Question

"The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock,” by T.S. Eliot and “The Road Not Taken,” by Robert Frost

Questions on the poems:

How does each poem make you feel while reading them? Do any feelings stay with you?

How and why do you think the poems meet or do not meet Eliot’s criteria for a great poem as outlined in his essay?

How do you think each poem is representative of the American culture?

How are the poems similar and dissimilar?

Answer 1

These two poems make an interesting pair for comparison. In structure and form, they are quite different; Eliot's Shakespearean allusions and internal rhyme make his poem a modernist masterpiece that is, on the face of it, very different from Frost's regularly-structured musing on the road "less traveled by." However, there is certainly a point to be made about the similarities of theme between the two, with Prufrock's eternal musings on the "decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse" standing in contrast to Frost's speaker, who, ultimately, after looking down both possible paths, "took the one less traveled by."

Both of these poems, then, concern the choices we make in life. The key difference between them is that Frost's speaker recognizes that, while we may wish to take both possible routes, in the end, both are "really about the same," and having made a decision, we may "sigh" about the lost possibilities in the future, but we will be moving on. Prufrock, by contrast, has dwelled too long upon "the overwhelming question," and because he does not "dare disturb the universe," the result is that he finds he has "lingered too long in the chambers of the sea" and allowed life, because of his indecisiveness and fear, to pass him by.

In 1945 Eliot wrote: "A poet must take as his material his own language as it is actually spoken around him." Correlatively, the duty of the poet, as Eliot emphasized in a 1943 lecture, "is only indirectly to the people: his direct duty is to his language, first to preserve, and second to extend and improve." Thus he dismisses the so-called "social function" of poetry. The only "method," Eliot once wrote, is "to be very intelligent."

T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” -- commonly referred to simply as “Prufrock” -- marked a monumental literary shift between 19th-century Romantic poetry, and 20th-century Modern poetry. Many of the poem’s most relevant characteristics indicate the ways in which Eliot was resisting the Romantic tradition. In considering how “Prufrock” is a representative example of literary modernism, it is necessary to consider the poetic aspects of literary Romanticism that Eliot was resisting.