T.S. Eliot

Though I read T.S. Eliot’s poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock I found that I did not enjoy the work as much as I have many others. I felt this way because I found the poem to be long and difficult to interpret. I did find a parts that I thought were worth a second read because they were something that I could grasp and imagine. For instance, the first few lines of the first stanza of the poem read:

“Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats…”

When I read these lines I thought of someone peacefully drifting off into death and going on to another “world” where things are much simpler and peaceful. Though I took interest in this particular part of the poem, I do not quite understand why there are two people that are experiencing this at the same time. I find this to be confusing, yet I still enjoy trying to interpret the meaning of each line of the poem in the way that Eliot intended, which is often quite difficult to do with poetry because of the abundance of imagery that is present in most poems. This poem has its fair share of imagery that is somewhat farfetched, but the parts that I was able to interpret were very enjoyable to ponder over.