The love song of J. Alfred Prufrock

T. S. Eliot wrote the poem The love song of J. Alfred Prufrock in 1910-1911. In this poem Eliot uses the "dramatic monologue": a poetic narrative technique used to give voice narrator's thought by the "dramatis persona" (in this case the main character Alfred Prufrock). The use of "dramatic monologue" makes the reader able to enter in the character's mind by the representation of his thoughts and feelings. With this narrative technique the narrator takes the distances from the reader. An other narrative technique used by Eliot in this poem is the "stream of consciousness" (the representation of a character's thoughts as they come to his mind) and it is reflected by the poem structure in "free verse".
The first part of the poem is an epigraph that is a canto of Divina Comedia by Dante Alighieri. It refers to the meeting between Dante and Guido da Montefeltro.
Prufrock is like Guido da Montefeltro because they both think their confessions will remain secret.

So the poem is composed by an epigraph and nineteen stanzas.
Eliot introduces the reader into the poem just from the first verses: "Let us go then, you and I" and "let us go and make our visit". In the second stanza Eliot analyzes his contemporary society and its crisis. The second stanza ("In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo")
is the song refrain and it is also represented also in the fifth stanza.
The crisis of society is also represent in the third and fourth stanzas through the imagines of fog and smoke. In the sixth stanza Eliot develops the theme of the pass of the time: "They will say: "How his hair is growing thin!" and "They will say: "But how his arms and legs are thin!".
The passing of time is also expressed in the tenth stanza. In the other stanzas the themes are the passing of time and incapacity of Prufrock to act and they are expressed through a list of thing that he has never done. The incapacity to live and to love is also expressed through the comparison between the common man Prufrock and the Shakespearean hero Hamlet.