The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock


This is London, a statue of whom many believe to be J. Alfred Prufrock, the fictional character from one of TS Eliot's most famous poems. The following is an excerpt. This is a poem that you will be responsible for your first week of class. It was published in 1915 and was immensely popular "across the pond" as well as here in the US. Both the English and the Americans claim Eliot as their own, but considering that he was born in Ohio, I think the answer is clear. We'll be talking about Eliot a lot, and for you in APIII we will be studying the man, his theories and his poetry. Our course begins in the 1920s, where Eliot fits right in. APIV will be attacking this poem as well. If you read this before class begins, a great headstart will be to research the poem.


S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo
Questa fiamma staria sensa piu scosse.
Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero
Sensa tema d’infamia ti rispondo.


Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question . . .
Oh, do not ask, ‘What is it?’
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.


Note the detail in the leaves, but more specifically note the eye watching over Prufrock in the corner.