The Lovesong Of J Alfred Prufrock And Preludes

The presence of a keenly aware, yet troubled observer in T.S Eliot’s poetry draws deep connections to Jeanette Winterson's psychological profile of the suffering modernist poet, and opens doors into his nihilist views upon life that were developed through his highly confronting experiences. As seen in his poems, Eliot’s construction of the persona, who is reflective of his own nature, acts as a vehicle of expression for the disconcerting examinations he made concerning: humanity’s lack of identity and spirituality in a secular society and the cyclical nature of suffering inherent in human existence. The exploration of these universal ideas in the notable poetry of Eliot, particularly The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915) and Preludes

Alfred Prufrock and Preludes, both of which are characterised by a keen awareness of minute details as well as incredible sensitivity towards situations and people, definitively reflects Jeanette Winterson’s psychological profile of T.S Eliot. Her notion that Eliot’s proficiency with language meant that his poems were not in any sense a screen for passive observation, but a porous membrane in which his suffering could be alleviated and diffused through the form of poetry, whilst simultaneously allowing responders to enter and empathise with Eliot’s experiences and emotions. This coincides with Thomas J. Morrissey’s critical essay on the personas in Eliot’s poetry, as he wrote that “to experience the poems, therefore, is to discern the speakers’ struggles, struggles which can be heard in the voices of the narrators”. Furthermore, the personas are connected through their fascination with time, as seen in Preludes and the repeated phrase “there will be time” in The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, which is an allusion to Andrew Marvell's poem To His Coy Mistress (1621 - 1678). The allusion is ironic in nature as the poem conveys the importance of taking opportunities and ‘seizing the day’, yet Prufrock’s inner despair and suffering is the result of continual indecision. It is through this conceptual connection that Prufrock essentially accompanies the prostitute, the homeless person and the unidentified persona in Preludes as a witness to this recurrent suffering. Additionally, the unknown persona has also observed the lack of identity and spirituality in his own reality, where the common people are described as “masquerades” rushing “to early coffee stands” in the second prelude - the masquerades being metonymic of the facades that rob people of individual identity. Yet as Roger Mitchell writes of Eliot and the modernist poets that “they see the world and themselves with unflattering exactness”, they “cannot or will