English poetry Essay

The endorse decade of the twentieth century, a change-over period in the history of incline poetry, was not a very inspirational one for poets. The existing root of poets, the Neo-Romantics attempted in vain to keep the Romantic spirit unrecorded by writing about nature and harmony but with the arrival of industrialization and the beginnings of the modern world, it became painfully clear that the lilting, peaceful Romantic flair was in no way a reflection of the present secernate of affairs.The mechanized world of machines, factories and similarly regimented human societies, long treat by the Neo-Romantics was finally examined and put into verse by T. S. Eliot. Of the numerous whole works that capture the nascent modern world, one that stands out in particular(a) is The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. Eliot dives into the heart of urban decay in the number 1 stanza itself, when he canvasss the plaining to an etherized patient lying comatose on the operate table.The met aphor that symbolizes the numb, unquestioning society that inhabits the deserted streets, cheap hotels and sawdust restaurants captures a estimation that is constantly revisited in this poem. The women who talk about Michelangelo do so as a ritual of fashion, without understanding anything about the art itself. Eliot goes on to compare the fog that spreads across the city to a cat that skulks on the rooftops onwards going to sleep.The fog that slips insidiously into every home represents the clouded appraisal of the people that inherit the modern world. The protagonist in the poem echoes Marvell and the preacher man in Ecclesiastes with the phrase, thither will be time, turning Marvells recollect to seize the moment and the preachers teaching- to everything there is a season- pinnacle down to suit his indecisiveness. 2 The comparisons to critical point in the poem in one case again parallel the lack of resolve that characterizes the protagonist.He longs to be the scallywag e lement in a society that picks up on the unreal things like ones thinning hair, or depleted pitch but fails to pay heed to lifes more consequential aspects. The protagonists envisions himself breaking the cycle and speaking lifes messages to the gossiping host only to falter at the moment of action. He finds himself pinned like an biting louse and unable to begin speaking his mind. He wonders if it is worth the trouble and anticipates that even if he were to speak, his message would be dismissed by as not being pertinent to the gossip that the society indulges in.His inability to make a change breeds some amount of self-loathing that surfaces in parches across the poem. Death- the eternal Footman- snickers at him for being afraid. He admits that he is neither a prophet nor Prince Hamlet that he is merely an attendant lord whose capacity to act lolly at staring a scene or two. The poem ends with the senescent protagonist taking a walk on the beach and move into another world where the mermaids are riding the cockles and singing to each other. only when even here, he believes that they will not sing to him. He lingers there for as long as he can, before he is awoken by the lifeless hand of human interaction and condemned for his lack of action, to drown in its throes. The themes that Eliot discusses through this poem and others like The Burial of the Dead and A wager of Chess explore and hit out against the soulless modern earth which moves along in a regimented stupor and parallels the oncoming wave of industrialization.