By Ratan Bhattacharjee
Fifty years ago the poet T.S Eliot passed away. One hundred years ago, he made his literary debut with the much debated poem The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock.
Eliot began writing The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock in February 1910 and was first published in the June issue of Poetry. It was later printed as part of a twelve-poem pamphlet titled Prufrock and Other Observations in 1917.
Nearly 100 years ago when The Love Song of Alfred J Prufrock was published, Eliot was himself barely out of his teens uncannily in touch with the exquisite torments of hypersensitive youth.
On the surface the poem relays the thoughts of a sexually frustrated middle-aged man. But on a deeper level focuses on a teenage wasteland in which Eliot lived. The spirit of Eliot’s poem is irreverent. It is a picture of dystopia. Disorientation of language only highlights churned up dreams, thwarted desires, ageing and decay which heralds paradigmatic cultural shift from the late 19th Romantic verse and Georgian lyrics.
Prufrock’s monologue reveals meaningless of existence in the modern world and inability of modern man to live without being disillusioned. Random thoughts at interval epitomise impotence of a modern individual. Overall impression that prevails is that it is a drama of anguish.
Evening in this poem is spread out against the sky like a patient etherised upon a table. The poet speaks of ‘sawdust restaurants’ and cheap hotels, yellow fog and the afternoon.
Other images show the poet’s concern for ageing and senility. Eliot’s poetic predecessors in America and England emphasised on personal emotion and private thoughts, but in this poem the romantic mode is abandoned.
The poem was so profound that it drew attention of Ezra Pound, overseas Editor of Poetry Magazine who recommended to Harriet Monroe, the magazine’s founder to publish the poem.
The poem tolled the death knell for Georgian poety. Physical and intellectual inertia of modern life is depicted in an innovative way through the character of a middle-aged man.
The disillusionment of post-war generation is so graphic in this poem. It is obscure not because nothing is understood, but rather for the opposite reason that there are so many meanings amalgamated and multiple dimensions added , that it is not to be understood at all.
Today if you ask readers to name 20th century’s greatest short poem, the answer would be Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock which is more than erotic dithering in spite of the lines: “I have heard mermaids singing each to each /I do not think they will sing to me”.
Eliot was labelled anti-Semitic and elitist and as a man suffering from psychological disorders in conjugal life as he and Vivian had tough times of misunderstanding.
No one will remember or will show curiosity about his Harvard days where he left behind his bittersweet love Emily Hale, ‘coldly marmoreal’ as Robert Crawford in his book Young Eliot describes her.
Eliot grew up in a family of preachers and educators and was reserved. He was the physically delicate boy who never played sports and was more passive for his double hernia. His adolescence was shattered because of shyness and acute anxiety about his body image, and was never happy with his social relations.
Away from home he loafed as a boy of mediocre grade, frequented music halls and joined dining clubs and secret societies.
Finally when he found his true voice in poetry, all facts of his own life were crushed into impersonal musings and a great poem was written.
(The author is Associate Professor and Head of PG English, Dum Dum Motijheel College, Kolkata. He may be reached at profratanbhattacharjee.com)
