T.S Eliot’s Preludes, is one of his most prominent poems
because it presents his view of society as a wasteland at that time. He does
this by using concrete objects and images to metaphorically explore the nature
of life and society. In this poem, we discover society as corrupt and desolate
going through a cycle of meaningless routine where people bare a false hope of
a divine source overlooking and protecting humanity.
The title itself holds significant meaning. A prelude in general and particularly in a musical sense characterizes an introduction to something. This is suggesting that the characteristics of society we are provided with in this poem are merely an introduction to what we should be viewing society like. The first stanza introduces the tone of the poem with a description of a typical street from an omniscient point of view. We are first given the impression of a desolate, corrupt and exhausted society through use of a variety of verbs like x is accumulation of verbs is heavily supported through a the use of alliteration of the “s” sound in words like x This technique evokes our sense of smell imagining the picture Eliot is describing. Throughout the first stanza, we are given the suggestion of the presence of people though it is not actually ever stated. This is evident in the mentioning of “smell of steaks…feet.” This effectively communicates to us that this is a fragmented world where nothing is whole. The darkness of the first stanza is concluded with a pause, creating anticipation followed by the line “then the lighting of the lamps…” This line gives us a feeling of hope as the darkness is contrasted with the mentioning of light.
However, the start of the second stanza marks the next morning yet the tone is still identical to that of the first. Eliot stresses out the fact that it is now morning, the possibility of a new start, through the use of personification. But we are soon to discover that nothing has changed. The lines that follow it give us the feeling of a “hangover.” This is depicted by the mentioning of “faint stale smells of beer from the sawdust-trampled streets…” Once again the alliteration of “s” reminds us of the sense of smell of the image we are given. The rest of the stanza continues the motif of emptiness created in the first stanza with the extensive use of “muddy feet…hands.” The last line introduces a change in perspective as we now focus on a more personal view, assuming the point of view of one particular person.
The shift to the second person immediately leads us to become more involved with the situation. The first three lines depict a haunted and restless night using the repetition of “you” and the accumulation x whole stanza constructs a shattered and desolate life, strengthening the picture painted from the earlier stanzas. This is portrayed by the “sordid images of which your soul was constituted…” The woman in this stanza even goes through an epiphany, in which we are shown that she herself makes a discovery of life to be meaningless. This opinion of society is reflected as an opinion shared by the whole society since this particular woman is representative of everyone because she is just one of “a thousand furnished rooms.”
The final part of the poem embraces the climax of the poem’s message and wraps up what is stated. After three stanzas of describing a failing society, this stanza suggests it is an ongoing cycle. The view is now switched to another particular person, a man this time. The alliteration of the “s” is reintroduced here in the first line “soul stretched tight across the skies…” Eliot points out the action of ‘stretching’ to suggest a sense of pain and agony created by restlessness. This idea could also be extended to almost make it seem like the man is vulnerable and fragile since his soul is personificated to be “stretching tight.” The accumulation of “four and five and six o’clock” infers a rhythm and a busy ongoing routine which society goes through, almost like in a mechanical way. This further outlines how society is so meaningless since we are forced to go through the same routine everyday. The “evening newspapers” is a reference to the people who travel in public transport everyday and reading the paper in the evening, a routine many people share.
The final three lines are very dramatic as Eliot reveals that people are constantly “assured of certain certainties” outlining the lack of uniqueness among society and yet again explaining how we are part of a meaningless routine. The sharpness of the following statement “conscience of a blackened world” is extremely heartbreaking. Eliot for the first time in the poem no longer uses a metaphor to bring across his message but instead makes a definite statement about the fate of society and ultimately, the world. This rather harsh statement gives us the total impression that there is no hope left in society and that we all live in a doomed world with nothing to save us, a truth we, as the reader, are forced to discover and accept. This forms a climax in the poem as we share the despair in the words that conclude his opinion.
However, the next stanza directly contrasts this lack of hope. The perspective changes to the first person with a very personal view. His mentioning of “the notion of some infinitely gentle infinitely suffering thing” is a reference to Jesus, a divine source, whom many people of society rely on for hope. Eliot is stating that he is succumbing himself to the hope of a god to save him and society. This denotes that this is exactly what people think of for hope, a divine intervention of some sort to save humanity. But Eliot quickly dismisses this source of hope in the final concluding stanza. Using an extremely harsh and savage tone, Eliot totally disregards the hope of a god saving the world. This yet again brings us back to the tone of a sense of hopelessness, as the world has no one to save it. The use of the world “revolves” tells us that society is still undergoing a continuous process, a reminder of the idea of a meaningless, mechanic routine which society goes through. The very last line “gathering fuel in vacant lots” is a very bleak and terror-filled tone, which the poem concludes on. The ‘vacant lots’ brings us back to the first stanza, a street where the society is corrupt, desolate and fragmented.
Eliot’s Preludes, is a poem that expresses his view of society as a hopeless world where the streets are lonely, shattered and exhausted and its people are mechanical, going through a constant, meaningless routine that lacks vividness and uniqueness. Discoveries are forced upon the reader as we are faced with the harsh reality of society. Divine sources are what people believe in for hope but he dismisses this idea as well, stating that it doesn’t exist and that no one will save this world from its doomed state. And so, with this in mind we truly discover what our world faces and how there is no god to save us.
The title itself holds significant meaning. A prelude in general and particularly in a musical sense characterizes an introduction to something. This is suggesting that the characteristics of society we are provided with in this poem are merely an introduction to what we should be viewing society like. The first stanza introduces the tone of the poem with a description of a typical street from an omniscient point of view. We are first given the impression of a desolate, corrupt and exhausted society through use of a variety of verbs like x is accumulation of verbs is heavily supported through a the use of alliteration of the “s” sound in words like x This technique evokes our sense of smell imagining the picture Eliot is describing. Throughout the first stanza, we are given the suggestion of the presence of people though it is not actually ever stated. This is evident in the mentioning of “smell of steaks…feet.” This effectively communicates to us that this is a fragmented world where nothing is whole. The darkness of the first stanza is concluded with a pause, creating anticipation followed by the line “then the lighting of the lamps…” This line gives us a feeling of hope as the darkness is contrasted with the mentioning of light.
However, the start of the second stanza marks the next morning yet the tone is still identical to that of the first. Eliot stresses out the fact that it is now morning, the possibility of a new start, through the use of personification. But we are soon to discover that nothing has changed. The lines that follow it give us the feeling of a “hangover.” This is depicted by the mentioning of “faint stale smells of beer from the sawdust-trampled streets…” Once again the alliteration of “s” reminds us of the sense of smell of the image we are given. The rest of the stanza continues the motif of emptiness created in the first stanza with the extensive use of “muddy feet…hands.” The last line introduces a change in perspective as we now focus on a more personal view, assuming the point of view of one particular person.
The shift to the second person immediately leads us to become more involved with the situation. The first three lines depict a haunted and restless night using the repetition of “you” and the accumulation x whole stanza constructs a shattered and desolate life, strengthening the picture painted from the earlier stanzas. This is portrayed by the “sordid images of which your soul was constituted…” The woman in this stanza even goes through an epiphany, in which we are shown that she herself makes a discovery of life to be meaningless. This opinion of society is reflected as an opinion shared by the whole society since this particular woman is representative of everyone because she is just one of “a thousand furnished rooms.”
The final part of the poem embraces the climax of the poem’s message and wraps up what is stated. After three stanzas of describing a failing society, this stanza suggests it is an ongoing cycle. The view is now switched to another particular person, a man this time. The alliteration of the “s” is reintroduced here in the first line “soul stretched tight across the skies…” Eliot points out the action of ‘stretching’ to suggest a sense of pain and agony created by restlessness. This idea could also be extended to almost make it seem like the man is vulnerable and fragile since his soul is personificated to be “stretching tight.” The accumulation of “four and five and six o’clock” infers a rhythm and a busy ongoing routine which society goes through, almost like in a mechanical way. This further outlines how society is so meaningless since we are forced to go through the same routine everyday. The “evening newspapers” is a reference to the people who travel in public transport everyday and reading the paper in the evening, a routine many people share.
The final three lines are very dramatic as Eliot reveals that people are constantly “assured of certain certainties” outlining the lack of uniqueness among society and yet again explaining how we are part of a meaningless routine. The sharpness of the following statement “conscience of a blackened world” is extremely heartbreaking. Eliot for the first time in the poem no longer uses a metaphor to bring across his message but instead makes a definite statement about the fate of society and ultimately, the world. This rather harsh statement gives us the total impression that there is no hope left in society and that we all live in a doomed world with nothing to save us, a truth we, as the reader, are forced to discover and accept. This forms a climax in the poem as we share the despair in the words that conclude his opinion.
However, the next stanza directly contrasts this lack of hope. The perspective changes to the first person with a very personal view. His mentioning of “the notion of some infinitely gentle infinitely suffering thing” is a reference to Jesus, a divine source, whom many people of society rely on for hope. Eliot is stating that he is succumbing himself to the hope of a god to save him and society. This denotes that this is exactly what people think of for hope, a divine intervention of some sort to save humanity. But Eliot quickly dismisses this source of hope in the final concluding stanza. Using an extremely harsh and savage tone, Eliot totally disregards the hope of a god saving the world. This yet again brings us back to the tone of a sense of hopelessness, as the world has no one to save it. The use of the world “revolves” tells us that society is still undergoing a continuous process, a reminder of the idea of a meaningless, mechanic routine which society goes through. The very last line “gathering fuel in vacant lots” is a very bleak and terror-filled tone, which the poem concludes on. The ‘vacant lots’ brings us back to the first stanza, a street where the society is corrupt, desolate and fragmented.
Eliot’s Preludes, is a poem that expresses his view of society as a hopeless world where the streets are lonely, shattered and exhausted and its people are mechanical, going through a constant, meaningless routine that lacks vividness and uniqueness. Discoveries are forced upon the reader as we are faced with the harsh reality of society. Divine sources are what people believe in for hope but he dismisses this idea as well, stating that it doesn’t exist and that no one will save this world from its doomed state. And so, with this in mind we truly discover what our world faces and how there is no god to save us.
helpful!
ReplyDeletethank for your insightful analysis of this poem, it has helped me heaps! appreciate it :)
ReplyDeletethanks for this info.. it helped me so much in study.. ;)
ReplyDeleteI don't know what your level of scholarship is, but this essay requires serious commentary. I have never published on Eliot, due to abandoning academia for family life, but he is one of my research interests and MA subspecialtiess. A week into my freshman year of college, when I was 16, I checked out a stack of books on Eliot. The librarian said, "A research paper, already?" I said, "No, this is pleasure reading."
Delete1) "Preludes" is one of my favorites and a great example of Eliot's work, but it should be noted that its popularity in anthologies stems from several key factors:
a) Eliot left strict instructions on how many lines of his poetry could be anthologized. This requires breaking up his longer poems, and "Preludes" is one of the only ones that fits.
b) Those who want to present a biased and inaccurate view of Eliot's work, as the author of this essay does, want to favor the "Prufrock" era and reject his later, more overtly religious poems.
c) "Preludes," in particular, has been used since the 1980s because it and "Rhapsody on a Windy Night" were used by Trevor Nunn as sources for the lyrics to "Memory."
d) Eliot's early poems fell into public domain many years ago.
2) You must first remember that Eliot is a Formalist. Freud said, "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar." This was paraphrased by another overanalyzed formalist, David Lynch, with the line in a _Twin Peaks_ dream sequence, "This is a formica table." C. S. Lewis, who in context was, ironically, responding to Eliot's over-analysis of _Hamlet_, says that we cannot understand Shakespeare unless we first realize his plays are written as popular entertainment. Eliot is, per his own theory in "Tradition and the Individual Talent," trying to use poetry to provide a multi-sensory experience. He gives us sights, sounds, smells, and sensations through words. Eliot himself, when asked what "Lady, three white leopards sat under a juniper tree" means, said, "It means 'Lady, three white leopards sat under a juniper tree.''"
3) Eliot himself, upon reading this, would have likely been enraged, and said something like the above. He repeatedly emphasized that poets write poetry for a reason, and if he'd wanted to explain what he was "really saying," he would have. Nonetheless, there was one critic he said understood him, and that was Russell Kirk. Yes, according to Kirk, the "Prufrock" and "Waste Land" era are a kind of Inferno to which "Ash Wednesday and "Journey of the Magi" are the Purgatorio and _Four Quartets_ the Paradisio. Yes, much like Dante, people seem to find the Hell more interesting than the Heaven, but Eliot never believed the atheistic nihilism you're reading into this. During the period of his rejecting his family's Unitarianism (for not being theological enough), and adoption of Anglicanism, Eliot experimented with Buddhism and other Eastern spiritualities. He was always a Theist. The hopelessness of this poem--which I personally see is actually a hopefullness in recognizing Christ even in the city street--is not Eliot's own but the hopelessness he sees in those around him.
4) Thus, there are three impulses at work here. Eliot, a self-described, "Royalist in politics, classicist in criticism and Anglican in religion," hated modernity but he also despised the romantic view. So he used modernistic realism to parody romanticism, critique urban living, and yet see the street as reminiscent of "the infinitely patient, infinitely suffering" Christ "stretched across the sky."
Thus, you have part of the puzzle but are missing a lot. One way we can tell that Eliot's poems are part of a larger whole is that they often include "call backs" or allusions to his own work--in this case, the final lines remind us of "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."
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ReplyDeleteYah..very much helpful..!!! Thankz a lot !
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