Yasir Mutlib Abdulla

PhD candidate
Literary Theory
1 Dec. 2020
Application Paper

T. S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” in light of Formalism

T.S. Eliot’s “Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” was so well known that it was a subject of a
hundred of interpretations and theoretical applications. This poem can lend itself to the formalist
interpretation due the artistry of its form and content. Without the interest in the external
biographical aspects of the author and contextual atmospheres; historical concerns and
influences, the poem can be seen as autonomous. Put under the lens of Wimsatt Jr. and
Beardsley’s conceptions of intentional fallacy and affective fallacy respectively, the meaning of
the poem can neither be deduced from the viewpoint of the author nor from the viewpoint of the
reader but rather from its inherent meaning, which can be applied to “The Love Song”. They
state that “the poem is not the critic's own and not the author's… ” (Beardsley 2016). Let us first
explicate how the poem can be viewed through the elements presented by Eliot.

“Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is based entirely on the dramatic monologue which is in itself
an entity. According to the definition the dramatic monologue is a speech by a single speaker to a
(silent) listener or audience. Due to being silent, the audience, and the reader behind them, is a
passive interlocutor and thus having no role in interpreting or imparting meaning. The title name
“J. Alfred Prufrock” is enigmatic and inaccessible which adds mystery to the already
ambiguousness of the speaker. The title hints at a love song that could not be found in the body
of the poem. The first and foremost element that is significant in the beginning of the poem is
that it starts in medias res without previous details, “Let us go then, you and I,/ when the evening
is spread out against the sky”. Eliot in his “Tradition and the Individual Talent” stresses that the
past has an influence on the present and present on the future. Prufrock’s present disturbed
situation can be read as an outcome of a mysterious past experience that shaped who Prufrock is.

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The poem can also be read as an epitome of the notion of “depersonalization”. The creation of
Prufrock is by no means the subjective representation of the poet himself. So the poet’s presence
is nowhere in the creation of the poem. The pronouns “you” and “I” in the opening lines do not
really denote to a particular person and were subject to diverse interpretations. They can be seen
as internal and external entities in the poem at the same time and might serve as a representation
of the split psychological structure of the speaker “I”. The poem is written in an economic
language but heavily dense with images, parentheses and punctuation marks that empower the art
of expression.

… With a bald spot in the middle of my hair —

(They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”)
… My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin —
(They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”

Eliot relies on the use of literary devices, like personification, similie, enjambment and
metaphors. The third line of the opening lines “Like a patient etherized upon a table” embodies
two devices; similie and personification. The spreading out of the evening is like a patient.
Although the two images of the evening and the patient have no real connectedness whatsoever,
Eliot’s artistry manages to personify the whole situation. This is also enhanced in the use of
metaphor and metonym later in the image of “the yellow fog”. These two devices tell a lot about
the inherent meaning of the fog with economic language. In fact the poem goes on with the same
procedure. The formalist interpretation of Eliot’s “The Love Song” is possible and needs more
time and space to pinpoint all the aspects and concepts established so far.

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Beardsley, W. K. Wimsatt Jr. and M. C. "The Intentional Fallacy ." The Sewanee Review, 2016:
470.
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