Analysis of The Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock

The love song of J. Alfred Prufrock is a poem written by T. S. Eliot. Reading the title we can understand that the song speaks about love. It is an interior dramatic monologue in which the protagonist J. Alfred Prufrock dialogues with his consciousness. As regard the lay-out it consists of free verses and scenes that can underline better Prufrock’s psychology.  The first part of The love song of J. Alfred Prufrock is an epigraph and it is taken from Divina Commedia and it refers when Dante, the author of Divina Commedia, met Guido da Montefeltro. Guido da Montefeltro and Prufrock have the same role, because Prufrock knows that his thoughts are private and Guido da Montefeltro revealed that he knew that Dante won’t come back to life. In the first scene Eliot speaks about the main character of the poem and its characterization underlines an atmosphere of suffering, loneliness and paralysis in contrast with the words “deserted streets”, ”cheap hotels” and “sawdust restaurants” underline corruption that is a characteristic of Prufrock’s society. After the first scene there is an allusion to crisis of the time. The third scene illustrates the actions of smoke. In the fourth and fifth scene the most important topic is time, that is not eternal. Prufrock needs certainties and he wants reflect about his future. In the song the concept of life has an important function, but to live you must act, but acting involves to have sufferings and responsibilities. This topic makes the reader understands that the song deals with anti-hero, indeed Eliot compares Prufrock with Hamlet, who is the archetype of hero and Ulysses of the Homer’s Odyssey. We understand also that the condition of human beings is linked also with the historical context.