Poetry – my copy downloaded and read on my Kindle during June 2012
#47 of 2011-12 / #168 of All Time
- 4 nods out of 5 –
T.S. Eliot is a man who strikes polarising views: genius or charlatan; talented poet or fraud. He is famous for his modernist, stream of consciousness verse as displayed in the complex, mysterious and fantastic The Wasteland. This collection is one of his earliest; on show are twelve short poems, including the famous The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. Published some 95 years ago, the collection still has the power to divide and to shock. For example, take a look at the readers reviews on Amazon; one 5 star review states it ‘is a delightful read for all poetry lovers’, whilst one 1 star review calls Eliot a ‘pretentious and shallow poet’. Both of these readers – one star struck, the other disgruntled – comment on Eliot’s ability to detail ‘ordinary scenes viewed in extraordinary ways’ or to make ‘very little sound quite big and important’.
The majority of this collection are rather short poems, including Morning at the Window (two verses); the modest The Boston Evening Transcript; Aunt Helen (one verse); Cousin Nancy (three verses); Mr Apollinax (one longer verse, and with the rather bizarre and fantastic line: ‘He laughed like an irresponsible fœtus’); Hysteria (one verse of connected stream of consciousness); Conversation Galante (three short verses); and La Figlia che Piange (again, three short verses). But we are always told it is about quality, not quantity: and this short collection contains a few gems for all readers to tuck into. These include Rhapsody on a Windy Night, Portrait of a Lady and the greatest of all, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.
Prufrock is a fine display of Eliot’s then developing calling card: free verse written in a stream of consciousness. It was a style he would later perfect – in the Worm’s own humble opinion – with The Wasteland. Yet in Prufrock we can see the poet closer to the real world, of the city, of people, of life on the ground floor; rather than the epic disconnection and collapse of The Wasteland. The Worm does not interpret it as a love affair with a woman, but rather a love affair with the narrator’s losing grip of youth, commenting on the passing of his life: ‘For I have known them all already, known them all / Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons / I have measured out my life with coffee spoons’. Allow the Worm to quote the first verse:
‘Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
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
To lead you to an overwhelming question…
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.
And later in the poem:
‘And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That life and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of toast and tea.’
Before ending on a somewhat ominous note:
‘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.’
Undoubtedly, these lines are difficult to interpret; but the words clearly portray the narrator’s frustration with life. Age is slipping away – as referenced by the narrator’s bald spot – lamenting the wasted days and hours and months and years. The noting of playing the Fool hints at the lack of control of his own destiny, a theme also alluded to in the work of Eliot’s modernist contemporaries, including Joyce and Woolf. Such uncertainty can be connected to the despair felt in the second decade of the twentieth century: world war, millions killed, the collapse of the old world; the rise of political extremes and ensuing alienation. Such alienation can be further found in Preludes:
‘You tossed a blanket from the bed,
You lay upon your back, and waited;
You dozed, and watched the night revealing
The thousand sordid images
Of which your soul was constituted;
They flickered against the ceiling.’
Read it here:http://www.bartleby.com/198/
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It is all too easy to dismiss Eliot as a snob, out of sorts with modern life. The poet is bound to street life, as evidenced by the constant description of street lamps providing a rhythm to the lines: ‘Every street lamp that I pass / Beats like a fatalistic drum’ (Rhapsody of a Windy Night). This resignation to the wait of the changing world hints at our inability to escape our destiny, and alongside the modernist movement, Eliot also provides Naturalistic undertones.
Yes, Eliot is dealing with the ordinary: but it is what lurks beneath the ordinary that is so exciting and compelling. This is human nature, and how we interact with one another. It this ability to dig deeper into how the world operates that sets poets and writers apart from the majority of human beings. It is more than obvious that T.S. Eliot has this gift.
The Worm has long been in conflict over the merits of Eliot’s work. However, it must be clear to the most hostile reader that this poet has talent and ability. Furthermore, perhaps due to the stream of consciousness nature, these poems are wonderful to read aloud; something the Worm strongly recommends – nay, commands! For those who want order, they will need to look elsewhere. Eliot’s world is not one for the faint hearted. It is for those who wish adventure and those looking, to quote the Monty Python team, for something completely different.
Read it here:http://www.bartleby.com/198/
Buy it here:
