For Wednesday, February 26

Answer six (6) of the  following questions regarding "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."  (That equals one question a night until I see you next.)  Write in paragraph form/complete sentences.  Try to think of your answers as quotation sandwiches:  set up context, cite the poem, interpret your citation.  Dig deep and this will be an excellent exercise in analytical thinking and writing.

SKILL FOCUS:  DETAIL
1.  How does Eliot set the tone in the poem's first stanza?  Look carefully at both the figurative language and the concrete details.
SKILL FOCUS:  IMAGERY


2.  Eliot depends on the emotional associations of his images, what he called the "objective correlative," to reveal aspects of Prufrock's personality.  In the first stanza, what emotions do you associate with images such as "patient etherized on a table" or "one-night cheap hotels"?
SKILL FOCUS:  DETAIL/IMAGERY/FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE
3.  Prufrock is a deeply self-conscious character.  Explain the various ways that characteristic is developed in lines 37-72.  Consider especially lines 55-58, in which Prufrock imagines himself pinned like a specimen to a wall.  (You could probably write an entire essay on the associations made between Prufrock's physical descriptions and their connection to his emotional state.)
SKILL FOCUS:  REPETITION
4.  From line 37-87, twelve lines begin with "And."  What does the repetition of this conjunction suggest about Prufrock's mental state?  Consider in your study of repetition the word "known" in lines 49-49.
SKILL FOCUS:  SYNTAX
5.  What is the effect of the semi-colons and ellipses in lines 111-121?  What do they tell you about Prufrock's state of mind?
SKILL FOCUS:  SYNTAX
6.  Eliot uses the technique of enjambment, or run on lines.  An example is in the lines 5-9:  "The muttering retreats / Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels / And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: / Streets that follow like a tedious argument / Of insidious intent."  How does this technique help create the alienating quality of the city scene that's set in the first 22 lines.
SKILL FOCUS:  ALLUSION
7.  In line 111, Prufrock readily admits he is no Hamlet.  What might have led the reader to believe that Prufrock and Hamlet share characteristics?  (Be specific)  What characteristics of Hamlet does Prufrock claim not to have?
SKILL FOCUS:  DETAIL
8.  Details such as Prufrock's assertion that he will "wear the bottom of his trousers rolled" or his question about whether he should "dare to eat a peach" have been interpreted in many ways.  Some say it's about his age or "oldness"; others say it is about his nervousness around women.  Consider several possibilities.  How does each add to the portrait of Prufrock and the multiple meanings of Eliot's poem?
SKILL FOCUS:  ALLUSION
9.  In the last six lines of this poem for a sestet (6 lines), the form that both ends the traditional Petrarchan sonnet and offers a solution for the problem or conflict set out in the first eight liens (the octave).  The poet Petrarch wrote about his unrequited love for Laura, but Prufrock doesn't even have an unrequited love.  Do these last six lines offer any solutions?  How does the image of mermaids continue some of the poem's motifs?  What does it mean that Prufrock invites the reader to drown with him at the end of the poem?
SKILL FOCUS:  REPETITION
10.  In what ways is "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" a poem about time?  Read through the poem and look for references to time, including aging, the meaning of time, and the word time itself.  What conclusions can you draw about the way Eliot thinks about time?
SKILL FOCUS:  REPETITION
11.  Highlight every reference to question/questions, as well as, every question asked.  Do you see any connections?  What conclusions do you deduce from this analysis of "the questions"?