Rhythm and rhyme

The rhythm and rhyme are usually important stylistic techniques in poems, and they can help you understand the author’s tone and intention. In “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T. S. Eliot in particular, both rhythm and rhyme play an important role, and they reinforce allusions to other literary works or the paradox the speaker is living.

Rhyme

Most of the verses in the text rhyme in pairs or couplets, a technique which is also known as a heroic rhyme.

Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: 

However, the content of the poem reveals the irony of this rhyme, as Prufrock is far from a hero; quite the contrary, he subdues to inaction because he is “afraid” (p. 2, l. 48).

Furthermore, the speaker’s indecision is also suggested by the insertion of blank or free...