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I have reviewed Eliot's complete poems extensively in one single review. As I'm pretty obsessive over my book cataloguing here on Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ, I decided to mark every single collection as "read" on here as well, as it's more accurate. But since I'm also obsessively reviewing everything that I read I wanted to at least share some tidbits about every single one of Eliot's poetry collections in their single reviews as well. Yes, I love making things harder for myself.

Eliot became one of my favorite poets of all time last year (2024). Since his initial impression on me is still so fresh at the beginning of this year I would currently consider him my favorite poet of all time. This man's poetry has me in a chokehold, bitch. For over a decade I keep these little DINA6 journals to write my favorite quotes down, not just from books I read but stuff that I see on the internet or that are said to me in real life etc. Usually, I try to limit the book quotes to one quote per book (as to not clog up these journals with quotes I've written down elsewhere—namely in my book reviews). With Eliot, I couldn't reign myself in. I dedicated a whole mosaic page to him with all of my favorite quotes from this. Like, I am obsessed. You would never understand.

Anyways, my love for him started with this slim collection: Prufrock and Other Observations. I will never be chill about the fact that THE FIRST POEM this man ever put to paper�"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"—is literally the most brilliant thing I've ever read IN MY LIFE. It is not funny how obsessed I am with it. Eliot began writing the poem in 1910, when he was but a mere 22 years old (MY SWEET SUMMER BOY), and it was finally professionally published in the June 1915 issue of Poetry: A Magazine of Verse at the instigation of fellow American expatriate Ezra Pound. Besties, when I tell you, WE OWE SO MUCH TO EZRA POUND. He was such a fan and supporter of Eliot throughout his literary career (literally coining the iconic "Waste Land" epigraph etc. etc.)—Ezra, baby, I am coming for youuuu.

The most famous line from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"�"Do I dare / Disturb the universe?"—is one that keeps me up at night. Like HOW THE FUCK do you write something like that at age 22???? Thomas Stearns, honey, you did disturb the universe and you had every right to!!! At the time of its publication, the poem was considered outlandish, but the poem is now seen as heralding a paradigmatic shift in poetry from late 19th-century Romanticism and Georgian lyrics to Modernism. Thomas Stearns was THAT GUY. Forever, forever obsessed.

My favorite line from the poem, the one that I personally resonate most deeply with (and would actually get tattooed on my fucking tits if I weren't such a coward [please ignore me, I'm channeling an energy for this review that I've never channelled before—but you need to understand how OBSESSED I am; anyways, moving on]) goes as follows: "I am no prophet � and here's no great matter. / I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, / And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker / And in short, I was afraid." HULLOOO??? Are you okay??? Are you still in the room with us bc I sure ain't—I am deceased. Eliot wrote an anthem for all the burned out gifted kid/student girlies out there and I am here for it. "I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker" and "And in short, I was afraid." are lines that I will literally NEVER forget, they speak so deeply to my soul??? And I don't wanna get into it bc it's none of your business but the girls that get it GET IT!!!!

Eliot narrates the experience of Prufrock using the stream of consciousness technique developed by his fellow Modernist writers. The poem, described as a "drama of literary anguish", is a dramatic interior monologue of an urban man stricken with feelings of isolation and an incapability for decisive action that is said "to epitomize [the] frustration and impotence of the modern individual" and "represent thwarted desires and modern disillusionment".

Prufrock laments his physical and intellectual inertia, the lost opportunities in his life, and lack of spiritual progress, and is haunted by reminders of unattained carnal love. With visceral feelings of weariness, regret, embarrassment, longing, emasculation, sexual frustration, a sense of decay, and an awareness of aging and mortality, the poem has become one of the most recognized works in modern literature.

The history of the epigraph for "Love Song" is also fascinating as it underwent some changes. In a draft version, Eliot chose Dante's Purgatorio, canto XXVI, line 147�148 as epigraph: "'be mindful in due time of my pain'. / Then dived he back into that fire which refines them." He finally decided not to use this, but eventually used the quotation in the closing lines of his 1922 poem "The Waste Land". The quotation that Eliot did choose comes from Dante also. Inferno (XXVII, 61�66) reads: "If I but thought that my response were made / to one perhaps returning to the world, / this tongue of flame would cease to flicker. / But since, up from these depths, no one has yet / returned alive, if what I hear is true, / I answer without fear of being shamed." (Am I the only one who wants to the reread the Commedia now?? And I am also the only one who gets major Oscar Wilde, De Profundis vibes. Yes?? Mmkay.)

Critics contends that Prufrock himself is suffering from a split personality, and that he embodies both Guido and Dante in the Inferno analogy. One is the storyteller; the other the listener who later reveals the story to the world. He posits, alternatively, that the role of Guido in the analogy is indeed filled by Prufrock, but that the role of Dante is filled by the reader ("Let us go then, you and I"). In that, the reader is granted the power to do as he pleases with Prufrock's love song.