Eliot's Early Poetry

Prior to reading Eliot’s poetry for the first time, I was unsure of what to expect. Eliot’s prose was complicated enough, I could not imagine how obscure his poetry was going to be. Despite whatever hidden themes Eliot may have created, I was surprised at the imagery that he was still capable of provoking for the reader. Due to Eliot’s fierce disdain for Romanticism, I thought I would be walking into an intangible world of feelings, unable to be fully experienced with all of my senses. Eliot, thank you for proving me wrong.

“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” immediately interested me with the simile, “When the evening is spread out against the sky/Like a patient etherised upon a table” (ln 2-3). A creepy analogy to think about – a person sprawled out on a table, about to have surgery performed on them – yet, intriguing; the perfect lead-in to perk my interest. Two stanzas later, Eliot uses personification to manipulate the fog into having cat-like qualities as it “rubs its back”, “rubs its muzzle”, “licked its tongue” and eventually “curled once about the house, and fell asleep” (ln 15-22). As the poem continues, it becomes apparent that the narrator (who I assume is Prufrock) is traveling to visit a woman. However, there is an anxiousness that I cannot exactly pinpoint to one exact place. Prufrock’s concern with his receding hair in lines 40-41 is an example of his own anxiety about the visit, but there seems to be an underlying tense feeling throughout the poem.

After Prufrock’s (secret) visit to the woman, he is concerned about telling her his story. As the epigraph suggests, Dante only told his story because it could not be retold, and therefore judged. Prufrock, in offering up his tale, may be hurt by this woman who really does not have any desire to know him in that sense. Perhaps this can be related to Eliot’s own life and the lack of intimacy that he experienced with his wives. Prufrock does not want to be like Hamlet, with his incessant monologues, droning on and on about his problems, for if he did, he would be more like the Fool of Shakespeare’s plays and it would eventually lead to his “drowning” (ln 111-119, 131).

Unfortunately, I have not yet read Henry James’s Portrait of a Lady, so I am not entirely sure of the connections between Eliot’s poem and James’s novel. I am familiar with Eliot’s literary criticism and his praise of bouncing off of other artists’ work, so I imagine he used some of James’s techniques here. Eliot’s poem does compose a portrait of a lady. I use the word “compose” because Eliot uses many musical terms throughout the poem and it even has a song-like form itself. The Preludes of Chopin are juxtaposed to the tom-tom of the narrator’s mind, creating this disinterest in the narrator when he is talking to the woman. Is the woman interested in the narrator and he is not interested in her? I get the sense that she is much older than the narrator in her dialogue. In Part II, the woman says, “And youth is cruel, and has no remorse/And smiles at situations which it cannot see”, then the narrator smiles (ln 48-50). Ultimately, when the narrator goes overseas and he wants to write to the woman, he is concerned that she may have died. This must somehow be incorporated with the “dying fall” that is located within the poem in various places. A “dying fall” are muted or dampened notes, that have rhythm but no pitch. They are comprised of implied notes that cannot be performed or are performed only faintly for effect. How is the woman’s death a “dying fall”?

I do not have much to say about “Preludes” or “Le Figlia Che Piange”. I enjoyed both poems, but I did not find them to be as intriguing as the others. I did think it was interesting that “Preludes” was not in the beginning of the poems (as a prelude would be), however I see the significance of it being after “Portrait of a Lady” with the mention of Preludes in that poem. Perhaps if the lady did die, this is the continuance of the concert after her death. It is a waltz between light and dark, clean and dirty. “Le Figlia Che Piange” or “The Weeping Girl”, again a poem centered around a woman, appears to perfectly end this set. The girl seems upset, though I am not sure at whom exactly. Is she mad at the narrator? Or is she mad at the fact that she is aging? I also had an idea that she might be dead and that this is a dream (or nightmare) of the narrator. Her arms of flowers and the hair over her arms could be the girl in her casket. Attention to the last two lines of the poem have brought me to entertain this idea. Overall, I am excited to discuss more about Eliot’s poetry and was pleasantly surprised with the readability of his poems (if not the understanding of his cognizance).