Essay for Modern Poetry

A traditionalist reading of The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock holds that the poem is about meaning in a socially shallow world, middle age, and the general sense of life unfulfilled due to indecision and self-conscious concerns. This is, in a deconstruction of the poem, only one reflection of the shattered mirror of Eliot's work. The conception of this idea of Prufrock, as a shallow man, one fraught with anxiety, also allows for a distinctive mirror reading of the tone which places the narrator as a sardonic man of deep thought and deeper frustration. Beyond these questions of basic communication is also the conceptualization of Prufrock as an experience, a poem of cumulative imagery and word sounds, both narration, hesitation, and the space in between. By tracing the ever changing possible connotative meanings within this text, one stops looking at a broken glass, and more to something akin to a river of mercury, or fast moving stream; the language moves like water, providing constant reflections and refractions. Still, it is possible from a personal perspective to trace several paths for the effects of the poem. Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock must also be considered in a system inclusive of other works such as The Cocktail Hour, and (Insert Poem), works which allow deeper and sometimes more definite insight to T.S. Eliot's idea and values.

Yeah, Eliot. This is what I enjoy doing in my spare time. The essay turned out better than it should have, considering what I set out to do...