration, and I can barely even pick a favorite line (They're all so GOOD...but I do love the last stanza) so someone else, perhaps, should start and be objective. For those of you who haven't read it, well, here you are! (Sorry it's split up...there's a 5000 character limit on posts)

[Juliet]

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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?

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?

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
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?
. . . . .

[Juliet]

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?…

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, 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”—
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.”
. . . . .
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.

[shaxper]

Something about the lines "Do I dare to eat a peach" and "I do not think that they will sing to me" have always haunted me in ways I cannot explain. Somehow, they just speak so perfectly for thoughts I always have, and so I find myself repeating those lines in my head without even thinking about it. I haven't read Prufrock in a few years, yet, at times, these lines are more familiar to me than my own name. There is something amazingly powerful about Prufrock; something seemingly universal. I don't know a person out there who hasn't been moved by this poem. Anyone I know of who dislikes it rejects it purely on the basis that they were exposed to it far too often in highschool and college; never on the basis of anything lacking in the poem, itself. It speaks about the powerlessness we all feel dwelling in the spokes and gears of society (The Wasteland, if you will) in a way that no one else has managed to touch upon. we feel powerless and in the way. Prufrock reminds us of this in a profound way.

[The_Turtle]

My most favourite line of the poem "I grow old, I grow old/ I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled" makes an appearance in my thoughts at least once a week, for no apparent reason. I agree with Juliet that the poem is awfully rich and that it's hard to pick favourite lines. One day I shall learn the poem by heart and carry it with me always.

I remember a course I took on Eliot where we didn't get far past the title. Endlessly remarking on the Prue and Frock and Proof and Rock of Prufrock. I even seem to remember that someone claimed Eliot got the title simply from the name of an apothecary shop and found it so marvellously simple that he decided to write a lovesong for it. Something like that. Anyways, one of the finest pieces of poetry in my opinion. Somehow I feel like I mentioned it on this board before, can't remember really where.

[shaxper]

Hmmm. I don't think that's come up before on this board, but I could be wrong. You've been posting here for a while now.

As for the title, a professor of mine pointed out something remarkably rich about it a long time ago. She was trying to talk about Prufrock's apologetic meekness and awkwardness, and pointed out that, with a name as bad as "Alfred Prufrock", the J must stand for something REALLY funny sounding to not be mentioned. Somehow, that says a lot about the character to me. Of course, it's also possible that the "J" name is the truly beautiful one that he abbreviates so as to sound dignified in his stupid world. We never know his first name, just as he never knows himself. Funny yet tragic. What a poem.

[Ganymede]

The line "I have measured out my life with coffee spoons" is the one that has stayed with me the most. It suggests such tediousness and such monotony, yet I also imagine the grains of sugar falling from the spoon and there is a mundane beauty in that as well. Almost as if the monotony itself is sublime in its deepest roots. A coffee spoon is so symbolic. It's simple and ordinary, but it says alot about J. Alfred Prufrock. I often measure myself against this line. Am I measuring myself with coffee spoons, counting them obsessively, or am I appreciating the sweetness of the sugar contained in the spoon itself?