TS Eliot Quote Analysis Flashcards
THE LOVE SONG OF J ALFRED PRUFROCK
“Like a patient etherised upon a table”
- Simile evoking powerless imagery
* Image of hospitalised drugged patient
THE LOVE SONG OF J ALFRED PRUFROCK
“Women come and go / Talking of Michelangelo”
- Recurring motif
* Rhyming couplet reflects his own views on gender ideals (superficiality)
THE LOVE SONG OF J ALFRED PRUFROCK
“Michelangelo”
- Allusion to works of Michelangelo
* ‘David’ reflects archetype of male beauty/strength/masculinity (immeasurable worth)
RHAPSODY ON A WINTER NIGHT
“Mutter”, “regard” and “remark”
- Auditory imagery
- Personifying lamps as authorial figure which provoke memories
- Metaphor alluding to modernity/industrial revolution - corruption
RHAPSODY ON A WINTER NIGHT
“Crabs”
• Modern society symbolised through:
RHAPSODY ON A WINTER NIGHT
“An old crab with barnacles on his back”
• Reflects condition of middle - class / powerless during WW1
RHAPSODY ON A WINTER NIGHT
“Barnacles”
• Symbolises taunted/suffered memories endured by war
THE HOLLOW MEN
“The hollow men”
- Symbolised eliots current society
* Oxymoric brings
THE HOLLOW MEN
“Filled with straw”
• Symbolised lack of signifance
THE HOLLOW MEN
“Stone images”
• Symbolised modern societies materialistic values and technological priorities
THE HOLLOW MEN
“Lips that would kiss/form prayers to broken stone”
- Reference to Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (lines reversed though)
- “Saints” are god-questioning brings
THE HOLLOW MEN
“Stars” : “Fading” > “Dying”
- Motif metaphorically symbolises post WW1 Europe / treaty of Versailles
- Natural imagery signifies hope, continues to die (industrialisation)
THE HOLLOW MEN
“Valley of dying stars”
• Biblical reference time Psalm 23 from the bible. ‘Valley of shadows’
JOURNEY OF THE MAGI
“A cold coming we had of it, just the worst time of the year”
- Appropriation of sermon by Lancelot Andrewes
- Exhausted tone
- Symbolises Eliot’s suffering
JOURNEY OF THE MAGI
“And the night fires going out, and the lack of shelters…”
- Natural imagery of cold environment
- Contrasted w/ culmulative listing
- Hardships symbolise strength of one seeking faith
JOURNEY OF THE MAGI
“Camel men cursing and grumbling”
- Allude to non-religious individuals opposing
* Symbolising deterioration of religious ideals
PRELUDES
“Smoky days” > “the burnt out ends of smoky days”
- Visual imagery (bleak)
- Alluding to a cigarette
- Symbolising an exhausting routine of working
PRELUDES
“Burnt out” > “a lonely cab horse steams and stamps”
- Portraying loneliness / disconnection of individuals
- Scathing and bitter tone through sibilance
- Creates imagery of bleak industrialised city, “slaves” to machines and routine
PRELUDES
“Six o’clock”
- Recurring motif of time
- Repetition of stating hours on a clock
- Symbolised constancy regime of working society
- Miserable cyclical aspect / boredom of living
