INTRODUCTION
T.S Eliot wrote The Love song of Alfred J. Prufrock while he was still at Harvard at the age of twenty two. While it was published only five years later when he was in Munich, the poem survived the test of time to become highly celebrated, all across the world. What we now know as the modernist era also witnessed the emergence of the new field of psychology alongside major changes in writing. The most influential psychological innovator at this time was without doubt, Sigmund Freud. The Austrian’s several experiments to fathom the human mind had led to the springing up of several psychoanalytical institutes starting 1910, the same year the poem was published. It was Freud that developed what would soon come to be known as the science of psychoanalysis and his early techniques of focused on hypnosis, although he soon developed a new
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Similiarly, though a literary text or a poem may bot speak of real events, it is still based on experiences and the authors own conscious that he bestows upon the character. Dreams and Literature are both different means of exploration of one’s own internal thoughts, fantasies and fears. And while the poet translates his own experiences into words for a poem, a psychotherapist relies solely on the patient’s own account for his therapy. Both dreams and poetry have multiple layers that require further delving to completely understand, even if they might seem outrightly obvious.
The narrative of some poetry, including TLS is very similar to the unfolding of a session of psychoanalysis. Just like the poet translates his own experience and memory into words in a poem, the patients verbal account of his own experiences is what a psychotherapist relies on. “They both involve a translating of the consciousness into the semiotics of communicable language systems.” (CITE