Eliot Handout

English 203

Dr. Fike

"Tradition and the Individual Talent":

1. See the essay, paragraph 3.
2. What happens in the poem?  Cf. Henry James's "Crapy Cornelia."
3. POINT: 
4. Over a dozen other allusions in "Prufrock."

Group Work:

1. The epigraph—Dante's Inferno.
2. Michelangelo.
3. Hamlet.

POINT from "Ulysses, Order, and Myth":

Other Facts about Literary Tradition in "Prufrock":

1. Dramatic monologue:
2. The poem functions as a hinge:
   1. I Can Hear the Mermaids Singing
   2. Blown Away

The Opening Stanza:

1. Who are "you and I"?
2. What about "a patient etherized upon a table"?
3. Rhyme scheme:
4. The direction of sexual energy:  downward.
5. Energy vs. restraint:
   1. What things suggest energy/violence?
   2. What things suggest restraint?
   3. Key term:  objective correlative:

Ending:

1. Which wins—energy or restraint?
2. Why mermaids?
3. What is the significance of the tercets?