Notes of the 13^th of March 2012

Essay from the book Se una mattina d’estate un bambino by Roberto Cotroneo (ed. Frassinelli). The title is Prufrock and other observation and speaks about The Love Song of John Alfred Prufrock, a poem written by T. S. Eliot around 1905 and published in 1917.  It’s a complicate poem who deals with a complicate character, even the title is difficult. The story is about J. Alfred Prufrock, a middle-aged man who is not able to take decisions, and he doesn’t dare because he fears the consequences of his actions. The poem’s setting is a city (it refers to streets); it can appear a traditional poem. Analyzing the lyric from the structural point of view there’s an epigraph at the beginning that is a quotation from Dante's Inferno and rhyming refrains are inserted. The description of the setting is leaded throughout cats movements that is jumping into the fog, that is anthropomorphized. The description appeals to the reader’s senses. Everything is immaterial and immobile and is the sign of the paralysis. The character (Prufrock) is also paralyzed, like Joyce’s characters: he has a secret (he’s in love) that he can reveal only to his conscience. Indeed the lyric is an interior monologue. Mr. Eliot criticizes this attitude (he thinks is better to act in any case). Prufrock knows he should do something but he’s not able to do it, he postpones. Time passes throughout his conscience and his inability to act. Prufrock’s characterization occurs from an external point of view: he’s getting old, his hair are fallen. He wishes other people knows him only from his appearance.