1、Modern literature T.S.Eliot(1888-1965)A poet A dramatist A literary critic A Nobel Prize winnerModern Literature:Overview Modernist literature attempted to move from the bonds of Realist literature and introduce concepts such as disjointed timelines.Modernist literature often features a marked pessi
2、mism,a clear rejection of the optimism apparent in Victorian literature.In fact,a common motif in Modernist fiction is that of an alienated individual-a dysfunctional individual trying in vain to make sense of a predominantly urban and fragmented society.However,many Modernist works like T.S.Eliots
3、The Waste Land are marked by the absence of a central,heroic figure;in rejecting the solipsism of Romantics like Shelley and Byron,these works reject the subject of Cartesian dualism and collapse narrative and narrator into a collection of disjointed fragments and overlapping voices.Modernist litera
4、ture transcends the limitations of the Realist novel with its concern for larger factors such as social or historical change;this is largely demonstrated in stream of consciousness writing.Examples can be seen in Virginia Woolfs Mrs Dalloway,James Joyces Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Uly
5、sses,Katherine Porters Flowering Judas,William Faulkners The Sound and the Fury,and others.Modernist literature is defined by its move away from Romanticism,venturing into subject matter that is traditionally mundane-a prime example being The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock by T.S.Eliot.Modernism as
6、a literary movement is seen,in large part,as a reaction to the emergence of city life as a central force in society.Formal characteristicsOpen Form Free verse Discontinuous narrative Juxtaposition Intertextuality Classical allusions Borrowings from other cultures and languages Unconventional use of
7、metaphor Metanarrative Fragmentation Multiple narrative points of view(parallax)Thematic characteristicsBreakdown of social norms and cultural sureties Dislocation of meaning and sense from its normal context Valorization of the despairing individual in the face of an unmanageable future Disillusion
8、ment Rejection of history and the substitution of a mythical past,borrowed without chronology Product of the metropolis,of cities and urbanscapes Stream of consciousness Free indirect discourse Overwhelming technological changes of the 20th CenturyThomas Stearns Eliot(26 September 18884 January 1965
9、)Eliot was a poet,dramatist,and literary critic.He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948.He wrote the poems The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock,The Waste Land,The Hollow Men,Ash Wednesday,and Four Quartets;the plays Murder in the Cathedral and The Cocktail Party;and the essay Tradition and t
10、he Individual Talent.The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock Prufrock is a variation on the dramatic monologue The rhyme scheme of this poem is irregular but not random.One of the most prominent formal characteristics of this work is the use of refrains.Prufrocks continual return to the women who come an
11、d go/Talking of Michelangelo and his recurrent questionings(how should I presume?)and pessimistic appraisals(That is not it,at all.)both reference an earlier poetic tradition and help Eliot describe the consciousness of a modern,neurotic individual.The poem then follows the conscious experience of a
12、 man,Prufrock(relayed in the stream of consciousness form indicative of the Modernists),lamenting his physical and intellectual inertia,the lost opportunities in his life and lack of spiritual progress,with the recurrent theme of carnal love unattained.The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock Epigraph Sio
13、 credessi che mia risposta fosse a persona che mai tomasse al mundo,questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.Ma per cio che giammai di questo fondo non torno vivo alcun,siodo il vero,senza tema dinfamia ti rispondo.LET us go then,you and I,When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient e
14、therised upon a table;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:Streets that follow like a tedious argument Of insidious intent To lead you to an overwhelming question.Oh,do not ask,W
15、hat is it?Let us go and make our visit.In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo.The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panesLicked its tongue into the corners of the evening,Lingered upon the pools that stand in dr
16、ains,Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,Slipped by the terrace,made a sudden leap,And seeing that it was a soft October night,Curled once about the house,and fell asleep.And indeed there will be timeFor the yellow smoke that slides along the street,Rubbing its back upon the win
17、dow-panes;There will be time,there will be timeTo prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;There will be time to murder and create,And time for all the works and days of handsThat lift and drop a question on your plate;Time for you and time for me,And time yet for a hundred indecisions,And for
18、 a hundred visions and revisions,Before the taking of a toast and tea.In Time for all the works and days of hands(29)the phrase works and days is the title of a long poem-a description of agricultural life and a call to toil-by the early Greek poet Hesiod.In the room the women come and goTalking of
19、Michelangelo.And indeed there will be timeTo 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-They will say:How his hair is growing thin!My morning coat,my collar mounting firmly to the chin,My necktie rich and modest,but asserted by a
20、simple pin-They will say:But how his arms and legs are thin!Do I dareDisturb the universe?In a minute there is timeFor decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.For I have known them all already,known them all:-Have known the evenings,mornings,afternoons,I have measured out my life with co
21、ffee spoons;I know the voices dying with a dying fallBeneath the music from a farther room.So how should I presume?I know the voices dying with a dying fall(52)echoes the opening lines of Shakespeares Twelfth Night.And I have known the eyes already,known them all-The eyes that fix you in a formulate
22、d phrase,And when I am formulated,sprawling on a pin,When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,Then how should I beginTo spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?And how should I presume?And I have known the arms already,known them all-Arms that are braceleted and white and bareBut in the lam
23、plight,downed with light brown hair!Is it perfume from a dressThat makes me so digress?Arms that lie along a table,or wrap about a shawl.And should I then presume?And how should I begin?.Shall I say,I have gone at dusk through narrow streetsAnd watched the smoke that rises from the pipesOf lonely me
24、n in shirt-sleeves,leaning out of windows?.I should have been a pair of ragged clawsScuttling across the floors of silent seas.And the afternoon,the evening,sleeps so peacefully!Smoothed by long fingers,Asleep.tired.or it malingers,Stretched on the floor,here beside you and me.Should I,after tea and
25、 cakes and ices,Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?But though I have wept and fasted,wept and prayed,Though I have seen my head grown slightly bald brought in upon a platter,I am no prophet-and heres no great matter;I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,And I have seen the
26、eternal Footman hold my coat,and snicker,And in short,I was afraid.The prophet of Though I have seen my head(grown slightly bald)brought in upon a platter/I am no prophet-and heres no great matter(81-2)is John the Baptist,whose head was delivered to Salome by Herod as a reward for her dancing(Matthe
27、w14:1-11,and Oscar Wildes play Salome).And would it have been worth it,after all,After the cups,the marmalade,the tea,Among the porcelain,among some talk of you and me,Would it have been worth while,To have bitten off the matter with a smile,To have squeezed the universe into a ballTo roll it toward
28、 some overwhelming question,To say:I am Lazarus,(7)come from the deadCome back to tell you all,I shall tell you all-If one,settling a pillow by her head,Should say:That is not what I meant at all.That is not it,at all.To have squeezed the universe into a ball(92)echoes the closing lines of Marvells
29、To His Coy Mistress.I am Lazarus,come from the dead(94)may be either the beggar Lazarus(of Luke 16)who was not permitted to return from the dead to warn the brothers of a rich man about Hell or the Lazarus(of John 11)whom Christ raised from the dead,or both.And would it have been worth it,after all,
30、Would it have been worth while,After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,After the novels,after the teacups,after the skirts that trail along thefloor-And this,and so much more?-It is impossible to say just what I mean!But as if a magic lantern(8)threw the nerves in patterns on a
31、 screen:Would it have been worth whileIf one,settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,And turning toward the window,should say:That is not it at all,That is not what I meant,at all.No!I am not Prince Hamlet,(9)nor was meant to be;Am an attendant lord,one that will doTo swell a progress,start a scen
32、e or two,Advise the prince;no doubt,an easy tool,Deferential,glad to be of use,Politic,cautious,and meticulous;Full of high sentence,but a bit obtuseAt times,indeed,almost ridiculous-Almost,at times,the Fool.In the final section of the poem,Prufrock rejects the idea that he is Prince Hamlet suggesti
33、ng that he is merely an attendant lord(112)whose purpose is to advise the prince(114),a likely allusion to Polonius.Prufrock also brings in a common Shakespearean element of the Fool,as he claims he is also Almost,at times,the Fool.I grow old.I grow old.I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled
34、.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 that they will sing to me.I have seen them riding seaward on the wavesCombing the white hair of the waves blown backWhen the
35、 wind blows the water white and black.We have lingered in the chambers of the seaBy sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brownTill human voices wake us,and we drown.The poem presents the apparently random thoughts going through a persons head within a certain time interval,in which the transition
36、al links are psychological rather than logical This stylistic choice makes it difficult to determine exactly what is literal and what is symbolic.On the surface,The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock relays the thoughts of a sexually frustrated middle-aged man who wants to say something but is afraid to do so,and ultimately does not.414 The dispute,however,lies in who Prufrock is talking to,whether he is actually going anywhere,what he wants to say,and to what the various images refer.
