Perspectives

Putting “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T. S. Eliot in perspective will help you gain a broader view on its themes, meaning, and lyrical qualities.

Literary period and critical reception

“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” was one of the first poems published by T. S. Elliot and it represents one of the first Modernist pieces of poetry. Largely experimental, the poem actual features several characteristics of Modernism such as the use of stream of consciousness, rendering the thoughts of the speaker in a seemingly disorganised manner, replicating thus the human thinking patterns. Furthermore, like later Modernist fiction and poetry, the poem experiments on mixing different style and techniques. For instance, both rhythm and rhyme are not constant throughout the poem, mixing classical heroic rhymes with free vers...