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T. S Eliot Poetry Analysis

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T.S. Eliot one among the “high modernists” was the pioneer in crafting his poetry in accord with a very modern, existential aesthetical setting. Eliot, Ezra Pound and James Joyce were among the canonical, leading figures of modernist movement in literature. They expressed the “Hollow” in the modern man and depicted the miseries of modern world, “fate of selfhood in time”, “loss of self”, “threats to selfhood” and “squalor of life in big cities and the anonymity that big city life bring with it.” The meaning of life and its subsequent erosion in modern times is often questioned and wondered about in Eliot’s intriguing poetry. His use of imagery and symbolism to extract out the existential aspect of modern life brings out the most crucial and …show more content…

It incorporates within itself the idea of temporal and eternal time. While temporal time is imperfect and fragmented, eternal times has God at its centre and is perfectly precise. We see that the epigraph has Dante’s journey as a symbolic journey and helps readers to expect an impending journey. The image is continuous as we move with Prufrock from street to the hall of women chatting about Michelangelo. “In the room the women come and go/ Talking of Michael Angelo” (Lines 13-14). These in between shifts from the street to the hall of pretentious people are again journeys towards something we know nothing of and Prufrock keeps it to himself throughout. He takes, then, a movement within his soul and comments on the hypocrisy of men and women in modern world. This can be seen as an inner journey which Prufrock will travel through many times in the poem. “There will be time, there will be time/ to prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet” (Lines 26-27) “His supposed journey which is definitely a mental one will not save him from his psychological torture. The streets through which he and his invited companion will pass are half deserted a matter which expresses boredom and

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