美国文学作品选读论文

The Appreciation of

The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock

Zhang Qi 章绮20130506044

Class2, grade2013,

Abstract

Owing to the poem of T.S.Eliot, The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock arouse my interest in analyzing English poem. I find that English poem is also has it's own charm like our Chinese poem. Through seeking the poem's background information, Chinese translated meaning, the author's information, and my own poetic analysis to figure out the poem's main idea, main thoughts, significance and even details. It can concluded that the poem is a love poem to ask for marriage. But it explains J.Alfred Prufrock's hesitation and timidity.

introduction

The author of the poem is T.S.Eliot. T.S.Eliot is his pen name, his real name is Thomas Steams Elliot. He was born in 26 September 1888. ST. Louis Missouri, United States. He was an American--born British essayist, publisher, playwright, literary and social critic and "one of the twentieth century's major poets". His notable works include The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock(1915), The Waste Land(1922), and Four Quarters(1944). He was awarded the Nobel Price for literature in1948 for his composition of Four Quarters. (Wu Dingbo, 2013)

Prufrock, a man caught in a sense of defeated idealism and tortured by unsatisfied desire, is presented as an interesting tragic figure in the poem. In the poem, he presents his two personalities: hesitation and timidity. ()

analyze

My own understanding of the main idea of the poem.

It is about J.Alfred Prufrock wants to ask a woman to marry him, but he don't know how to say that. He is in two minds, which are love and reason against each other. He has no courage to make an offer of marriage. But in fact, this poem is a monologue of him. The poem emphasizes the inner thoughts and feelings of J.Alfred Prufrock. After a long struggle of "open mouth or not.", he choose to give up. The poem follows the conscious experience of a man, Prufrock, relayed in the "stream of consciousness" from characteristic of the Modernists, lamenting his physical and

intellectual inertia with the recurrent theme of carnal love attained The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock, which is seen as a masterpieces of the Modernist Movement.

We can find out that first section of the poetry is French and it quoted from Dante’s poetry. Why T.S.Eliot used Dante’s poetry? The reason is in Dante’s poetry, he can go to hell to ask Guido(the figure who appears in Dante’s poetry), thought he suffered misery, he come back at last. He know exactly what the hell is. This is different from Prufrock. He don’t know what the hell is, of course, he don’t know how to deal with his own problem--make a marriage proposal or not.

In the 14th section, it is about Hamlet. He was always talking about the hell, but he don’t know whether he could out of the the hell. So, he is different from Dante, his reason prevent him from going to the hell. This is similar to Prufrock. His reason tells him be away from marriage and his trouble is more serious than Hamlet. Because he even don’t have his own goal, he can’t open his mouth to ask for a marriage. This may be ridiculous. In my view, this is a beautiful wish, a desire for love. Though, the woman, who is going to be asked for a marriage proposal is not really exist.

We can find out that the 6th section and the section 3 have the same context.

“In the room the women come and go

Talking of Michelangelo”

(T.S.Eliot,1915,section3&6)

The two sections use “the women come and go” in order to express a nervous feeling. It can infer that, at the time, J.Alfred Prufrock must very intense because he can’t find a right way to say love to the woman. In this poetry, T.S.Eliot uses this section twice to emphasize this kind of nervous feeling that he don’t know how to start to make a marriage proposal.

In the next section, section five, there are so many “there will be time...”(T.S.Eliot,1915,section5). The author uses this kind of structure--Parallelism for expressing Prufrock’s desire. He want a marriage, so he tell himself there will be time, there will have enough time my himself to prepare to make a marriage proposal and there also have enough time for the women to wait for being loved. He needs time to open his mouth to say love.

There section can tells us the personality of Prufrock. That is hesitation. He wants a lover, but how to open his mouth is a big question. There must be something hard for him to show the love. But in this poetry, we can find the answer. Suppose I was Prufrock, why can’t I open my mouth for a marriage proposal? Maybe I am not good enough to match the woman, she deserve better. Maybe my healthy--condition is