T.S Eliot - Module B

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How has T. S. Eliot utilised specific elements of his form to engage varying audiences intellectually and emotionally? T.S. Eliot’s ‘Preludes’ and ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ explore the self-consciousness caused by the intense pessimism of a toxic urban world, which leads to passivity and a lack of agency. Eliot uses varying elements of the form of poetry to present the major concepts of his modernist context, the conflict between the individual and society, disempowerment and time and the ritualistic nature of life, which also allow him to intellectually and emotionally engage a present day audience. Eliot portrays life as tarnished through urban decay, which is typical of the modernist era. This can be seen in ‘Love Song’ when Prufrock observes the “half-deserted streets ... one-night cheap hotels and sawdust restaurants”. These recurring images of urban isolation emphasise the corruption present in society. Similarly, in ‘Preludes’, the persona describes a woman he sees as clasping “the yellow soles of feet in the palms of both soiled hands”. The colour yellow, which symbolises decay and disease, is used to show the woman’s state of mind, which has been corrupted by the society she is part of. Also, the gruesome imagery of burning flesh in “smell of steaks in passageways”, coupled with the pluralisation of the objects portrays this as an experience of universal suffering. Eliot also explores the disempowerment of the individual through the judgments of a modernist society. Prufrock’s rhetorical question “Do I dare?” is about the movement he desires that has been oppressed by his self-conscious. The interjection “but how his arms and legs are thin”, shows his physical vulnerability and highlights his lack of agency. In ‘Preludes’, the personification of the light which “crept up between the shutters” shows that the urban world is suited to

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