Prince Hamlet is supported by loyal followers such as Prufrock, himself happy "to start a scene or two" (116) and to remain "Deferential, glad to be of use" (118). omen are presented in a series of stereotypes of the social set -- they sip tea, talk about art, eat marmalade, and live among porcelain as they pretend that they are more influential than they are. For Prufrock, the singing of the mermaids is a key image identifying the attracting of women as a vital element of youth so that the loss of this ability is a sign of age and decline.
Several references are made to the women as they move through the room:

In the room the women come and go

Talking of Michelangelo (35-36).

The women serve as consumers of art rather than artists themselves, and the reference to Michelangelo is a reference to the great Italian master of art. They…...

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Works Cited

Eliot, T.S. "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." In Literature: An Introduction to Critical Reading, William Vesterman (ed.). New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1993. 522-526.

Grant, Michael. T.S. Eliot: The Critical Heritage. Volume: 1. London: Routledge, 1997.

Headings, Philip R.T.S. Eliot, Revised Edition. Boston: Twayne, 1982.

Kenner, Hugh. The Invisible Poet T.S. Eliot. New York: McDowell, Obolensk, 1959.

Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliott
The opening epigraph from Dante's Inferno in T.S. Eliott's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Pruforck" suggests that Prufrock, like Count Guido da Montefeltro, is giving a visitor a tour of his own personal hell. Also, at the beginning and end of the first stanza, Prufrock invites the reader to go with him to find the answer that he is trying to find. However, it's not yet quite certain what the question really is in the very beginning. Only later does it become clear that Prufrock is seeking to understand the meaning of life and love.

In the first stanza, the references to "half-deserted," "muttering," "restless," "cheap," "tedious," "insidious" suggest Prufrock's isolation and inner turmoil. "Like a patient etherized upon a table" (3) serves two purposes. First, it conveys a patient, someone who is need of help. Secondly, it represents paralysis, the…...

Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, by T.S. Eliot, and the Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost are two poems that imagine how life might be if the narrator had acted differently. However, the two poems are almost opposites in their intent and impact. Eliot's poem is a lamentation over a life not lived, over a failure to act. Frost's poem is a celebration over an unconventional life bravely and boldly. Whereas Eliot's narrator is in despair over his inability to do what he dreams of, Frost's narrator is an inspiration who, after having taken his journey of life, assures us that "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -- / I took the one less traveled by,/And that has made all the difference."
Eliot's poem begins with the narrator suggesting a walk through the evening streets, apparently with the woman he loves. However, his despair and images of…...

The mood is not unlike the effect of the lotus, being a state of languor. The landscape is lush and detailed, the sort of landscape that would be appealing on its own and that visitors would not want to leave for its own sake.
Such description begins as the ship apperoaches the land and Ulysses tells his men to have courage:

In the afternoon they came unto a land

In which it seemed always afternoon.

All round the coast the languid air did swoon,

Breathing like one that hath a weary dream.

Full-faced above the valley stood the moon;

And, like a downward smoke, the slender stream

Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem. (lines 3-9)

Tennyson says this is "A land of streams!" (line 10) and describes those streams and their effects in some detail. After making the appeal of the land clear, Tennyson notes the coming of "The mild-eyed melancholy Lotos-eaters" (line…...

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Works Cited

Grob, Alan. "Tennyson's 'The Lotos-Eaters': Two Versions of Art." Modern Philology, Vol. 62, No. 2 (November 1964), 118-129.

Gurka, John E. "The Voices of Ulysses and Prufrock." The English Journal, Vol. 55, No. 2 (February 1966), 205-207

Halio, Jay L. " 'Prothalamion,' 'Ulysses,' and Intention in Poetry." College English, Vol. 22, No. 6 (Mar., 1961), 390-394.

Lattimore, Richard (tr.). The Odyssey of Homer. New York: Harper Collins, 1967.

The mere fact that these people interact as much as they do is a sign of the blurring of class signs. Also, the image of Gatsby as essentially nouveau riche, is itself a statement indicating interclass mobility. Unlike Steinbeck's story, Fitzgerald's is much more concerned with individual prejudices and stereotypes. In Gatsby, the prejudgments are of the working class against the leisured class. The work also speaks to the utter aimlessness of someone like Gatsby - a man who lives it seems, just for the sake of inoffensive pleasure, but who, at the same time, contributes nothing to the overall society. The unbelievable disconnect between Gatsby's set, and the rest of humanity is captured in an offhand remark of one of his guests, who just happened to find himself in the library, "I've been drunk for about a week now, and I thought it might sober me up to…...

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Works Cited

 http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=25602892 

Pelzer, Linda C. "Honoring an American Classic: Viking's 1989 Edition of John Steinbeck's the Grapes of Wrath (Review)." The Critical Response to John Steinbeck's the Grapes of Wrath. Ed. Heavilin, Barbara a. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2000. 309-311.

John Steinbeck, the Grapes of Wrath, p. 30 www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=25603407

Linda C. Pelzer, "Honoring an American Classic: Viking's 1989 Edition of John Steinbeck's the Grapes of Wrath (Review)," the Critical Response to John Steinbeck's the Grapes of Wrath, ed. Barbara a. Heavilin (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2000) 310.

The image of the fog is significant because the protagonist is comparing himself to the fog in that he skirts along the outside of what is happening. If he is like fog, moving slowly and quietly, he does not have to become involved but can still see what is going on. hen he writes that there will be time to "prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet" (27), he is simply avoiding the issue by putting off the inevitable. The protagonist convinces himself that there will be time to do all that he wants to do, such as "murder and create" (28), and "drop a question on your plate" (30). Allan Burns suggests that the images are important to the reader in that they "underscore Prufrock's low self-esteem: he identifies with the lonely working class men" (Burns 47) and the image of his dead being chopped…...

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Works Cited

Burns, Allan Douglas. Thematic Guide to American Poetry. Santa Barbara: Greenwood

Publishing. 2002.

Eliot, T.S. "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." The Bedford Introduction to Literature.

Boston: Bedford Books of St. Martin's Press. 1993.

Miller and Eliot on Beauty
Comparing and Contrasting "Beauty" in Miller and Eliot

Arthur Miller and T.S. Eliot are two 20th century American playwrights. hile the latter is more commonly noted for expatriating to Britain and writing some of the most memorable poetry of the early 20th century, the former is noted for his famous depiction of the common man's struggle to find meaning and fulfillment in Death of a Salesman. As distinct as the two writers may seem, they both conceive of and treat the theme of beauty -- Miller analyzing its absence in Salesman, and Eliot analyzing its abandonment in several poems like "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" and "The asteland." This paper will compare and contrast both writers and show how they deal with the theme of beauty in their works.

The Absence of Beauty in Salesman and "Prufrock"

Beauty is missing from illy Loman's life in Death of…...

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Works Cited

Aristotle. "Poetics." Internet Classics Archive. Web. 12 Oct 2011.

Barstow, Marjorie. "Oedipus Rex as the Ideal Tragic Hero of Aristotle." The Classical

Weekly 6.1 (1912): 2-4. Print.

Blasing, Mutlu Konuk. American Poetry: The Rhetoric of Its Forms. New Haven: Yale

Gatsby had been feeling guilty for letting Daisy go in favor of him getting the chance to upgrade his social position. Fitzgerald cleverly relates to this at the moment when Gatsby is left behind for a few moments by those was going to have dinner with, leaving Daisy alone and vulnerable. This is proof that time is yet again fleeting, with Gatsby having lost Daisy all over again because of the seconds it took him to get his coat from inside the house.
Time is without doubt passing fast and the best that people can do is to enjoy it while they can. If one were to behave similarly to Gatsby and Prufrock, dedicating all of their time to the search for love, they might never come across it at all. hat is more troubling is that they will not even take advantage of the opportunities that they might get…...

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Works cited:

1. Boodin, John E. "The Concept of Time." The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods, Vol. 2, No. 14 (Jul. 6, 1905), pp. 36.

2. Elliot, T.S. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. Poetry Magazine, 1915.

3. Fitzgerald, F Scott. (1925). "The Great Gatsby." Charles Scribner's Sons.

4. Hartland-Swann, John. "The Concept of Time." The Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 5, No. 18 (Jan., 1955), pp. 1-20.

Modernism)
God, the World, and Literature: The Concept of Social Morality in Modern Literature

Literature, as the primary source of information of people in witnessing and experiencing realities interpreted by the author/writer, is more than a medium that extends messages of reality and experience. Literature is, first and foremost, an expression of thoughts and ideologies that may or may not be agreed upon by the author or his/her characters in the said work. The concept of social morality is such example of these ideologies extended thru literary works. Through literature, writers are able to provide people with varying themes related to the discussion of social morality, offering people avenues wherein morality can be created and developed by the society, and adapted by the individual.

Modern literature boasts itself of this kinds of art -- literary works that depict the life of individuals who were directly affected by their own or their society's…...

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Bibliography

Achebe, C. Things Fall Apart. New York: First Anchor Books, 1994.

Camus, A. The Guest. Available at http://www.geocities.com/su_englit/camus_guest.html.

Eliot, T.S. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. Available at  http://www.cs.amherst.edu/~ccm/prufrock.html .

Yeats, W.B. The Second Coming. Available at  http://www.poets.org/poems/poems.cfm?prmID=1369 .

However, in line with the Paz prompt at the outset of this discussion, Keats merely uses this tradition as a bridge on which to extend toward motivation on behalf of the evolving form. The subject matter is where this work takes a step toward modernity. The manner in which Keats describes the reality of dying is startling for its time primarily because it lacks religiosity. In describing death, the poet tells, "where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies; / here but to think is to be full of sorrow / and leaden-eyed despairs; / here beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, / or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow."
The notion of discussing death from a decidedly humanistic rather than spiritual perspective is more daring and innovative than perhaps we are won't to give credit for. It is remarkable that the poet would invert a steadfastly traditional form…...

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Works Cited:

Dickinson, E. (1862). #303 (the Soul Selects Her Own Society). Poets.org.

Eliot, T.S. (1917). The Love-Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. University of Virginia. Online at  http://people.virginia.edu/~sfr/enam312/prufrock.html 

Keats, J. (1819). Ode to a Nightingale. Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250 -- 1900.

The interpretation of the poem, like the speaker's interpretation of the statue, will likely depend on what he or she feels at the time about his or her own life.
The subjectivity of perception is also evident in the "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot. The speaker of this poem casts his decision to declare or not declare his love in heroic terms, even while he mourns the smallness of his existence, measured out in coffee spoons, in rooms where dull women come and go and talk about the great Leonardo in polite terms. The women, including his beloved, only see the speaker as a balding man, rather than the Hamlet he wishes to be, at the center of a great drama -- and because they see him as a fool, he feels like a fool. However, the contrast between inner and outer reality seen in Rilke…...

This darkness is the poem is the suggestion of death, which Eliot's character contemplates throughout the poem. In fact, the last lines of the poem refer to death. Eliot writes, "We have lingered in the chambers of the sea / By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown / Till human voices wake us, and we drown" (Eliot). Eliot's character knows his life is ending, and love and courtship are far behind him. Marvell's character also contemplates death. Marvell writes, "Time's winged chariot hurrying near; / And yonder all before us lie / Deserts of vast eternity. / Thy beauty shall no more be found, / Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound / My echoing song: then worms shall try / That long preserved virginity, / And your quaint honour turn to dust, / And into ashes all my lust: / The grave's a fine and private place, /…...

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References

Eliot, T.S. "The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock." Bartleby.com. 2005. 8 Aug. 2003.  http://www.bartleby.com/198/1.html 

Marvell, Andrew. "To His Coy Mistress." Bartleby.com. 2005. 8 Aug. 2003  http://www.bartleby.com/101/357.html

Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." Specifically, it will choose one instance of abstraction in the work, and describe what the author is trying to "get at," through that abstraction. What is he trying to suggest? What methods is he using to do so? Does it "work" for you? Why or why not?
Abstraction in Poetry

In "The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock," T.S. Eliot writes in many abstractions, but there is one at the end, which is especially poignant and full of meaning. "I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. / I do not think that they will sing to me. / I have seen them riding seaward on the waves / Combing the white hair of the waves blown back / When the wind blows the water white and black. / We have lingered in the chambers of the sea / By sea-girls wreathed with…...

Minor Characters and Themes
Minor characters in any play act as supporting foils and help to advance the plot. Without these foils, it would be impossible for the play to progress in the way that playwright has envisioned. Besides carrying the play forward, they also help in highlighting the major themes of the literary piece. In almost every piece of fiction, whether a play or short story or novel, we come across certain important minor characters that are minor because while they lend support to the plot, they are not directly influenced by the intentions of the author. The people who remain in the forefront and bear the brunt of all action are the major characters, and thus their in the story is obvious and needs little discussion. However it is the minor characters that need to be closely analyzed or discussed to see why they have been placed in the…...

New Criticism and Eliot's Prufrock
Eliot's use of tone, imagery and symbol in "Prufrock" allows him to create a poem that does two things at once: on the one hand it mocks modern culture and on the other hand it impresses upon the reader the fact that it is okay to reject all of this and search for the deeper somethingness -- that higher question that no one seems to want to ask. This paper will show how the poem uses irony, tone, image and symbol to convey a sense of the emptiness of modern culture to the reader using a seductive, fun, hypnotic way with words.

The tone of Eliot's "Prufrock" is overwhelmingly ironic: the poem plays up the tone of triviality while simultaneously skewering the triviality of the characters it describes. The poem lures the reader to the precipice of sanity -- pointing out the insanity and utter emptiness of…...

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Works Cited

Altieri, Charles. "Objective Image and Act of Mind in Modern Poetry." PMLA, vol. 91,

no. 1 (Jan., 1976): 101-114.

McNamara, Robert. "Prufrock and the Problem of Literacy." Contemporary Literature, vol. 27, no. 3 (Autumn, 1986): 356-377.

Smith, Gerald. "Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." Explicator, vol. 21, no. 2