The Lovesong of J.Alfred Prufrock Flashcards
Quote about people involved
Let us go then, you and I
2nd Person language → Suggests distinction
Quote about sky and etherised patient
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Juxtaposition → Contrast of idealism and realism → Chaos + Lost
Quote about the overwhelming question
To lead you to an overwhelming question …
Motif → Ambiguity unanswered → Mediocrity
Quote about making visits
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.
Heroic Couplet → Crappy rhyme → Mediocrity + Pity
Quote about Michelangelo
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
Allusion + fragmentation + nursery rhyme form → A tarnishing of the arts → Mediocrity
Quote about yellow gas
The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the
window-panes.
Zoomorphic language → Nature is being subverted → Chaos
Quote about murdering and creating
There will be time to murder and create
Juxtaposition → human nature is divisive → Chaos + Lost
Quote about indecisions and revisions and whatever
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.
Hyperbole → many ways to waste our time + mundane actions → Mediocrity
Quote about bald spot
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—
[They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”]
Motif + {forget} → insecurity → Mediocrity
Quote about the universe and disturbing
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
Motif + Rhetorical Question → insecurity → Mediocrity
Quote about coffee spoons
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
Imagery → Misery → Mediocrity + Pity
Quote about Kafka (not actually Kafka)
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Imagery → Misery → Mediocrity + Pity
Quote about the sea floor
I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
Imagery → Misery → Mediocrity + Pity
Quote about cakes and ice and crisis
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
Motif + Juxtaposition + Rhetorical Question + Heroic Couplet → Misery → Mediocrity + Pity
Quote about the footman
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat,
and snicker,
Imagery → Misery → Mediocrity + Pity
Quote about not being a prophet
I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
Negative declarative → Misery → Mediocrity
Quote about head on platter
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,
Motif → Insecurity → Mediocrity
Quote about the squeezing the universe into a ball
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
Imagery → Misery → Mediocrity
Quote about it being impossible to say stuff
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
Anacoluthon → Failure of language → Mediocrity
Quote about Hamlet
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Allusion + Diction → Logically wrong to be Hamlet → Mediocrity
Quote about being on the beach
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach
Declarative → Mundanity → Mediocrity
Quote about mermaids not singing to him
I do not think that they will sing to me
Negative Declarative → Imagination fails him → Mediocrity
Quote about drowning
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
Diction → Realism → Mediocrity
