A sense of humor is vital for the reader to appreciate the poetry of T. S. Eliot, especially his widely anthologized, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."
Garrison Keillor blames “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” for “kill[ing] off the pleasure of poetry.” He complains that the poem is “a small, dark mopefest of a poem in which old Pru worries about whether to eat a peach or roll up his trousers.” It is funny that Keillor, whose own banter and reportage is laced with humor, does not see the humor in “Old Pru.”
The character of J. Alfred Prufrock
The speaker of T. S. Eliot’s most widely anthologized classic is J. Alfred Prufrock himself, and his personality is the theme of the poem; he is a ridiculous character, utterly laughable. As Roger Mitchell has explained, “He is the Representative Man of early Modernism. Shy, cultivated, oversensitive, sexually retarded (many have said impotent), ruminative, isolated, self-aware to the point of solipsism.”
In other words, he is merely a conglomeration of all of the ridiculous traits of humankind at any time; therefore, readers cannot take him seriously. Readers are free to simply enjoy the inane things he thinks and says by laughing at them.
Failure to read closely
Keillor refers to the following lines: “I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled,” and “Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?”
Keillor has been tricked by Eliot’s poem, and in Keillor’s comment about the poem, two assertions demonstrate his misunderstanding: 1) “small, dark mopefest of a poem”: This is a false assertion because the poem is too funny to be a “dark mopefest,” plus it is really a longer poem than most lyrics, and 2) "old Pru worries about whether to eat a peach or roll up his trousers”: This assertion is partially false also. While “old Pru” does ask if he dares “eat a peach,” he does not question whether he will roll up his trousers.
It is likely that these two false assertions indicate why Keillor has been tricked by the poem; he simply has not read it carefully and closely enough.
Other funny lines
The opening of the poem at first may simply seem startling but upon further study, the reader can see the hilarity in the absurdity of “the evening [] spread out against the sky / Like a patient etherized upon a table.” The connection between “evening/sky” and “etherized patient/table” is just so ludicrous that it is laughable.
“The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes”: fog becomes a cat or a dog, and the speaker likes that metaphor so well that he repeats in the next stanza.
“To 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”: While Prufrock would be a sympathetic character were he less pitiful, he becomes a caricature who instead of drawing sympathy draws derision from the reader.
Perhaps by tweaking his reading a bit and by reading closer, Keillor could learn to enjoy the misadventures of J. Alfred Prufrock.
Other Eliot articles:
Eliot’s Rhapsody on a Windy Night
Other Tricked By articles:
