Is J. Alfred Prufrock insecure?

There is certainly evidence that he's anxious about growing old. (HINT: It's somewhere in the line that goes "I grow old, I grow old"

2) If so, are you an English major?

If so, you need to work a little harder on the dang thing instead of asking us to tell you the answer. I'm not your TA, I'm just a guy who went to college a couple of years ago and majored in English. I'm happy to help, but I'm not going to give the whole thing away. Give me something more specific here. Just telling you whether or not the guy is "insecure" isn't really going to help you understand the poem that much better anyway.

(But if you can argue that you're right, you win, which is really the point anyway)

i think you should maybe take an engineering course or something.

-- a student (blahblahbla...), April 26th, 2005.

Dude, it's "in THE room" not "in MY room." And why would all these chicks be talking about Michaelangelo while he bones them?

1997: "Boom boom boom, let's go back to my room."

I think that this discussion of the poem is too naturalistic or narrative-based. Much more is going on in its language. Perhaps I am stating the obvious, or occluding the necessary.

The pinefox is correct, yes.

Well, I don't think there's much of a "discussion of the poem" going on here, but I think I do know what you mean. But I am a staunch believer that one has to firmly grasp the narrative elements before one can examine what else the language does. For example, I think it's essential to realize that the line "Do I dare eat a peach?" is about growing old and worrying about teeth (or false teeth? I forget if that would be accurate for the time) falling out when one eats a peach. But the peach seems to have symbolism beyond that.

Wow, I have never thought about any potential "symbolism" in the peach; I certainly hope none was intended. Even going so far as noting the similarity between a peach and certain parts of the body reduces the power of that line.

(kidding)

-- Casuistry (chri...), April 26th, 2005.

Maybe "symbolism" is going too far (I don't mean peach=vagina), but eating a peach does at least seem to embody youthful pleasures, lust, etc.

I don't know, I still find the line works best if means he's so waif he's worried about being brought down by a simple piece of fruit. But maybe there is a great "youth"/"peach" connection I'm not thinking of. (I mean, it's not hard to invent why there might be one, but was the connection actually there, or did Eliot make us consider it?)

but also the peach skin maybe refers back to

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!)

I've always assumed he's about Eliot's age was when he wrote the poem: 22.

I'm sure there's a whole dissertation to be written about peaches in literature/popular culture cf Prufrock, Jimmy Corrigan, James and the Giant Peach, The Stranglers, um, the Presidents of the United States of America. Etc.

Mark Adkins
msadkins04@yahoo.com

In a recent interview, noted contemporary poet David Berman claims that TS Eliot's seminal modernist poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is the "Stairway to Heaven" of twentieth century. In fact, the ontological intention behind the poem could be nothing further from this assessment. While Berman's rockist assertion aligns Prufrock with the more or less progressive rock band Led Zeppelin, Eliot instead meant his poem to stand as orphic warning about the evils of progressive rock. Eliot offers Prufrock as a prophetic allegory of the aging prog rock movement whose increasingly banal self-regard betrays the moral bankruptcy of their chief appeal: arrogant virtuosity. In this article I demostrate that Eliot's elliptical lines forecast the minimalism of punk even as Prufrock himself is autopsized as a somnambulent dinosaur prog rock corpse.

In a recent interview, noted contemporary poet David Berman claims that TS Eliot's seminal modernist poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is the "Stairway to Heaven" of twentieth century American poetry. In fact, the ontological intention behind the poem could be nothing further from this assessment. While Berman's rockist assertion aligns Prufrock with the more or less progressive rock band Led Zeppelin, Eliot instead meant his poem to stand as orphic warning about the evils of progressive rock. Eliot offers Prufrock as a prophetic allegory of the aging prog rock movement whose increasingly banal self-regard betrays the moral bankruptcy of their chief appeal: arrogant virtuosity. In this article I demostrate that Eliot's elliptical lines forecast the minimalism of punk even as Prufrock himself is autopsized as a somnambulent dinosaur prog rock corpse.

I think, like others above, that this is only one (probably 'wrong') interpretation. To me the exclamation mark is revelation, not dismay. And yes, nabisco, I totally associate the peach with the fuzz of arm hair too. It's not so much a defect as something that is always there but not always revealed, it's the exciting and tactile reality/corporality as opposed to the mere surface.

Hurting, do you have your "show LoChris, If it is obvious to me, then it is obvious to everyone that your educational credentials are woefully inadequate for the moderation of this board. I suggest you resign immediately and turn over the keys to one of the recently arrived eggheads.

Hurting, do you have your "show Username" option checked?

Anyway, just joshing, Chris.
Just kidding, Josh.

"The poem seems pretty obsessed with 'mundane existance', and this
seems to be where many of the narrator's anxieties lie: There are ...oyster shells...standing water, soot-filled chimneys, make up, toast and tea, stairs to walk down...coats, neckties, and tie pins..."

What an amusing misrepresentation. It's as if a robot, asked to comment on the meaning of a play, reeled off a list of the props.

Casuistry: "[These things are] much more present in the poem than a few tossed off allusions to Dante."

Those things are the outer trappings, the background, like props in a play. The quote from Dante occupies a prominent place at the start of the poem precisely because it foreshadows the poem's content.

The rest of your comments are equally inane and I shall ignore them.

Hm, I'm beginning to understand why this interpretation appeals to you!

Anyway, mostly I'm pleased that you took the time to elide my quote in a seemingly random but time-consuming fashion.

http://www.videovista.net/articles/starman.jpg

I was lead here by the Random Homework Googler Memorial thread.

Beth's discussion of the dead things on the beach seems more interesting than the entire preceding discussion of Prufrock. She was one of the good ones.