critical study of literature Flashcards
T.S. Eliot: Selected Poems
what is the context of T.S. Eliot?
T.S. Eliot was a 20th century poet, who wrote from a Modernist perspective in direct contrast to the dreamy, spiritual language of the Romantics, following World War I and the Industrial Revolution in Europe; Eliot’s writing is interesting as it follows a linear path from his early career- when he was suffering from a highly existential and contemplative perspective on life- to later in his life, when he found himself a newborn Christian
what is ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ about?
‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ is narrated by the titular character, and follows his thought process as he walks along a street, contemplating topics of love and women; in the poem, Eliot consistently references Dante’s ‘Inferno’ and the Bible, thus showing how Prufrock’s mental spiral is leading him into Hell
what are some literary features of ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’?
- fragmentation
- juxtaposition
- free verse
- irregular rhyming
what are some key quotes from ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’?
- “The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes, / The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes / Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening.”
- There will be time, there will be time / To prepare a face to meet the faces you meet;”
- “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons; / I know the voices dying with a dying fall / Beneath the music from a farther room.”
what are some key pieces of imagery from ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’?
- yellow fog
- cats
- time
- women
- crabs
what have critics said about ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’?
Robert McNamara, ‘“Prufrock” and the Problem of Literary Narcissism’: “Prufrock, […], is not to be taken as the source of voice of affectively grounded truth: he is, rather, a constructed voice, one capable of powerful evocations of mood, and as well the object of an analysis that begins to sort out the particular objects and feelings that are blurred into these moments of totalising mood:”
what is ‘Preludes’ about?
‘Preludes’ is set across the span of a day through four vignettes, through a circular narrative, and speaks to the drudgery, waste, and isolation of modern urban life through its narrator
what are some literary features of ‘Preludes’?
- iambic tetrameter
- rhyme/rhythm
- first-person
- irony
what are some key quotes from ‘Preludes’?
- “Sawdust trampled street with all its muddy feet”
- “Grimy scraps… withered leaves… newspapers from vacant lots… broken blinds”
- “Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh; / The worlds revolve like ancient women / Gathering fuel in vacant lots.”
what are some key pieces of imagery from ‘Preludes’?
- feet
- women
- urbanity
- weather
what have critics said about ‘Preludes’?
A.A. Mendilow, ‘T.S. Eliot’s “Long Unlovely Street”’: “in the Preludes [Eliot] rejected ‘the vision of… the glory’. He was not yet ready to follow up his premonitory glimpses of an ‘infinitely gentle infinitely suffering thing’.”
what is ‘Rhapsody on a Windy Night’ about?
‘Rhapsody on a Windy Night’ takes the reader on a journey of the mind of a man as he walks along an urban landscape in the middle of the night, across five vignettes, written as a visualisation of an individual’s attempts to relocate a sense of stability amid the uncertainty of modernity
what are some literary features from ‘Rhapsody on a Windy Night’?
- personification
- repetition
- fragmentation
- polysyndeton
what are some key quotes from ‘Rhapsody on a Windy Night’?
- “Regard the moon / La lune ne garde aucune rancune,”
- “The lamp sputtered, / The lamp muttered in the dark.”
- “A crowd of twisted things; / A twisted branch upon the beach”
what are some key pieces of imagery from ‘Rhapsody on a Windy Night’?
- memory
- time
- twisted objects
- crabs
- cats
- children
