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Analysis of T.S. Eliot's The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock

The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock consists of an epigraph and twenty stanzas with different length.

According to the title, the reader expects the song to be a declaration of love to a woman by a certain man called Alfred Prufrock.

The epigraph is an extract from Canto XXVII Inferno in Dante's La Divina Commedia. In particular, it  reports part of the dialogue between Guido da Montefeltro and Dante. The damned declares his intention to answer Dante's question since he is sure that his interlocutor will not come back to life and, as a consequence, their dialogue will remain a secret. 

The reader feels floored because of the quotation from Hell in a song about Love, but he can  read the epigraph as a will of Mr. Prufrock: maybe he wants his declaration of love to be secret.

The first stanza opens with an exhortation to an unspecified addressee (you) to run away in the dusk. It seems the typical proposal of a love escape to a lover in the romantic nocturnal landscape, but to tell the truth the idyllic image crushes thanks to the grotesque simile in line three: the evening is compared to a body prepared for a postmortem examination. As a consequence, the reader does no more associate sweetness, easement and tranquility but rather coldness an anxiety to the evening. The other images chosen (one-night cheap hotels, sawdust restaurants, half-desert streets) add a sense of loneliness, carelessness an squalor to the lines. The expectations of the reader have not been satisfied: to tell the truth, the "you" seems to be the conscience of mr.Prufrock and the love song becomes a dramatic monologue, arranged into juxtaposed scenes and images. The image of winding and dark streets, for example, is associated with the idea of a recurring and crucial question without answer:  the device raises curiosity in the reader and the writer keeps it high writing do not ask "What is it?" Let us go and make our visit. In this way, the writer seems to come to a pact with the reader: only if he follows him, he will probably know what the question is. Right from the start, the reader feels involved and the speaking voice seems to be really smart: he knows how to keep the attention of the reader high and divert him, letting all his conjectures and hypothesis crush.

The second stanza seems to be a sort of refrain, since it is repeated after the fourth stanza. It consists of an image that apparently has nothing to do with those of the first stanza: women moving in a room and discussing about Michelangelo. The absence of details (which room? who are the women? why are they talking about Michelangelo?) requires the reader to make conjectures. The juxtaposition of the verbs to come and to go gives the idea of frenzy and chaos and, as a consequence, the talking seems to be a gossip rather than a debate.

The third stanza illustrates the actions of smoke and fog: it seems as if they were a cat (rubs its back, licked its tongue, slipped, curled, fell asleep) who moves nimbly everywhere. The sinuosity of the cat's stride is rented through the use of rhyme (leap asleep, panes drains) and alliteration (licked, lingered; slipped, sudden, seeing).

The beginning of the fourth stanza is an expansion of the third one: the writer proposes again the image of the smoke-cat, adding and repeating there will be time. The expression unveils the sense of procrastination and the fear of life of the subject, who tries to convince himself that he is not late, that he can still wear a mask to face the hypocrisy all around him (line 27), make something new and delete what he does not like and have enough time to ask himself questions, come to pacts with his conscience, reflect and change his mind before relaxing (taking of a toast and tea, the expression could also hint at death). In a way, it seems as if the speaking voice were really fragile: he needs certainties about his freedom to make choices, his distance from death and his ability to succeed in life and he tries to find them talking to his own conscience.  

In the sixth stanza, the speaking voice puts himself to test, asking several times  "Do I dare?".  To dare implies a further conception of time: the minute. In a minute you can make a choice and change your mind. Again, the reader feels the sense of indecision and inappropriateness of the character and the shortness of the minute creates an oxymoron with the last of the old age, evocated through the images of baldness and  weak body. The presence of a second voice (that of people) is really interesting: it gives the reader the idea of someone who is really interested in what the other people think about him, a weak person.

In the seventh stanza the fragility of the speaking voice seems o disappear: on the contrary, he seems to be almost omniscient, according to the repetition of the verb I have known and I have measured in the lines. In the stanza time is measured with coffee spoons as well as parts of the day (evenings, mornings, afternoons) and the narrator uses the language of sense impression, appealing to hearing (voices, music), sight (eyes),  touch (arms) and smell (perfume). Thoughts and images follow in his mind without an explicit bound: maybe the steadiness of the eyes reminded him of a pin and the pin of puncture and the puncture of the re-flection on his days and ways. Arms are described listing the different ways in which they appear (braceleted, white and bare); the clarification in the parenthesis seems to hint at the difference between appearance (bareness) and reality (presence of hair). The reflection about arms is disturbed by the solicitation of smell (is it perfume from a dress that makes me so digress?). As the reader can note in the second half of the stanza, I have known is replaced by questions like how should I presume? how should I begin?: again doubt harasses the speaking voice.

The eight stanza consists of a thought in the interrogative form, built up with images taken from the other stanzas (dusk, streets, smoke, window). The speaking voice reflects on one of the forms he could have assumed and the idea of the ragged claws is reproduced on the phonological level through the use of harsh sounds (pair, ragged) and double sounds (ragged, scuttling, across).

On the contrary, the ninth stanza begins with soft sounds (afternoon, sleeps, smoothed), the adverb peacefully and the adjectives asleep and tired but suddenly (line 77) the rhythm becomes pressing, words are short (her, you, me, ice, cake, tea) and the matter is strength and force. After that, in line 81, there is some rest again (verbs weep, fast, pray) and the reader focuses his attention on the macabre image of the head upon a platter. In the last lines of the stanza the speaking voice reflects on his knowledge: he is not a prophet but he can see his fragility (line 84) and it seems as if he faced Death (the eternal Footman). Since he is a man and not a prophet, nor an hero he was afraid. In the declaration, the speaking voice becomes more aware about his human nature.

In the tenth stanza the precariousness of the human nature can be seen from the inability of the speaker to say just what he means: the long list he makes of food, clothes, details, objects and quotations is vane. In line 92 the leitmotiv of the overwhelming question comes to the fore front again, while the quotation by Lazarus in the following line reminds the reader of the quotation from Guido da Montefeltro. They all regard the contradictory and multiple relationship between language and thing (signifier and signified), also underlined by the repetition of "That is not it at all, That is not what I meant, at all". Other leitmotivs figure in the stanza: shawl, window, teacups. Shawl and window form a sort of oxymoron: on the symbolic level a shawl is something that covers and trans-figures reality while the window stands for light, frankness and, as a consequence, truth.

Truth is the main theme of the following stanza: the speaking voice reflects on his role and character, through a comparison between the metaphor of Hamlet (a prince, a leader, a hero, the one who makes a choice) and that of the Fool (someone ridiculous and ninny); he feels very similar to the fool. Moreover, he feels he is getting older and thinks about old age through images (parted hair behind, white flannel rolled trousers, walks upon the beach). The most interesting association to old age is I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. From one side, it hints at the experience of old people but on the other side the mermaids' song may represent the call of death. Moreover, it seems as if the speaking voice refused such an interpretation (line 125), as if death did not regard him.

The last stanza is a description of the mermaids. It is really effective because of the appeal to natural elements (waves, wind, seaweed) and the focus on colors (black, white, red, brown) and it seems as if the speaker were peeking at the sea-girls. His provocation reminds the reader of Homer's Ulysses but differently from the Odyssey, in the song there is not success: we drown. The epilogue of the song is thus dramatic: the lover is not a hero and, despite the reader's expectations, the song is not about the celebration of love but the anxious trip to death.