The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock

by T.S. Eliot(1915)

Saturday, February 18, 12

About Eliot...

❖ Harvard educated: less than stellar student--Note from Boston Globe: “Consider Eliot’s paper on the “Defects of Kipling,” marked up by the red pen of an unimpressed professor. “A mouth-filling sentence” reads a comment next to the essay’s opening line, in which Eliot had jammed 52 words and 5 distinct clauses. Then there was Eliot’s final transcript with just three A’s but eight B’s, six C’s, and one D. These grades, coupled with Eliot’s shoddy attendance, landed him on academic probation in 1906.” (www.boston.com: 28 June 2010)

❖ Born in St. Louis in 1888. Puritan ancestors (original settlers of Massachusetts)

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❖ Graduate studies at Sorbonne, Harvard, & Oxford

❖ Met Ezra Pound (ex-pat poet) and became BFF.

❖ Married Vivien Haigh-Wood (British chick) and became a British citizen.

❖ Had some problems. Sanitarium in Switzerland. Wrote The Waste Land. (1922)

❖ Went back to London and founded new literary journal, The Criterion which is still recognized as one of the most distinguished literary journals of the 20th c. Published lots of great writers until 1939. (There is a new elitist British journal called The New Criterion that is attempting to recreate Eliot’s original purpose. Can’t read any of the articles though--costs money.)

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❖ After first wife dies, he marries his secretary! Valerie Fletcher. They stayed married and much happier together than he was with sickly and crazy Vivien. They stayed together until he died.

❖ In 1948 he received both the Nobel Prize for Literature and the Order of Merit by King George VI.

❖ Died in 1965 and is buried at Poet’s Corner of Westminster Abbey (no finger bones---yet. Waiting for that trip to England...)

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This is a wallpaper you can download from www.novelnovice.com

Saturday, February 18, 12

The Poem❖ Dramatic Monologue

❖ Narrator is talking to reader. You will accompany him on his journeys.

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The Assignment❖6 Groups

❖Each group will analyze specific aspects of the poem.

❖You will present these via Powerpoint and teach the class in hopes of coming to a complete understanding of the poem.

❖Then you get to write over it!!

Saturday, February 18, 12

Group 1Find the rhyming patterns and motifs

within the stanzas and form conclusions. Present.

Group 2Find the predominant image in each stanza. Discuss

possible meanings and determine tone the images set. Present.

Group 3Find and list and interpret the questions the speaker

asks. Present.

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Group 4Find the poetic devices used in lines 1-40. How do they contribute to the meaning

and tone of the poem? How do they help develop theme?

Group 5Find the poetic devices used in lines 41-79. How do they contribute to the meaning and tone of the poem? How

do they help develop theme?

Group 6Find the poetic devices used in lines 81-126. How do they contribute to the meaning and tone of the poem? How

do they help develop theme?

Saturday, February 18, 12