T.S Eliot
What are the 6 themes of "Preludes'?
- Alienation - Urban decay - Nature of time - Loneliness - Society and class - Modernism
What are the four themes of 'The Journey of the Magi'?
- Elements of hopefulness even when covered in doubt - Religious and Biblical allusion - Literal journey of the Magi but metaphorical journey of faith - Birth and death
What are the four themes of 'The Hollow Men'?
- Exile - Dissatisfaction - Dreams - identity
What are the five main themes of 'Rhapsody On A Windy Night'?
- Passage of time - morality - memory - decay or urban world - alienation of humanity
What are the five themes of 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock'?
- urbanization - alienation - paralysis - Anxiety/Overthinking - Time
Brief overview of 'Rhapsody On A Windy Night'.
It follows its narrator wandering an urban street from midnight until 4:30 a.m. Until the next day when you have to get ready for the day ahead despite the creeping sense that life lacks any purpose or meaning.
Brief overview of 'The Journey of the Magi'.
Journey of the Magi explores the notion of tension through the Magi's conflicting state of mind between old and new faith. There is tension and conflict between undergoing an arduous journey in order to attain enlightenment and the Magi's yearning to indulge in a society full of materialistic temptations.
Brief overview of 'Preludes'.
Preludes is about the drudgery, waste and isolation of modern urban life. Through the numbering of stanzas, it reinforced the theme of the monotony of life.
"A broken spring in a factory yard, rust that clings to the form that the strength has left"
Technique: Analysis: Text: Rhapsody On A Windy Night
"The corner of her eye twists like a crooked pin"
Technique: Analysis: Text: Rhapsody On A Windy Night
"Sawdust restaurants with oyster shells"
Technique: Analysis: Clear depiction of the futility and of an industrialised existence Text: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
"But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation, with an alien people clutching their gods"
Technique: Analysis: Found enlightenment from his religious journey, however, looking back, he isn't content with his old society. The feelings of alienation from his old life. Text: The Journey Of The Magi
"I could see nothing behind that child's eye".
Technique: Analysis: Represents isolation/ disconnection/ emptiness Text: Rhapsody On A Windy Night
"The bed is open; the tooth-brush hangs on the wall, put your shoes at the door, sleep, prepare for life the last twist of the knife"
Technique: Analysis: Emphasises the ingrained nature of the mundane urban routine on the individual's psyche. rhyme of "life" and "knife" implies that the person's life lacks spontaneity or new fulfilling experience, life is nothing but a continuum of monotony. Text: Rhapsody On A Windy Night
"Shape without form, shade without colour, paralysed force....."
Technique: - Repetition, Alliteration, Tricolon, Oxymoron Analysis: Emphasizes the themes of meaninglessness, nothingness and paralysis. Portrays shape, colour, and shade as synonymous. Text: The Hollow Men
"Prickly pear"
Technique: - intertextuality (mulberry bush) Analysis: Text: The Hollow Men
"Time to turn back and descend the stair"
Technique: Aside and Symbolism Analysis: Exacerbates and expresses his personal inadequacy within his life. The stairs represent the infinite struggle that is instilled in him. Text: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
"Three trees on the low sky"
Technique: Biblical Allusion Analysis: Allusion to the three crosses on the hill Text: The Journey Of The Magi
"an old white horse galloped away in the meadow"
Technique: Biblical allusion, Imagery, Analysis: Allusion to his past realist views disappears as he moves on to a new part of his life where he develops an appreciation for religion and his individual spiritual journey. Imagery. It is an essential key figure to the Fisher Key Myth, which is symbolic of the death of the old world and paganism under the onslaught of Christianity. Text: The Journey Of The Magi
"I am lazarus, come from the dead"
Technique: Biblical allusion, Religious connotations, Allusion to Dante's Inferno Analysis: Representation of a insignificant figure compared to after a resurrection, such as being a lords rather than a king Text: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
"I do not think they will sing to me"
Technique: Depressing tone Analysis: He is constantly in fear of rejection and feels as though he is permanently an outsider. Text: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
"A penny for the old guy"
Technique: Epigraph Analysis: References to Old Guy Fawkes. Action vs inaction → recurring theme Text: The Hollow Men
"In the room women come and go Talking of Michelangelo"
Technique: Epitome Of masculinity, Alludes to toxic masculinity, Rhyming couplet, Repetition Analysis: Accentuates the alienation felt by the persona, he's a casual observer of life's events, however detached. Shows his inadequacy given the sculpture of David epitomises masculinity and he constantly feels emasculated. Text: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
"I have measured out my life with coffee spoons."
Technique: Hyperbole Analysis: Represents and reinforces the mundane perspective, Prufrock has. This galvanises the text's universal nature and chronological status. Text: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
"Let us go then you and I"
Technique: Inclusive pronouns positive connotations Analysis: includes the reader, public persona and ego, portrays the segregation he has imposed upon himself leading to the invitation of a stranger (the reader) to listen? Wanting a sense of connectedness from the reader as he expresses the loneliness and segregation he feels from the society he is living in Text: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
"the yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes, the yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes."
Technique: Industrialised visual imagery, Zoomorphism, metaphor, extended cat metaphor Analysis: depicts how the character is viewing a fractured society due to modernism through describing the colour of the smoke and fog due to pollution. Prufrock recognises how urbanisation and industrialisation affect the environment Text: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
"Mistah Kurtz - he dead"
Technique: Intertextuality, allusion (to Conrad's heart of darkness) Analysis:References to Conrad who thought that colonisation led to the death of humanity and his soul. Introduces the concept of his poem as it is the introduction. Motif of colonial slavery mirrors the enslavement of the modern man. Burdened by modernity/mundanity of life. Directionless. Text: The Hollow Men
"No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be"
Technique: Irony of procrastination and literary allusion to Shakespeare Analysis: Believes he was destined to live as an insignificant being Text: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
"Rat's feet over broken glass"
Technique: Juxtaposition, Metaphor Analysis: The vounishing loneliness of empty meaningless words & life Text: The Hollow Men
"To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet There will be time to murder and create"
Technique: Masquerade motif, Time motif Analysis: Indication that we have time to prepare a mask over our true selves before entering society - we have control over our reputation and how we are perceived by others. Prufrock is self-conscious and worry about how others view him Text: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
"With the other masquerades That time resumes,"
Technique: Metaphor Analysis: This metaphor is saying that Clock-time - the designated hours of the day that dictate urban life is an illusion. Text: Preludes
"A twisted branch upon the beach eaten smooth"
Technique: Metaphor Analysis: Eaten smooth by the passage of time, metaphor for Prufrock's own mortality, he to will be eaten smooth by the Text: Rhapsody On A Windy Night
"The burnt-out ends of smoky days."
Technique: Metaphor, Allusion Analysis: Eliot links a winter evening in the city to the habits and lifestyles of the less well off, as smoking was seen a "lowly" working class activity Text: Preludes
"The burnt-out ends of smoky days"
Technique: Metaphor, imagery Analysis: There is nothing much to do the day is as pointless as the burnt out butt ends of cigarette Text: Preludes
"You had such a vision of the/As the street hardly understands;"
Technique: Metonym, Personification Analysis: The street here is a metonym for the world. It is also another example of personification. The street understands, but "hardly"-it is alive, but dim. The "you" addressed here, this woman, even with her limited soul, has the consciousness to see for a moment a vision of the street, and so the world. Text: Preludes
"A temperate valley, wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation"
Technique: Olfactory Analysis: The smells of nature convey the deepest, intense awareness of religion. The use of the word temperate, which means lush, highlights how he sees the world and how he views religion. Text: The Journey Of The Magi
"Of faint stale smells of beer, from the Stardust-trampled street"
Technique: Olfactory, Symbolic Analysis: Text: Preludes
"We are the Hollow Men. We are the stuffed men."
Technique: Paradox, Motif, Juxtaposition Analysis: Shows how society is hopeless, is in need of external spiritual guidance. Industrialization's impact on society and its workers. They've become empty mentally. Text: The Hollow Men
"The winter evening settle down with the smell of steaks in passage ways."
Technique: Pathetic Fallacy, iambic tetrameter, personification Analysis: Settling into routine. Text: Preludes
"morning comes to consciousness."
Technique: Personification Analysis: A sense of hope, contrasts to stanza 1. Text: Preludes
"The memory throws up high and dry"
Technique: Personification Analysis: Series of seemingly disconnected images represented. Text: Rhapsody On A Windy Night
"Midnight shakes the memory as a madman shakes a dead geranium"
Technique: Personification and Simile Analysis: Time and memory play tricks on the brain. The unstoppable passage of time means all life must die and memory is merely an attempt at sustaining things for a longer period of time. Memory cannot be re-lived. Text: Rhapsody On A Windy Night
"At four and five and six o'clock"
Technique: Polysyndeton Analysis: The polysyndeton represents the continuous monotony of life Text: Preludes
"I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed"
Technique: Religious allusion (to Jesus) repetition Analysis: The repetition of "wept" exhibits the melancholy and depressing mindset of Prufrock Text: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
"Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought upon a platter"
Technique: Religious allusion (to John the Baptist) Analysis: This interjection demonstrates the persona's feelings of inadequacy Text: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
"And indeed there will be time"
Technique: Repetition Analysis: Expressing Prufrock's concern for his limited time left to start a relationship and engage with the world by convincing himself that there will be time Text: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
"Twelve o'clock" "Halve-past one"
Technique: Repetition Analysis: Provides structure to the text, a rhythm Text: Rhapsody On A Windy Night
"This is the way the world ends not with a bang but with a whimper" x2
Technique: Repetition, Onomatopoeia Analysis: Fatalistic, nihilistic, foreboding worldview. Powerful thought provoking questions about humanity's direction, impact on human psyche Text: The Hollow Men
"Is it like this in deaths other kingdom walking alone"
Technique: Rhetorical Question Analysis: He feels death will be his empty (hollow) and meaningless as his life was. Text: The Hollow Men
"Do I dare disturb the universe?"
Technique: Rhetorical question, 1st person, Metaphor Analysis: Prufrock is reluctant to move out of his comfort zone and progress forward with the rest of the social classes, as such he doubts his capacity to do so and ponders whether it would be worth 'disturbing his universe' to achieve fulfillment or significance. His use of a rhetorical question represents the character's hesitation in pursuing his desire. Text: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
"How should I presume?"
Technique: Rhetorical question, Repetition Alludes to his mental paralysation Analysis: Scared that if he makes the wrong decision the rest of his life will be ruined Text: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
"Birth or Death?"
Technique: Rhetorical question, oxymoron Analysis: Birth of his faith and death of his non-spiritual life Text: The Journey Of The Magi
"I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, and i have seen the eternal footman hold my coat, and snicker"
Technique: Rhyming, Repetition Analysis: Incorporates his fear or rejection by people in his life, being looked down upon and laughed at. Text: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
"one-night cheap hotels"
Technique: Sexual connotation Analysis: indicating a sleezy tapestry of urban city life. Depicts his personal views on society through individuals not having connected relationships and one night stands. Text: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
"Sleeping in snatches, with the voices singing in our ears, saying that this was all folly"
Technique: Sibilance, Metaphorical language Analysis: Accentuates the in-between stage where he is searching for spiritual fulfillment but still is having doubts. Keeping hopefulness ever when covered in doubt. Text: The Journey Of The Magi
"The worlds revolve like Ancient women/ gathering fuel in vacant lots."
Technique: Simile Analysis: Emphasizes inevitable monotony of modern life. Text: Preludes
"This birth was hard and bitter agony for us, like death"
Technique: Simile, Descriptive language Analysis: the journey is arduous, difficult and confronting yet the reward was extremely spiritually fulfilling. The in between stage to spiritually rebirth one must experience a relinquishing of a previous worldview, which Elliot describes as 'death' Text: The Journey Of The Magi
"But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen"
Technique: Symbolism Analysis: Symbolism that he cannot find the words to talk. Early form of movie picture was a lantern Text: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
"Those who have crosses with direct eyes"
Technique: Symbolism, Constant Motif, Synechdote Analysis: Metaphorically refers to Kurtz, people of hope Text: The Hollow Men
"With all its muddy feet that press / To Early coffee-stands."
Technique: Synecdoche Analysis: Conformity/uniformity (Motif continued throughout multiple poems. The behaviour they do to be acceptable to society, just part of their routines that they have to do) The put on the masquerades to hide Text: Preludes
"...a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the flaws of silent seas"
Technique: Synecdoche, oceanic imagery, alliteration Analysis: The ragged claws represent an insignificant section of the crab without the rest of its body and through the use of silent seas it mimics the alienation Prufrock feels. Depicts that he believes he is unnoticed and useless Text: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
"I would do it again, but set down, this set down this where we led all that way for"
Technique: Syntax, Biblical Allusion Analysis: This is a stream of consciousness which depicts confusion and failure to understand the magnitude of the event, of the birth of Jesus Christ.There is a sense of giving up the old dispensation, his old view of the world, the realist point of view as he now has a spiritualistic perspective. Text: The Journey Of The Magi
"The grimy scraps of withered leaves about your feet"
Technique: Tactile auditory, Imagery, Emotive language Analysis: Images of emptiness/lifeless emphasising the monotony of everyday life Text: Preludes
"I have measured out my life with coffee spoons I know the voices dying with a dying fall"
Technique: Time motif, Metaphor, Hyperbole Analysis: He knows what to expect in his life as he had lived through similar scenarios.This further conveys how insignificant and trivial his life is. He's expecting the woman to reject him as he is used to the idea of rejection. Text: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
"Politic, cautious and meticulous"
Technique: Tricolon Analysis: Tragic like hamlet Text: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
"For I have know them all/Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons"
Technique: Tricolon Disorder of time → allusion to Eliot's fractured perception of time Analysis: The persona discloses the monotonous nature of his mundane existence in that he feels time is distorted by routine and thus he lists the parts of the day out of order. He intimately knows the repetition of time marked by mornings, afternoons, and evenings. Text: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
"And so we continued.../Finding the place; it was (you might say) satisfactory"
Technique: Understatement Analysis: In the middle of his conversion - isn't satisfied with where he is and feels as though he doesn't belong - feels alienated. Still has hope for the journey to his spiritual enlightenment Text: The Journey Of The Magi
"Broken blinds and chimney-pots."
Technique: Visual Imagery Analysis: The industrialisation emphasizes the decrepitude of the city which is a broken/fragmented world. Text: Preludes
"Beats like a fatalistic drum"
Technique: aural imagery Analysis: Text: Rhapsody On A Windy Night
"Whispering lunar incantations dissolve the floors of memory"
Technique: hyperbole Analysis: Text: Rhapsody On A Windy Night
"I should be glad of another death"
Technique: hyperbole Analysis: Death of his past, non-spiritual life Text: The Journey Of The Magi
"as if the world gave up the secret of its skeleton"
Technique: imagery, personification Analysis: Text: Rhapsody On A Windy Night
"Gathered together on the beach Tumid river"
Technique: intertextuality Analysis: Refers to the river acheron which flows through hell. States that without spiritually they'll all be together in hell as a whole society Text: The Hollow Men
"Lips that would kiss form prayers to broken stone"
Technique: religious allusion Analysis: Shows desperation of external aid. Intimacy, dexterity. God has hung up his phone. Text: The Hollow Men
"Perpetual star, multifoliate rose"
Technique: religious allusion, symbolism Analysis: Vision of God, hope. Symbolic of heaven. Invasive species - referring to industrialization. Text: The Hollow Men
"Like a patient etherized upon a table"
Technique: simile Analysis: To convey his stunted state, Eliot expresses the paralysing helplessness.Eliot utilises a simile to express his feeling of being constrained and his struggle to act upon his will Text: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
Brief overview of 'The Hollow Men'.
The 'Hollow Men' of the poem are themselves trapped in some sort of between-world, a limbo or purgatory between death and life, existence and nothingness, light and darkness.
Brief overview of 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock'.
The poem is a dramatic monologue, in which the speaker narrates the anxieties and preoccupations of his inner life.
