Friday, April 26 The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.

 In class: we are reading the poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot.
Homework for Monday, April 29....Prufrock vocabulary quiz.  handout / copy below

   Notes: T. S. Stearns Eliot (1888-1965) published 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.

 
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.
Themes
1.Loneliness and Alienation: Prufrock is a pathetic man whose anxieties and obsessions have isolated him.
2. Indecision: Prufrock resists making decisions for fear that their outcomes will turn out wrong.
3. 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.
4. 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                  vocabulary and terms

1.       epigraph - a quotation set at the beginning of a literary work or one of its divisions to suggest its theme

2.       infamy- an extreme and publicly known criminal or evil act

3.       to etherize- to make numb as if by anesthetizing

4.       insidious- harmful but enticing or seductive

5.       Michelangelo- Italian Renaissance painter

6.       muzzle- the projecting jaws and nose of an animal; snout

7.       to formulate- to put into a systematized statement or expression

8.       synecdoche- a figure of speech by which a part is put for the whole (as fifty sail for fifty ships); •The word "head" refers to cattle; The word "wheels" refers to a vehicle.

9.       eternal footman- death

10.   Lazarus- subject of a prominent miracle attributed to Jesus in the Gospel of John, in which Jesus restores him to life four days after his death.

11.   deferential- respectful - reverent - deferent – dutiful

T.S. Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock read by Anthony Hopkins
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLNsPhKlucY

. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

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.

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         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!) Is it 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? .      .      .      .      .      .      .      . 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. .      .      .      .      .      .      .      . 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 (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,         85 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”—         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.” 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.” .      .      .      .      .      .      .      .         110 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. I grow old … I grow old …         120 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.         125 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         130 Till human voices wake us, and we drown.