eliot quotes Flashcards
prufrock - stagnancy
“like a patient etherized upon a table”
“do I dare disturb the universe?”
“I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;”
“I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floors of silent seas.”
“in the room the women come and go talking of Michelangelo”
allusion to Renaissance artist
assonance to show that there is not much substance and not much meaning to the reference
refrain
bourgeois society
prufrock - superficiality
“in the room the women come and go talking of Michelangelo”
“to prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet”
“one-night cheap hotels” “sawdust restaurants” “oyster-shells”
prufrock - futile
“till human voices wake us, and we drown”
“one-night cheap hotels” “sawdust restaurants” “oyster-shells”
objective correlative - symbolises a desperate search for meaning that results in futile decadence as Prufrock is faced with superficiality
“to prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet”
chiasmus - demonstrates Prufrock’s acute awareness of how he presents himself and how the bourgeois (people of high society) are adopting facades resulting in superficial interactions
“like a patient etherized upon a table”
simile - conveys stagnancy and paralysis, suggesting that the modern man is within a liminal space of change
“do I dare disturb the universe?”
hyperbolic - compares entering a room to be like the universe, acute awareness, overthinking, fear of judgement, leads to stagnancy
“I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;”
metaphor/hyperbole - Eliot references Bergsonian time measurement, alluding to Prufrock’s hypersensitivity about aspects of his life and fearing the opinions of others resulting in his paralysis
“I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floors of silent seas.”
zoomorphism - the characteristics of a crab only able to have movement sideways reflects the behaviour of Prufrock who hesitates and fails to move forwards as a result of his insecurity and indecision
“till human voices wake us, and we drown”
metaphor - underscores the suffocation experienced as a result of modernity, detained in a liminal space paralysed by anxiety, this ultimately illuminates the squalor of modernity by highlighting the profound neglect of the human psyche.
rhapsody - isolation
temporal references “twelve o’clock”
“as a madman shakes a dead geranium”
“old crab… gripped the end of a stick which I held him”
“her hand twists a paper rose”
the hollow men - loss of spirituality/hopelessness
“form prayers to broken stone”
“this broken jaw of our lost kindoms”
“For thine is life is for thine is the”
“valley of dying stars”
“we are the hollow men we are the stuffed men”
rhapsody - decay of the modern world physically + morally
“remark the cat… devours a morsel of rancid butter”
“nothing behind that child’s eye”
“a washed-out smallpox cracks her face”
“the last twist of the knife”
epigraph from Dante’s Inferno
provides a sense of loss, hopelessness and isolation, sets the tone of the poem
Prufrock - eponymous speaker/flaneur figure, dramatic monologue
provides a link to the modern man of modern society while also representing Eliot’s own interpretations of his society.
subversion of poetic form of Romanticism era
reacts to the era, contrasts the hopeful, ethereal nature of depicted things and confronts audience with the decadence of modern society in ruins due to industrialisation, superficiality in individuals, loss of spirituality
subversion of pentaptych structure
subverts the traditional values and confronts with loss of spirituality
“as a madman shakes a dead geranium”
the simile suggests a futile desperation where the geranium is “characterised by their ability to survive harsh conditons” from Laforgue 1886 however this gernium is dead symbolising hopelessness
“an old crab… gripped the end of a stick which I held him”
crab is an icon of modern identity, where there is a sense of desperation to survive and need for support and yet there is a superficial connection between the two
“her hand twists a paper rose”
symbolism - of love and beauty and femininity however is subverted by the ephemeral connotation of “paper” denoting Eliot’s subversion of Romanticism criticising it as meaningless
“form prayers to broken stone”
symbolism - futile attempt at transcending and regaining spiritual faith as there they are praying to false idols and lacks authenticity
“this broken jaw of our lost kingdoms”
intertextual allusion to the book ‘The Golden Bough’ - where the use of the jawbone of a diseased king is an effigy to provide hope however Eliot subverts this by revealing that there is no hope for the spiritually dispossessed.
“For thine is life is for thine is the”
fragmented syntax - non-sensical phrasing suggests meaninglessness and emptiness and a result of their spiritual emptiness
“valley of dying stars”
biblical allusion to psalm 23 “valley in shadow of death” - reveals that there is no comfort or spiritual salvation for these modern men.
“we are the hollow men we are the stuffed men”
repetition - instils the concept that the modern men are unreal souls in a state of existential loss and are in a liminal space between death and heaven as a result of their spiritual emptiness
“remark the cat… devours a morsel of rancid butter”
gustatory imagery - depicting the base nature of beings in a world where there is a desperation for sustenance and no space for comfort
“nothing behind that child’s eye”
biblical reference to Matthew, “the eye is the lamp of the body”
- shows soulessness and a lack of morality and acts as criticism to the modern world
“a washed-out smallpox cracks her face”
anti-aesthetic imagery - referencing the decadence of the modern world, plagued by disease and grotesque images
“the last twist of the knife”
visceral imagery - death, torture, metaphorical death of the human soul as a result of the monotony of the modern world
the hollow men - isolation
“rat’s coat crowskin, crossed staves”
“lips that would kiss form prayers to broken stone”
“life is very long”
reference to heart of darkness - sense of exhaustion and endless suffering caused by a lack of spiritual suffering
