Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, The, is an early poem by the American-born poet, critic, and dramatist T. S. Eliot. It was published in 1917 in the small collection Prufrock and Other Observations.
Eliot spent much of his life in London, where he became a British citizen and established himself as a leading poet of the modern era. A student of philosophy, literature, and classical and modern languages, he used literary allusion (indirect reference to other works of literature) in his poetry. His poems bring to mind themes and ideas from other eras. In “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” Eliot alludes to a wide range of authors. But he speaks through the unforgettable persona of a fussy, indecisive man called J. Alfred Prufrock.
S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse A persona che mai tornasse al mondo, Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse. Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’ odo il vero Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo. Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient etherised 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. And indeed there will be time To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?” 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!”) My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin, My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin— (They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”) Do I dare Disturb the universe? In a minute there is time For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. For I have known them all already, known them all— Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons; I know the voices dying with a dying fall Beneath the music from a farther room. So how should I presume? And I have known the eyes already, known them all— The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase, And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin, When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall, Then how should I begin To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways? And how should I presume? 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!) Is it perfume from a dress That makes me so digress? Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl. And should I then presume? And how should I begin? Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? . . . I should have been a pair of ragged claws Scuttling across the floors of silent seas. And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully! Smoothed by long fingers, Asleep . . . tired . . . or it malingers, Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me. Should I, after tea and cakes and ices, Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis? But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed, Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter, I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter; I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, And in short, I was afraid. And would it have been worth it, after all, After the cups, the marmalade, the tea, Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me, Would it have been worth while, To have bitten off the matter with a smile, To have squeezed the universe into a ball To roll it towards some overwhelming question, To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead, Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”— If one, settling a pillow by her head, Should say: “That is not what I meant at all. That is not it, at all.” And would it have been worth it, after all, Would it have been worth while, After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets, After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor— And this, and so much more?— It is impossible to say just what I mean! But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen: Would it have been worth while If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl, And turning toward the window, should say: “That is not it at all, That is not what I meant, at all.” No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be; Am an attendant lord, one that will do To swell a progress, start a scene or two, Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool, Deferential, glad to be of use, Politic, cautious, and meticulous; Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse; At times, indeed, almost ridiculous— Almost, at times, the Fool. I grow old . . . I grow old . . . I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach? I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me. I have seen them riding seaward on the waves Combing the white hair of the waves blown back When the wind blows the water white and black. We have lingered in the chambers of the sea By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
The epigraph (introductory quotation) to the poem comes from the Inferno (1321) by the Italian poet Dante Alighieri. The speaker in the epigraph is an Italian count being punished in Hell for his sins. The count says, “If I thought my answer were to a person who would ever return to the world, this flame would stay without another movement. But since none ever returned alive from this depth, if what I hear is true, I answer without fear of infamy.”
The “love song” of the poem’s title is clearly ironic, for Prufrock is a character who cannot openly express his feelings. He shrinks from approaching his beloved, fearing that she, like every other woman he has known, will reject him. A series of irregular verses, recording the contents of memory and daydream, establish the depth of his insecurity. These fragments sometimes represent his attitudes through metaphor—he becomes a lazy cat, or a retreating crab. At other times, they displace his feelings onto other men, imagined and real. These include “lonely men in shirt-sleeves,” Polonius, Saint John the Baptist, and Lazarus. Prufrock is haunted by the example of Renaissance love poets, who pressed their mistresses to “seize the day.” But Prufrock can do no more than wallow in thoughts of a lonely past and a humiliating future.
Eliot’s poem is written in the form of a dramatic monologue. In this, the poetic speaker is a specific character who addresses another person or an audience though his poem. With Eliot’s poem, an added device is the deliberate lack of clarity about the speaker’s intended audience. Prufrock appears at first to speak directly to a loved companion (“Let us go then, you and I”). But the “you” is soon revealed as a rather uncertain identity. It could be an imagined lover, or perhaps the reader, or even another side of Prufrock’s own split self.
Eliot’s distancing devices in this poem set a standard for modernist lyric poetry. Such poetry is generally regarded as less directly personal than the poetry that came before it. Eliot’s use of other characters in history also makes Prufrock’s plight more universal. Because of this, J. Alfred Prufrock is one of the best-known and most often quoted characters in modern literature.
For more information about Eliot, see Eliot, T. S. See also American literature (Modernist poetry); English literature (Poetry between the wars); Poetry (Beginnings of modern poetry).
