(no subject)
It is an academic truism that one must not only defend his or her proposed interpretation of an event, idea, or, in this case, poem, but also the method of interpretation and, perhaps, the assumptions that underlie the interpretation. Naturally, then, before one can fully communicate the texture of a poem, the tendrils of meaning that weave together like ethereal forms of air and smoothest concrete, one must appreciate the relevance of his or her own process of interpretation to the poem’s overall meaning. T.S. Eliot wrote The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock in 1915 and has stamped it meaningfully within the context of that time, yet this in no way precludes the modern reader from benefiting tremendously when reading the poem. In other words, the modern interpretation of the work can stand both separate to, and necessarily conjoined with, the intentions and interpretations that arose during its initial offering to the public. In fact, when one considers the origin of human evolution from a more animalistic to a more modern society, perhaps the most significant development to the process of advancement was the human ability to perceive meaning symbolically, whereby an idea or image can be perceived to contain both the idea of itself (concrete) and a connotation of meaning for something other than itself (an abstraction). The advancement of cognition through the interpretation of symbols is best exemplified in a form such as poetry, and more specifically, in a poem as interpretation rich as The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.
The contention that a great significance of poetry as an art is in the malleability of possible interpretations is not an original idea, nor is it meant to convey that all meaning should be relegated to purely subjective standards. Rather, one must acknowledge that the sheer depth of insight and expression that a poem like Prufrock allows, both when considered as a singular, evocative work, and as a piece of context within the author’s soul/mindstate or the reader’s individual experience, contraindicates a true, definitive, all encompassing interpretation. Carrying that theme of interpretation and insight into the symbolic and the concrete leads one to understand that readers of this essay are undergoing a similar, if less complex, process by applying preconditioned scales of bias towards a given set of interpretations regarding the quality and effectiveness of the content of this essay, a process that necessarily extends to the subject of the essay. This of course brings the discussion full circle and deposits it directly where it should begin, namely, the natural process of critique and its relationship to interpretation. For readers unfamiliar with the nature of this poem, it might sound odd to discuss interpretation in regards to criticism as a foundation for exploring the poem, but for anyone who has actually considered the masterpiece Eliot has crafted, it becomes clear that the different critical approaches to the poem each yield valid, individual threads of insight, many of which, when taken from one point of view, make perfect sense, and yet at the same time contradict the other interpretations. Some have decried the individualized, subjective nature of interpretation as an abstract criticism of the process, contending that the insight garnered is lessened because it approaches understanding from a subjective rather than absolute stance. However, one should not let the possibility of the fringe interpretation lead one to assume the reader of poetry should approach the subject purely objectively, because the realm of approaching things in absolute terms is filled with even greater pitfalls that potentially offers a much more narrow relevance to the populace as a whole, especially as times advance beyond the initial context of the work. This is, of course, the very problem that Prufrock battles with throughout the poem. The man is paralyzed by his own subjective consciousness, almost as though he is unable to believe in connecting with others, or is unable to understand that thoughts can form subjectively and yet, through communication, become shared, creating a bond between himself and the woman he so wishes to know.
Besides the possibility of the poem losing meaning to those who might otherwise have found great insight from its perusal, the purely objective approach to interpretation partially negates one’s experiences and ideas from the formation of the interpretation, and would likely mean the interpretation of the man or woman with the most forceful/logical position would become predominant, their views dogma (stagnant). The irony of this discussion is that though it appears more concerned with the method and context of interpretation than the blisteringly insightful poem by Eliot, The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock is, in several respects, the story a man overcome by an increasing sense of his obsolete will, as though the era of his effectiveness has in some way passed him by, leaving him a ghostly figure of pseudo-Freudian drives. The unique, subjective nature of poetic interpretation is vital to achieving a full, rich world of ideas, and the last bastion of resistance against a static ideology that would become increasingly obsolete as the world of ideas transcended the culture of the bygone era, but it is also a well so deep it can swallow any single mind wishing to master the objective reality of his life. The reader feels deeply troubled by Prufrock’s inability to express himself fully, and yet at the same time is unsure whether Prufrock is a man, or a symbol of all men at some particular existential crossroads of life, or crossroads of neo-modern history (Kathleen McCoy's and Judith Harlan's ENGLISH LITERATURE FROM 1785 (New York: HarperCollins, 1992: 265-66).
Now that the basic allowances for greater and lesser interpretations have been explained, it becomes clear that the best means of discovering the meaning of Eliot’s poem is in reading it and thinking about it for yourself. That is only the first step, of course, because the wealth of literature available on the poem is in so many ways as illuminating and thought provoking as the poem itself, even at times more so. The one area that the poem far exceeds the value of the many interpretations, besides in being the source of them, is in the realm of beauty, or quality. The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock is a poem of magnificent design, as lines appear to burst from the mind almost casually, without regard, as though the ideas presented were the everyday tangential thoughts of normal life. Yet the ideas convey a sense of open, vast, chilling, almost palpable isolation and connection both, such that the reader feels bounded by a smothering air of desperation and education. The beauty of the expression is capable of rebounding into parallels spontaneously, and any self-reflection made by Prufrock confirms this, oftentimes at the slightest provocation. Ultimately the poem conveys a level of transience that makes ascribing perfectly either a setting or a timescale impossible, and yet perfectly explains the lack of action on the part of the tragic narrator. It is as though Prufrock is lost inside thoughts he cannot find the source for, as though he is wandering through a life that is not quite his own, as though what the man he has become, erudite, educated, timid, were the result of his considerations as much as his sense of purpose. Prufrock is lost in ideas the origin of which exist in lands far away and times long since passed, and it is that vaguer y of internal composition that so perfectly cripples his ability to assimilate into a coupling with the composition of others around him. In other words, he is a ghost to his own desires because he feasts on the ideas of ghosts, but has never learned the right lessons from their lives, namely, that actions speak louder than words. The irony of his assertion that he is not Hamlet, but rather, perhaps, Polonius (the advisor comment), get source, is that Goethe interpreted Hamlet to be a man crippled by his inability to act. It is as though Prufrock is conscious of his problems, but is not being honest enough with himself to admit he has a problem, and so has created a series of logical fallacies and intellectual traps that have convinced him of his isolation and ineffectualness.
The contention that a great significance of poetry as an art is in the malleability of possible interpretations is not an original idea, nor is it meant to convey that all meaning should be relegated to purely subjective standards. Rather, one must acknowledge that the sheer depth of insight and expression that a poem like Prufrock allows, both when considered as a singular, evocative work, and as a piece of context within the author’s soul/mindstate or the reader’s individual experience, contraindicates a true, definitive, all encompassing interpretation. Carrying that theme of interpretation and insight into the symbolic and the concrete leads one to understand that readers of this essay are undergoing a similar, if less complex, process by applying preconditioned scales of bias towards a given set of interpretations regarding the quality and effectiveness of the content of this essay, a process that necessarily extends to the subject of the essay. This of course brings the discussion full circle and deposits it directly where it should begin, namely, the natural process of critique and its relationship to interpretation. For readers unfamiliar with the nature of this poem, it might sound odd to discuss interpretation in regards to criticism as a foundation for exploring the poem, but for anyone who has actually considered the masterpiece Eliot has crafted, it becomes clear that the different critical approaches to the poem each yield valid, individual threads of insight, many of which, when taken from one point of view, make perfect sense, and yet at the same time contradict the other interpretations. Some have decried the individualized, subjective nature of interpretation as an abstract criticism of the process, contending that the insight garnered is lessened because it approaches understanding from a subjective rather than absolute stance. However, one should not let the possibility of the fringe interpretation lead one to assume the reader of poetry should approach the subject purely objectively, because the realm of approaching things in absolute terms is filled with even greater pitfalls that potentially offers a much more narrow relevance to the populace as a whole, especially as times advance beyond the initial context of the work. This is, of course, the very problem that Prufrock battles with throughout the poem. The man is paralyzed by his own subjective consciousness, almost as though he is unable to believe in connecting with others, or is unable to understand that thoughts can form subjectively and yet, through communication, become shared, creating a bond between himself and the woman he so wishes to know.
Besides the possibility of the poem losing meaning to those who might otherwise have found great insight from its perusal, the purely objective approach to interpretation partially negates one’s experiences and ideas from the formation of the interpretation, and would likely mean the interpretation of the man or woman with the most forceful/logical position would become predominant, their views dogma (stagnant). The irony of this discussion is that though it appears more concerned with the method and context of interpretation than the blisteringly insightful poem by Eliot, The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock is, in several respects, the story a man overcome by an increasing sense of his obsolete will, as though the era of his effectiveness has in some way passed him by, leaving him a ghostly figure of pseudo-Freudian drives. The unique, subjective nature of poetic interpretation is vital to achieving a full, rich world of ideas, and the last bastion of resistance against a static ideology that would become increasingly obsolete as the world of ideas transcended the culture of the bygone era, but it is also a well so deep it can swallow any single mind wishing to master the objective reality of his life. The reader feels deeply troubled by Prufrock’s inability to express himself fully, and yet at the same time is unsure whether Prufrock is a man, or a symbol of all men at some particular existential crossroads of life, or crossroads of neo-modern history (Kathleen McCoy's and Judith Harlan's ENGLISH LITERATURE FROM 1785 (New York: HarperCollins, 1992: 265-66).
Now that the basic allowances for greater and lesser interpretations have been explained, it becomes clear that the best means of discovering the meaning of Eliot’s poem is in reading it and thinking about it for yourself. That is only the first step, of course, because the wealth of literature available on the poem is in so many ways as illuminating and thought provoking as the poem itself, even at times more so. The one area that the poem far exceeds the value of the many interpretations, besides in being the source of them, is in the realm of beauty, or quality. The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock is a poem of magnificent design, as lines appear to burst from the mind almost casually, without regard, as though the ideas presented were the everyday tangential thoughts of normal life. Yet the ideas convey a sense of open, vast, chilling, almost palpable isolation and connection both, such that the reader feels bounded by a smothering air of desperation and education. The beauty of the expression is capable of rebounding into parallels spontaneously, and any self-reflection made by Prufrock confirms this, oftentimes at the slightest provocation. Ultimately the poem conveys a level of transience that makes ascribing perfectly either a setting or a timescale impossible, and yet perfectly explains the lack of action on the part of the tragic narrator. It is as though Prufrock is lost inside thoughts he cannot find the source for, as though he is wandering through a life that is not quite his own, as though what the man he has become, erudite, educated, timid, were the result of his considerations as much as his sense of purpose. Prufrock is lost in ideas the origin of which exist in lands far away and times long since passed, and it is that vaguer y of internal composition that so perfectly cripples his ability to assimilate into a coupling with the composition of others around him. In other words, he is a ghost to his own desires because he feasts on the ideas of ghosts, but has never learned the right lessons from their lives, namely, that actions speak louder than words. The irony of his assertion that he is not Hamlet, but rather, perhaps, Polonius (the advisor comment), get source, is that Goethe interpreted Hamlet to be a man crippled by his inability to act. It is as though Prufrock is conscious of his problems, but is not being honest enough with himself to admit he has a problem, and so has created a series of logical fallacies and intellectual traps that have convinced him of his isolation and ineffectualness.