Transcript T. S. Eliot

T(homas) S(tearns) Eliot
1888-1965
Presenters:
Rita, Jones, Ally
Teresa, Christine,
1
source: http://www.love-poems.me.uk/eliot_macavity_the_mystery_cat.htm
T. S. Eliot as…

An expatriate
 A modern symbolistMetaphysical
 A critic
 A playwright
Source: http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/english/undergraduate/2000/2470.html
2
Eliot’s Background

1888


1906-10


Paris, and Germany
1911-14


Harvard, undergraduate
1910-11


born in St. Louis, Missouri, of New England stock
Harvard, graduate work
1914


WWI
London (Greek philosophy at Oxford)
Oral defense required for the Ph. D. degree
• Academics → poetry

1915


married Vivienne Haigh-Wood (~1933 mental home)
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (Poetry, Chicago)
Image Source: http://www.2idiotsinaboat.com/pilgrim/media/Eliot1.jpg
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Eliot’s Background

1921



1922




British subject, Church of England
Journey of the Magi
1935


quarterly Criterion
The Waste Land (Criterion, the Dial); Ulysses by Joyce
1927


breakdown, Swiss sanitorium
Paris, the manuscript of the Waste Land (Ezra Pound)
Four Quartets
1948 WWII


the Order of Merit by King George VI
the Nobel Prize in literature
• his poetic cunning, his fine craftsmanship, his original accent, his
historical and representative importance as the poet of the modern
symbolist –Metaphysical tradition

1957 married Valerie Fletcher
Image Source: http://theatre.msu.edu/images/ta/Eliot_TS-001.jpg
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Features of Eliot’s Poetry

The Metaphysical poets


The French symbolists



against romantic softness
to regard the poetic medium rather than the poet’s
personality as the important factor
French Poet—Jules LaForgue


precise image + endlessly suggestive meaning
Modernist—Ezra Pound


wit + passion ( John Donne)
precision, symbolic suggestion, ironic mockery
Other late-nineteenth century French poets
5

Vievienne Haigh-Wood

Valerie Fletcher
Jules
LaForgue
Ezra
Pound
Source: http://www.bc.edu/publications/bcm/winter_2001/ll_poet.html
http://www.npg.org.uk/live/search/portrait.asp?LinkID=mp72287&rNo=2&r
ole=sit
http://www.alucier.web.wesleyan.edu/dbeveridge/wescourses/2002f/chem
160/01/
http://www.lit.kobe-u.ac.jp/~hishika/pound.htm
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The Long Song of J. Alfred
Prufrock
Source: http://www.mediatriangle.com/TGSportraits/malkovich.html
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Summary
 J. Alfred
Prufrock, a middle-aged,
intellectual, indecisive man, invites the
reader along with him through the modern
city. He describes the street scene and
notes a social gathering of women
discussing Renaissance artist
Michelangelo. He describes yellow smoke
and fog outside the house of the gathering,
and keeps insisting that there will be time
to do many things in the social world.
8
Summary
Prufrock agonizes over his social actions,
worrying over how others will see him. He
thinks about women's arms and perfume,
but does not know how to act. He walks
through the streets and watches lonely
men leaning out their windows. The day
passes but he cannot gather the strength
to act, and he admits that he is afraid.
9
Summary
Prufrock wonders if his efforts would have
been worthwhile. He excuses his fear by
rationalizing that his speaking to the
woman would not have achieved any real
purpose. He thinks he is not a Prince
Hamlet figure, but a secondary character
in life. Worried over growing old, he adopts
the fashions of youth. However, Prufrock
will finally retreat into a solitary old age.
10
Annotation
1. "Like a patient etherized upon a table" (line 3)
"half-deserted streets" (line 4)
"one-night cheap hotels / And sawdust
restaurants" (lines 6-7).
A barren and deathly city, where Prufrock lives
in solitary gloom.
2. "Do I dare/ Disturb the universe?“ ( lines 45-46)
The universe refers to is his small social circle
of middle-class acquaintances.
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Annotation
3. “And I have known the eyes already, known
them all The eyes that fix you in a formulated phase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall.”
(lines 55-58)
"Sprawling on a pin" refers to the practice of
pinning insect specimens for study, suggesting
Prufrock feels similarly scrutinized.
12
Annotation
4. “I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. /
Shall I part my hair behind?” (lines 121-122):
At the time, both styles were considered
bohemian; the middle-aged Prufrock pathetically
wonders if he can reverse his aging by
embracing such youthful fashions.
5. “Do I dare to eat a peach?" (line 122)
The peach refers to immortality and marriage.
They are both Prufrock’s concerns but he can’t
accomplish.
13
Annotation
6. "I have heard the mermaids singing, each
to each" (line 124)
The mermaids refers to the society of
women who ignore him.
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Allusion
“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.”
A quoted passage from Dante's Inferno,
suggesting that Prufrock is one of the
damned and that he speaks only because
he is sure no one will disclose his secret.
15
Allusion
And indeed there will be time (line 23):
Cf. "Had we but world enough, and time," from
Metaphysical poet Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy
Mistress."
The speaker of the poem argues to his "coy
mistress" that they could take their time in
courtship games only if they were immortal;
ironically, Prufrock deludes himself into thinking
there will be time to court his lady or ladies.
16
Allusion
works and days of hands (line 29):
"Works and Days" is a poem about the
farming year by Greek poet Hesiod (8th
century B.C.). The ironic divide is between
useful agricultural labor and the futile
"works and days of hands" engaged in
meaningless social gesturing.
17
Allusion
a pair of ragged claws (line 73):
Self-pitying remark that he would have been
better as a crab at the bottom of the ocean. Cf.
Hamlet 2.2.205-206, Hamlet mocks the unwitting
and aging Polonius, saying that Polonius could
become young like Hamlet only if he somehow
went back in time: "for you yourself, sir, should
be old as I am, if, like a crab, you could go
backward."
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Allusion
Though I have seen my head...brought in upon
a platter (line 82):
Matthew 14:3-11, Mark 6:17-29 in the Bible; the
death of John the Baptist. A dancing girl named
Salome requested the head of John the Baptist
on a silver platter from King Herod. Prufrock's
observation of his "grown slightly bald" head
parodies the event and gives it the flavor of
mock-heroism found throughout the poem.
19
Aubrey Beardsley
illustration for Oscar
Wilde's play Salome
Salome receives John Baptist's head on a platter.
Source: http://www.phespirit.info/pictures/caravaggio/
20
Allusion
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
(line 92):
Cf. Andrew Marvell "To His Coy Mistress"
(41-44): "Let us roll all our strength and all /
Our sweetness up into one ball, / And tear
our pleasures with rough strife / Thorough
the iron gates of life." The imagery is
suggestive of sexual intercourse and union.
21
Allusion
Lazarus (line 94):
Luke 16:19-31 in the Bible. In the parable,
Lazarus, a beggar, went to Heaven, while Dives,
a rich man, went to Hell. Dives wanted to warn
his brothers about Hell and appeased to
Abraham (unsuccessfully) for Lazarus to be sent
back to tell them. The parable is perhaps
suggestive of the Dante-Guido da Montefeltro
allusion in the epigraph; both concern
themselves with the possibility of returning from
the afterlife.
22
Question 1
 How
does the imagery of the first fourteen
lines of the poem create its psychological
and emotional atmosphere?
23
Analysis

Title
Writing style
Key items







the speaker, listener
Setting
tone
Prufrock’s characteristics
Words repeated in the poem
24
Title
 The
title, The Love Song of J. Alfred
Prufrock, seems to suggest this is a poem
about love. In fact, the title implies an
ironic contrast between the romantic
words of “love song” and the dully name “J.
Alfred Prufrock.” (Eliot 2364, note 1. )
25
Writing style

The poem was written in a form of dramatic
monologue, which was a presence of the speaker’s
inner heart. The speaker is not equal to the poet.
There are three items presenting the fact.
1. they are the speech of specific individual at a
specific moment.
2. the monologue is specifically directed to a
listener or listeners who didn’t directly appear in the
poem, and the listener(s) is merely suggested in
the speaker’s words.
3. the primary focus is the development and
revelation of the speaker’s character.
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Key items

Speaker: J. Alfred Prufrock
 Listener: readers or the speaker himself.
 Setting: (1) time-evening. (lines 2- 3)
(2) place- a room in a city. (lines 13-16)

Tone: pessimistic and ironic. (lines 39- 46)
(lines 120 -125)
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Prufrock’s characteristics
 middle-aged
(lines 39-40,120)
 Bald (lines 39 - 41 )
 Thin (lines 42 - 44)
 Lack of confidence; indecisive;
pessimistic
(sentences including “How should I …?”
and “Do I dare…?” )
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Words repeated in the poem

In he room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
(lines 13-14 ; lines 35-36)
 The contrast between the speaker
and Michelangelo, and other “active”
writers, artists …
 there will be time……
(lines 26 - 29 ; lines 37-38)
 the speaker is afraid of aging, yet he
remains indecisive and inactive.
 And would it have been worth it,
after all … (lines 87, 99-100)
The statue of David
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Question 2
 “I
have heard the
mermaids singing,
each to each. I
don’t think that they
will sing to me.”
What does the
passage suggest?
Aubrey Beardsley. "Black Coffee"
"In the room the women come and go...."
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Symbols of Debasement
 Cats
 Specimens
of insects
 Crabs
Debasement—Cats

Line 15-22


Compare the yellow fog and smoke with cats
From activity to inactivity
• Rubs, licked, lingered, slipped, made a sudden leap, seeing,
curled, and fell asleep

Alienation
• Both the yellow fog (cat) and Prufrock are outside the house.

Anxiety of social occasions
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Debasement—
Specimens of Insects
 Lines


55-58
Women’s eyes and remark as a pin
Without confidence (lines 41, 44-46)
Source: http://www.uky.edu/Agriculture/Entomology/ythfacts/4h/unit2/
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Debasement—Crabs
 Lines

73-74
“I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.”
 indecision

Movement—back and forth
 Echoing

and anxiety of aging
to the theme fragment
Eat rotten meat
Source: http://www.animationfactory.com/animations/animals/ocean/556c1/
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Themes

Paralysis



Fragment
Inactivity
Indecision



Allusions
Form
Disintegrated
Source: http://www.animalmedicalcentreofmedina.com/about_us.htm
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paralysis—inactivity
 Lines

“When the evening is spread out against the
sky/ Like a patient etherised upon table”
 Lines

15-22
“The yellow fog that
rubs…licked…lingered…slipped…leap…
seeing…curled…and fell asleep” (line 15-22)
 lines

2-3
129-131
“We have lingered in the chambers of the sea/
By sea-girls…/ Till human voices…, and we
drown.”
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paralysis—indecision

lines 23-39


lines 45-48


“And indeed there will be time…To prepare a face to
meet…to murder and create…for a hundred
indecisions…for a hundred visions and revisions…to
turn back and descend the stair.”
“Do I dare/ Disturb the universe/ In a minute there is
time/ For decisions and revisions which a minute will
reverse.”
line 112

“No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be”
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fragment
 literary

allusions
reconstruction from ruins
 form




opens with an uncompleted sonnet
ends with an sextet
lines begin with the word ‘And’
comma, and semicolon suggest fragment and
pause (lines 111-19)
37
fragment

disintegrated self—reason ←→ desire
dramatic monologue




“Let us go then, you and I.” (line 1)
“Let us go and make our visit.” (line 12)
“Till human voices wake us, and we drown.” (line 131)
Women appear as fragmented bodies and
disconnected gestures: “braceleted arms” (line
63) that “lie along a table” (line 67) or faceless
people who settle a pillow (line 96) or throw off a
shawl (line 107).
38
Questions
1.
2.
Who are ‘we’ or ‘us’ in line 1, 10, 129,
and 131?
Is there any language in the poem that
seems lyrical or romantic or that would
justify Eliot’s naming the poem a love
song?
39
Works Cited






Eliot, T. S. “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” The Norton
Anthology of English Literature. Ed. M. H. Abrams. New York: Norton,
2000. 2364-7.
“Eliot’s poetry study guide.” Sparknotes. 28 Nov. 2005
<http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/eliot/section1.html>.
Hecimovich, Gregg A. “Notes on ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’.”
20 Nov. 2005 <http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AnS/english/English151W03/prufrock.htm>.
Stoicheff, Peter et al. “The Prufrock Papers.” 25 Nov. 2005
<http://www.usask.ca/english/prufrock/index.html>.
“Visual Arts.” PBS. 28 Nov. 2005
<http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/cultureshock/flashpoints/visualarts/david_a.ht
ml>.
Wayne, Teddy. “ClassicNote on ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’.”
GradeSaver. 4 Nov. 2005
<http://www.gradesaver.com/classicnotes/titles/prufrock/>.
40
Journey of the Magi
by
T.S. Eliot
41
Background
 In
1927 – Eliot changed his
nationality
- published
“Journey of the Magi”.
42
Summary
It is a story about
one of the Magi
remembering his
bitter experiences in
deadly cold winter in
order to search for
Christ child, and at
the end of his
journey, he
converted his
religion.
43
Analysis
‘A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.’
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow,
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
44
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.
first five lines are adapted from a sermon preached by
Bishop
Lancelot Andrewes in 1622.
“The summer palaces on slopes” means their past life of
luxury, leisure, and sensuality.
“travel all night” means his determination
45
Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water mill beating the
darkness,
And three trees on the low sky.
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say ) satisfactory.
“valley” represents life
“vine-leaves” represents life, Jesus’ holy blood, and
sacrifice.
46
“three trees” derives from New
Testament “then two bandits
were crucified with him, one on
the right and one on the left”.
(Mat 27:38)
“an old white horse” derives from
New Testament “Immediately I
saw a white horse appear,……to
go from victory to victory”
(The Rev 6:2)
“Six hands at an open door dicing
for pieces of silver” derives
from New Testament “ derives
from New Testament “When he
found that Jesus had been
condemned,……just as the Lord
directed me.”
(Mat 27:3-10 ) “And now I
saw heaven open,……in
uprightness he judges and
makes war.” (The Rev 19:11)
47
All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.
“Birth” represents the birth of Jesus, and the birth of
the magi’s religion.
“old dispensation” represents the dead past life.
48
Theme
 Conversion
of faith
 Alienation from the past
Technique


Monologue
Free verse
49
Works Cited






“Christian Conversion in T. S. Eliot’s ‘Journey of the
Magi’.” 7 Nov. 2005
<http://fray.ca/school/tseliot.html>.
Eliot, T. S. “Journey of the Magi.” The Norton
Anthology of English Literature. Ed. M. H. Abrams.
7the ed. New York: Norton, 2000. 2386-7.
“The New Jerusalem Bible”. Ed. Standard. Doubleday,
1999.
余光中 “英美現代詩選” 大林出版社, 再版. 1984.
陳美月 “英詩鑑賞入門” 學習出版社, 新版. 1991.
“新約全書” 香港聖經公會出版. 1975.
50
Source of Pictures
 Pictures.
28. Nov. 2005
<http://www2.tku.edu.tw/~tahx/lau/list16.ht
m>.
 Pictures. 陳韻琳. <達文西的宗教心靈與神
秘體驗.> 28. Nov. 2005
<http://life.fhl.net/Art/3wen2.htm>.
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