WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - The Poetry Fix: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock: How Should I Presume?

Episode Date: September 14, 2024

This installment of T. S. Eliot's "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" reintroduces our narrator's fruitless longing for romance, as he is paralyzed by beauty rather than inspired by it.

Hillsdale 101.7, host Erica Kaiba, bringing you your weekly fix of poetry from across time. Today we're picking up in the love song of J. Alfred Prufrock, right back in the middle of Proofrock's social ills. He begins by describing the existential dread of awkward small talk, the eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase. He envisions feeling like a bug pinned down for examination, sprawling and struggling to spit out all the butt ends of his days and ways. It's as if in answering polite questions which might be shaded by hidden judgment, Proofrox struggles to justify his own existence. Then we start making a return to the romantic ideas that opened the poem, Proofrock's desire for love. He describes the object of his love

through Synecdoche, using her parts to signify the whole. He identifies her through her arms, her hair, her perfume, not referring to the woman as a whole. You can almost imagine Proufrock unable to meet her gaze in his nervousness, and, as a result, describing her by her arms that lie along the table or her hair in the lamplight, because that's all he has to go on. It's interesting to think about the effective beauty on Proufrock. We often consider beauty as something that inspires, something that draws something that draws, someone out of themselves and spurs them to action. That's the point of all romance stories. Beauty

stuns characters out of inertia and causes them to pursue the adventure of winning over their beloved. You can't be indifferent to beauty, but you can be paralyzed by it, and that's what Proofrock experiences rather than inspiration. Beauty can inspire, but it can also intimidate. It requires courage to aspire to. And, as we have learned, Proufrock is not a man of courage. And not only does he not know how he should presume to speak to the woman, but he also has no idea what he would say to her. The first image that comes to his mind is that of lonely men in shirt sleeves, leaning out their windows and smoking. That is Proufrock's world. He is accustomed to loneliness, and knows practically nothing else. He reflects that it would have been

better if he were a lobster scuttling across the seafloor alone, not forced to navigate the world of men. Note that Proofrock uses Senectiki again in wishing he was a pair of claws rather than simply a lobster. What could Proofrock's use of Senecteke to refer to others and to himself possibly say about his worldview? As we consider that, let's dive in. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot. And I have known the eyes already, known them all, the eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,

and when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin, when I am pinned and wriggling on the wall, then how should I begin to spit out all the butt ends of my days and ways? And how should I presume? And I have known the arms already, known them all,

arms that are braceleted and white and bare, but in the lamplight, downed with light-browning hair. Is it perfume from a dress that makes me so digress? Arms that lie along a table or wrap about a shawl. And should I then presume? And how should I begin? Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets and watched the smoke that rises from the pipes of lonely men in shirt sleeves, leaning out of windows. I should have been a pair of ragged claws, scuddling across the floors of silent seas. You've been listening to The Poetry Fix with Erica Kaiba.

If you enjoyed this episode, consider following the Poetry Fix on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Join me next week and we'll be continuing our journey through the love song of J. Alfred Prufrock.