"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot

Symbolism was a middle to late 19th century artistic and intellectual movement than served as a link between the romantic and modernist movements. Originating in French, Russian, and Belgian poetry and other arts, most notably with the publication of poetry collection Les Fleurs du Mal (The Flowers of Evil, 1857) by Charles Baudelaire, symbolism was largely a reaction against naturalism and realism, advocating for the depiction of ideals and transcendence in the arts and literature as opposed to the harsh realities of daily life. In their yearning for transcendence, symbolists often stressed imagination and dreamlike, surrealistic settings and made extensive use of metaphors and symbols in their works, thus the name "symbolism." Renowned symbolists include Oscar Wilde, Arthur Symons, W.B. Yeats, and T.S. Eliot.

For this blog, I chose to analyze the poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot in the context of its overall meaning and its compatibility with symbolist ideas and motives. This poem, like many by Eliot, is extremely difficult to comprehend. This attribute is typical of symbolist works; after all, as previously mentioned, symbolists sought to imply ideas through symbols, so a great deal of their work is highly obscure in meaning. Nonetheless, from what I understand, I believe that "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" concerns humanity's social and psychological state in the modern world, more specifically men's social and psychological state in the modern world. This poem was written in either 1910 or 1911, during a transitionary period in which Americans began to renounce the puritanical morals of the Victorian Era in favor of the decadence and debauchery characteristic of the Jazz Age that would soon follow. The women's suffrage movement was also beginning to gain various successes across America at this time while the horrors of World War I would soon be unleashed upon an unsuspecting world. In essence, the United States in the early 20th century was undergoing dramatic societal change, which Eliot attempts to capture in "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." The speaker of this poem, according to Eliot's perspective, is the ordinary modern man, educated (to at least some degree), conflicted, hesitant, and anxious of the change that is occurring around him, yet totally unable to prevent such change from coming to fruition. Throughout the poem, Prufrock seems to be addressing a woman he loves, a woman who apparently does not share his feelings of affection. Though he would like for his relationship to the woman to progress, Prufrock is afraid of possible rejection, stating his many inadequacies as evidence that there could never exist any sincere relationship between him and the woman: "Time to turn back and descend the stair, / With a bald spot in the middle of my hair-- / (They will say: 'How his hair is growing thin.' / ...(They will say: 'But how his arms and legs are thin.')." By the end of the poem, Prufrock concludes that he is only mediocre in status--that he is "not Prince Hamlet"--and is therefore unworthy of the woman's love.

Through Prufrock and other symbolic imagery, Eliot conveys the increasing fragility and emasculation of the modern American man in the early 20th century as a result of drastic society changes occurring during this time. The poem in its entirety embodies the characteristics of the symbolist movement due to its extensive sue of metaphorical imagery and idealistic lamentations.