"I don't believe one grows older. I think that what happens early on in life is that at a certain age one stands still and stagnates."
T. S. Eliot
"What do we live for; if it is not to make life less difficult to each other?”
T.S. Eliot quote
T.S. Elliot is another author students are well read by the time their senior year in college rolls around. Unlike Faulkner, I enjoy Eliot. He forces you to think beyond just reading the words on the page. He wants you to think about the lines and how they tell a story beyond what you read. In the poem,"The Love Song of Alfred Prufrock" you read about Alfred Prufrock. Alfred sounds to me like a middle aged man lusting after a beautiful woman he may never have. He keeps asking does he dare to "disturb the universe". I feel like telling him to not only disturb the universe, but rock the universe until the heavens start to crack! Alfred needs a good dose of self esteem and a hair transplant. Elliot has a wonderful way of projecting other people's thoughts into the poem as well. "How his hair is growing thin!" I liked "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" just for the fact it made me happy to be a woman.
I think it's interesting that later Prufrock asks himself: "Do I dare to eat a peach (1ine 124)?" Is this what he means by 'disturbing the universe?' Not exactly the boldest act in the world. I think what he really is asking himself, throughout the entire piece, is "do I dare to even exist?" "Do I dare disturb everyone else and everything else by living my life?" And I really like your advice of 'rock the universe until the heavens start to crack!' That's a very memorable way of putting it.
ReplyDeleteMatt Varnell
Yeah, I completely missed the 'peach' comment as a sexual metaphor until Dr. Griffiths said it in class. Maybe because I left that stanza out of my film?
ReplyDelete