'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock' by T.S. Eliot - Key Themes and Analysis

[@sath_b]

A good word for describing the persona would be that of a "flaneur." A flaneur was basically a 'street walker'; someone always detached and isolated from everyone else and used to observing life from the outside. Prufrock is quite attuned to modern life that goes outside him, but is paralysed within himself

[@caspergaming4136]

Adding that to my essay!!!

[@thearianatosado]

Boggles my mind how you do this... I've been doing rhetorical analysis (starkly different from poetry analysis, yes) for four years and JUST recently obtained a decent grasp on it. How you analyze so fluently and effortlessly is awe-inspiring and encouraging, and done so thoroughly as well! Awesome video.

[@pollytheparrot46]

All this time I've found this poem incomprehensible. Now I get it.... he was just an incel before social media. Simple, really.

[@jeddle]

😆

[@octoberscamp]

I always think of this poem as expressing the pain and isolation of being an extremely self-conscious person.

[@jeddle]

I love how you framed this; well said!

[@CapinCooke]

Very much agree with you and I would also add indecisive. I have “carried” this poem with me from my late teenage years into my now early 70s. Memorized it. Recited it. Enjoyed the mystery and absolute word smithing beauty of it. There are other personal hooks in Prufrock that are difficult, for me, to write about. I will continue to enjoy this poem “… as I walk along the beach.”

[@troymazzei1140]

it reminds me of "The Underground Man" by Dostoyevsky

[@haticeugur1587]

Thank you so much for this video, the speaker summarized every important detail by giving many examples. İt was very helpful for me. Thanks again!

[@jeddle]

Very kind words; thank you!

[@Telssa1]

No man reading the poem would think the urban landscape was anything other than a backdrop. This is about him feeling excessively self conscious/inferior (despite his best efforts) and hence nervous with women. When/if to take the plunge and propose, only to be told "that's not what I meant at all". What on earth else are the overwhelming questions? He describes the many rituals he has to go through to even get to that point.

[@brendawright5899]

I graduated with an english degree 50 years ago. I studied Chaucer, Spenser, Skakespeare and Milton mostly but I liked the update.

[@6229920905]

He's not "wandering" thru the flipping streets. He knows where he's going.

[@zaid.alabdali]

Simple explanation, thank you from Iraq ✨

[@Jesspetrovaa]

Thank you so much this is very insightful!

[@maryamhabib4123]

From Pakistan 🇵🇰Very well Done .Thank you for the video

[@filippaolrik2836]

Hi, great video, I especially liked your point about Eliot borrowing a "persona" from the symbolist movement. I'm curious as to which other symbolist poets portrayed similar archetypes?

[@Ramesh_Muthusamy]

Wish I had these materials when I was studying.

[@akf2000]

really helpful, thanks

[@junaidmalik3518]

Well explained 👍

[@sulemansuleman4275]

Really excellent

[@bilggesu]

thank you so much

[@attemptedpossession5701]

THANK YOU!

[@misssuraqutaiba1624]

Is this poem about death moral message I mean or what is the moral message exactly? please

[@beingfurqaan]

great ma’am

[@jeddle]

Thank you!

[@stephenwickham8850]

Your analysis of poetic conventions is dead on. However, I think you miss the greater arc of the poem. I assert that it’s a man in, for lack of a better term, mid-life crisis. Also, why do you assume that the “you and I,” are the speaker and the reader? There’s nothing to suggest that.

[@444kasai]

she so pretty

[@JiMMY-my1ds]

Sounds like Eliot was the Red Pill OG!

[@salomonhalziarprague9615]

It very good summary ,themes styles. If we can have the same thing in the waste land.

[@salomonhalziarprague9615]

It will be very good.

[@أحمدإبراهيم-م8ث]

Plz can you help me to talk about disappointment 🥺

[@md.asadulislam3824]

Nice

[@jeddle]

Thank you

[@Sputnick707-ev8sz]

baddie frfr

[@jentacularbudget2287]

Honestly… that was fierce *sob*

[@BGhosh-jh5qt]

"Men with shirt-sleeves" Who is 'men' here

[@pixelpiratepo]

Here's my own rough translation, how I see it anyhow: "Should I then presume? And how should I begin? Shall I say: 'I have gone at dusk through narrow streets and watched the smoke that rises from the pipes of lonely men in shirt sleeves leaning out of windows'?" "Can I presume that she likes me? How would I even ask her out if she did? Should I tell her: 'I've walked around and seen all these lonely, single men and I don't want to be one of them'?" I think the image of the lonely men in shirt sleeves leaning out of windows is being used as a sarcastic suggestion of how he might open a conversation with a potential love interest. It illustrates his feelings of detachment and loneliness and his view of the modern world being detached and lonely - not great pick up line material. Which is why, I think, he follows it up with the self-deprecating remark "I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floors of silent seas." Like saying, "I I'm detached and lonely and I can't even put that aside to talk to women in order to not be detached and lonely - I may as well just be some creature at the bottom of the ocean."