![]() ![]() It may have been connected to his sick wife or other elements of bad luck. You can feel the slow, steady pace of a plod. He is past seeing something new: Look at the start of stanzas: He could be paranoid but you get the impression he knows they are talking about him but is past caring. It is as if he is observing a bunch of housewives with one brain cell between them, gossiping at church - in a very 'Christian' way of course, about someone down on their luck and spitefully behind their hands. There is repititon too: 'In the room women come and go, talking of Michaelangelo'. One day merges into another, one week merges into another month and so on. There is a boredom, an ennui, a dullness. I think in this poem he is accepting fate as there is no other way for him to go. Prufrock strikes you as a sad, lonely and down at heel man. The writers are telling us more than we know. He is a bit of an enigma but if you look at his llife and eduction then you get more clues - and I just love hunting for clues in literature and poetry. I'm studying American literature for my degree and I must say, I love Eliot. The essence will be stripped, leaving only a bad taste in the mouth.įor me it's a sad poem. If a human achieves something to be remembered, the memory will still be subject to change over time. ![]() From a great person, he is reduced to that! So, somehow, it represents futility. Yet, in Eliot's time, he is only discussed like a fleeting fancy, such as when women talk about shoes or clothes. Michelangelo was an established artist during his time and right after. Regarding the lines "women come and go, talking of Michelangelo," it expresses the inanities of fame and achievement. we discover the atmosphere dominant during Eliot's time. So, we received a severe lashing!Īnyhow, here's what i have understood (with the help of our poet-professor). Aside from our premature grasp of the art of poetry, we had only 3 hours to discuss this among ourselves. My group was assigned in explaining this long poem, but we failed. Months ago, our great poet-professor discussed this poem with us. There will always be silly people destined to sully the name of those who went before, with highminded ideas resting only on their hindsight and not their intelligence. The reason of course is because almost everyone was, including the women. The woman 'seduced' at her typewriter is at the mercy of a lechorous male, hardly a rant against the feminine, if anything it affirms the depths of male depravity at times.Įliot of course must also be judged in context most writers pre-modern times were racist, sexist and so on. The women of the bar are perhaps being derided but purely on a class basis they are also shown in a sympathetic light in terms of war. The Waste Land ranks among the most important poems ever written.īut to address some of the points raised, it contains no mention of race, Judaism and its reference to female characters tends to be complicated. Eliot was anti-semitic, racist, mysoginistic, &c., &c.
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