Message of Hope in Eliots The Waste Land, Gerontion, and...

Message of Hope in Eliots The Waste Land, Gerontion, and The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock Thomas Stearns Eliot was not a revolutionary, yet he revolutionized the way the Western world writes and reads poetry. Some of his works were as imagist and incomprehensible as could be most of it in free verse, yet his concentration was always on the meaning of his language, and the lessons he wished to teach with them. Eliot consorted with modernist literary iconoclast Ezra Pound but was obsessed with the traditional works of Shakespeare and Dante. He was a man of his time yet was obsessed with the past. He was born in the United States, but later became a royal subject in England. In short, Eliot is as complete and total a†¦show more content†¦He is a teacher. And what he teaches us in his writing during the first half of the twentieth century, and what he still teaches us now is that there is no forward advancement in culture or life without respect and understanding of things past, including religion. He is a literary and cultural missionary. And like a missionary (Unitarian or otherwise) he does not chastise that which he hopes to help, as a crusader or pure critic might (Miller 448). Instead, he immerses himself in the culture he so deeply wishes to enhance rather than distance himself from it. Eliots The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock is a perfect example of this point. Let us go then, you and I, is the line Eliot chooses to begin the poem (1). The poem, basically, is about a man who cannot speak to women, out of fear of rejection, of nervousness, or any other reason men dont speak to women. On a larger scale, the poem is also about the inability of modern man (or malehood, that is) to communicate. Prufrock is full of self-abasement (I am ... the Fool 118, 126), self doubt (And indeed there will be time / To wonder Do I dare? and, Do I dare? 39-40), and self-imposed terror (And in short, I was afraid 90). These are all aspects of modern life, especially in relationships, but these traits, which are obviously shown in a negative light in Prufrock, are not distant character flaws of the unwashed,