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Question: Help me to interpret TS Eliot's poem please!!?
I'm not sure what to think of the end of this passage!. also, Im not sure why "The Love Song of J!. Alfred Prufrock" is a love song!. Does anybody know about this poem!?
Shall I part my hair behind!? Do I dare to eat a peach!?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach!.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each!.
I do not think they will sing to me!.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black!.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Til human voices wake us, and we drown!.Www@QuestionHome@Com
Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:
This is a very famous poem that is not easily understood until the author tells you what it means!. In this case, the key joke of the poem is that in the first line, `let us go then, you and I!.!.!.,' the speaker of the poem is talking to himself!. He is in fact loveless, and this is the subject of the poem!. His problem can be summarised, as when he says, `do I dare disturb the universe!?' He apparently grew old pondering this question, until his hair began to thin:
And indeed there will be time
To wonder, "Do I dare!?" and, "Do I dare!?"
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair--
The ending lines, then, are a continuation of the hair theme, while the peach, and the white flanner trousers, are an exaggeration of Prufrock's problems of inaction!.
Mermaids, clearly, make this a love song, representing his continuing fears of rejection-- `I do not think they will sing to me!.' Yet the poem ends, perhaps with a note of hope-- the sea waves remind the poet of his own white hair, and he says, `I have seen them riding seaward on the waves/ combing the white hair!.!.!.'
The ending stanza is obscure, but it suggests, perhaps that the mermaids are just a dream, and another distraction, or an excuse for inaction-- he ought to heed `human voices,' not mermaids-- and then indeed he is overwhelmed by his age!.
Does this help!? It's worth noting that Eliot was quite young when he wrote it: in his mid twenties or so!. it is sometimes considered a rather juvenile poem, and some of my friends joke that Eliot rather transparently disguised his fear of growing up as the fear of growing old!.Www@QuestionHome@Com
I'll give you my personal take on this:
He seeks what he believes to be unattainable while he attempts to hide his own flaws!. He dreams of what he sees as perfection only to be awakened by the reality that it's flawed as is all humanity!.
It would be like finding the perfect love only to find out that you were blind to the truth because of your own desire to love and be loved!.
The human voices are the realities that wake him from this dream and shatter it!.!.!. somewhat like taking away all hope,
!.!.!. that's my personal interpretation!.
Elliot was a romantic!. He was about the journey of love not about it's destination!. In his writings I'm not sure he ever felt it was attainable, at least not for him!.Www@QuestionHome@Com