Alam
1
There is a tendency amongst some critics to deem T. S. Eliot’s poems religious, not
only the later ones, but even the early poems as well. The habit of interpreting his early
poems this way is due to his conversion to Anglo-Catholicism in 1927. After his conversion,
Eliot wrote a number of blatantly religious poems such as “Ash Wednesday,” “Ariel Poems,”
and “Four Quartets;” however before his conversion he wrote experimental poems such as,
“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” “Portrait of a Lady,” “The Love Song of St.
Sebastian,” “The Death of Saint Narcissus” and “The Triumph of Bullshit.” These early
poems can be interpreted as essentially epistemological, containing conflicting and
dichotomized themes of the sacred and carnal. It is easier for critics to posit that the later
poems completely move away from the secular and are essentially religious by showing that
a dichotomy exists in his early poems. In spite of these thematically different early poems,
Eliot’s conversion was so sensationalized, that the natural inclination for interpreting even his
earlier poems in the religious grain, is often to further emphasize the blatant religious content
of his later poems. Some critics incorporate the trend of biographically interpreting poetry
into their evaluation and this is a practice not only shunned by scholars but by the poets
themselves.
The constructed speakers or, in the words of Anthony Easthope, 1 the “subject of the
enounced,” are figments of the poets imagination and are not direct representations of the
poet himself. In his article “Remembering Eliot,” Stephen Spender alludes to this tendency,
stating, “there is a danger of people interpreting the whole of Eliot’s development as the
unfolding of a predetermined pattern” (59). This tendency to include a poet’s biography into
the interpretation of his creative works is a practice that is not recommended by credible
scholars and critics. Although a poet is inspired by his own experiences to create his
speakers and poems, it is important to remember that these mere influences cannot
overshadow the brilliance of creativity or be directly related to historical life. A poet’s
Alam
2
creation may overlap his reality, but does not pronounce or determine it. Mixing the
characteristics of the speakers in the poems with the poet’s own biography for the sake of
tracing a pattern is a very misleading and a monolithic way of interpreting such beautifully
dynamic, variant, and complex poems. Grover Smith, 2 writes, “During our first readings of
Eliot’s poems in chronological order, we may have to remind ourselves that we are watching
the evolution of one man’s point of view” (5). However, if we do not look at the
development as the “evolution” of the poet, but as the evolution of the speakers of the poems,
then the readings become more interesting and dynamic. I am not denying that there are a
few fundamental themes that are similar in his early poems, but I am asserting that these early
themes are very different from the themes that are present in his later poems.
“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is one of Eliot’s early poems written between
1910-1911. Although it was written sixteen years prior to his conversion, critics such as John
Halverson, Grover Smith, and Morris Weitz have regarded this poem as religious. While I
partially agree that there may be subtle spiritual undertones in the poem, I cannot agree with
Halverson when he states that, “both ‘Prufrock’ and ‘Gerontion’ are religious poems” (586).
In his article, “Prufrock, Freud, and Others,” Halverson initially makes an assertion that “The
Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is a poem about spiritual failure (578) and “spiritual
dryness” (582), but then concludes that the poem is the beginning of Eliot’s journey into the
realm of religion. Other critics, such as I. A. Richards insisted “that Eliot became a religious
poet after The Waste Land.” 3 What this shows is, that for a very long time, critics have been
too busy trying to simplify Eliot’s poems by reducing them into something concrete, into a
“predetermined pattern” (Spender 59). However, it is much more interesting to view the
early pieces independently as experimental poems, not as ones transitioning into the
religious. If we consider the speakers of the early poems to be characters that are skeptical
and philosophical and not merely preparing for a religious conversion akin to that which their
Alam
3
author would later undergo, the interpretations will allow more varied, dynamic, and
compound perspectives rather than just monolithic ones.
The dictionary describes a polyhedron as a geometrical solid figure that has many
plane faces, typically more than six. All the faces, or the sides combined, together make the
entire figure; not just one of the sides. Similarly a poem is like a polyhedron, it can have
varied interpretations. Each poem can, and aught to be, interpreted through a combination of
perspectives as long as they are justifiable and where one interpretation does not have priority
over the other. Eliot’s poems deserve to be interpreted through a polyhedron of perspectives,
not just one. If we are to trace a motif or a “pattern” as Spender suggests, then it will be
dishonest not to regard Eliot’s early poems as essentially philosophical. If critics feel they
are warranted to place all of his poems under the umbrella of religion because of his
conversion in 1927, then it is also fair to consider his earlier poems as philosophical because
of his academic career. Since Eliot was first and foremost a student of philosophy, critics
should not be content to interpret the entirety of his work religiously.
Similar to other Eliot critics, Spender tries to trace the “development” of the
“projected personae,” [emphasis Spender’s] “I” present in Eliot’s poems into a rigid pattern.
There should not be a need to formulate and link the evolution of all the constructed speakers
to each other for the sake of confining them into a pattern, as Spender does. They may be
compared to one another but should be evaluated individually as well. All the speakers of all
the poems in Eliot’s career do not need to be collectively treated as one speaker whose
character or beliefs develop from one poem to the other. Spender also tries to link the
evolution of all the speakers to the life of the poet by concluding, “In Eliot’s personal life,
one can rejoice that during the last ten years the synthesis was achieved” (84). Spender’s
insistence on synthesis implies that the poet’s life eventually and inevitably became
congruent with that of the religious speakers’. Rather than rely on this kind of consistency,
Alam
4
the purpose of this essay is not to biographically compare or monolithically generalize, but to
use different perspectives to analyze the poems of Eliot’s early life as a period of complex
skepticism.
Most scholars regard the speakers of Eliot’s early poems as characters who are afraid
of women and love. Fear of the opposite sex offers a monolithic interpretation whereas this
essay will try to show the complicated reasons as to why the speakers of the early poems
might want to reject love for women or reject women along with everyone else in society.
This essay will only explore Eliot’s early poems— specifically the ones written in the years
between 1909-1915— all of which can now be found in the recently published version of
Eliot’s original manuscripts entitled Inventions of the March Hare. 4 This collection is
extremely controversial because, along with other well-known early poems, it also hosts a
selection of pornographic poems that have never been published before. 5 By highlighting
some of the key themes and characteristics of the speakers of the early and controversial
poems this essay will show Eliot’s continued preoccupation with explicitly sexual ideas that
problematize one-sided religious interpretations. The purpose of the following is to show
that parallel to philosophically spiritual ideas, overtly sexual, asexual, bisexual and even
scatological ideas are also present amongst Eliot’s early poems, making it difficult to confine
his early poems to the religious genre. The paper will first try to show the complexities of the
speakers in regards to their relationships with women and others, and then will try to show
that these early poems can also be interpreted as stylistically romantic and thematically
epistemological rather than being religious.
Rejecting Others for the Preservation of the Self
In his book The Poetry of Experience, Robert Langbaum suggests that there was a
revival of Romantic style in Modern twentieth- century poetry. He writes, “the idea of… the
Alam
5
superior individual as giving meaning to an otherwise meaningless world” (11) is essentially
a style of poetics attributed to the Romantics but which is also present in various early Eliot
poems. Romantic poems, like that of Keats or Wordsworth are essentially subjective,
because most of them are about the speaker’s creativity in relation to the outside world.
Similarly, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is also a very subjective poem as it is about
Prufrock’s experience both inside his imagination and in public. Langbaum writes that
“subjectivity was not the program but the inescapable condition of romanticism” (28) and
asserts that although most Modern poets, such as Eliot and Pound amongst others, were
reacting against the Romantic style, some could not escape it. Subjectivity is also an
inescapable condition for many of Eliot’s early speakers such as “Prufrock” and the young
speaker in “Portrait of a Lady” amongst others.
Langbaum states that Romantic poems are essentially very subjective and that the
Romantic speaker “believes in nothing but himself and his infinite capacity for experience”
(17). While these types of poems are thematically experiential, the speakers are self-centered
and are only committed to themselves and their own self-awareness. Langbaum also asserts
that “it is not this or that political, philosophical, religious or even aesthetic commitment that
marks the romanticist” (21), but rather that it is his commitment to subjectivity that makes
him one. Similarly as this section will soon demonstrate, most of the early Eliot speakers are
also committed to themselves and to their quest of self- discovery. In this sense, his poems
are very Romantic because they are primarily concerned with subjective experience.
Langbaum states, “The process of experience is for the Romanticist a process of selfrealization, of a constantly expanding discovery of the self” (25). Eliot takes this notion one
step further; in order for Eliot’s speakers to attain self-realization, they renounce all societal
distractions.
Alam
6
It is plausible to interpret some of Eliot’s early speakers as characters who reject
being in relationships with women. The first section of the essay will show that fear is not
the only reason for rejection and instead “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (1910-1911),
“Portrait of a Lady” (1910) and “The Triumph of Bullshit” (1910) offers complex
philosophical justifications for that fear. By close- reading some of Eliot’s early poems, it
will be evident that rejection of the opposite sex stems from complicated ideologies and
philosophical beliefs that the speakers have, not merely amorous ones.
As mentioned before, although Eliot wrote in the Modern era, it is possible to
consider these early poems to be stylistically Romantic. Similar to the speakers of Romantic
poetry, the speakers of Eliot’s poems are, in the words of Peter Hühn 6 characters whose
“spirits” are trying to attain and maintain “ultimate self-identity, self-presence and absolute
self-knowledge” (244), unadulterated by society as a whole. All three speakers have a
“tendency” towards “self-analysis” followed by “the emergence of a distinct selfhood
alienated from others and threatened in its existence” (Hühn 230). The speakers are typically
Romantic because they are in a continuous state of meditation, self-awareness, and selfanalysis which makes them “highly self-centered and self-consciousness and extremely
isolated” (Hühn 231). This dedication to ultimate self-identity and absolute self-knowledge
makes it impossible for any of the speakers to successfully navigate any human relationship.
The speakers choose isolation over society because social rituals offer only impediments to
self-exploration and the realization of absolute selfhood.
In “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” the speaker is nervous and hesitant as he
makes his way to a social gathering where he will have to interact with women (ll. 59, 68-72,
79-80, 88-111). Just thinking about the interaction has already made him uncomfortable even
before he reaches his destination because he is worried about the ritualistic performances
affiliated with socializing. He says, “There will be time, there will be time, / To prepare a
Alam
7
face to meet the faces that you meet” (ll. 26-27) because social rituals, such as dressing up for
the occasion, are also cumbersome to him. Prufrock is also worried about time. He wonders
whether there will be enough topics for conversation such as, ‘the works and days of hands”
(l. 29). However there is no evidence in the poem whether he ever reaches his destination at
all or if these scenarios and speculations are indeed only in the speaker’s imagination. The
speaker Prufrock does not own the charms of rhetoric or know the art of conversation
because he is worried and rethinking “a hundred indecisions / And… a hundred visions and
revisions” (ll. 32-33) in his mind, even before he utters a single syllable. Prufrock cannot
bring himself to have meaningless, superficial conversations with women who sit and mock
his hair “growing thin” (l. 41) or ridicule his “morning coat” (l. 42) and “necktie” (l. 43) or
complain about “how his arms and legs are thin” (l. 44). He imagines the women reacting to
his appearance in a negative way by making fun of his thinning and aging body (l. 44). The
imaginary negative reactions from the women assure Prufrock that these supercilious women
are not interested in conversing with him, but are more interested in being condescending
towards him.
Prufrock wonders if he should say that he has “gone at dusk through narrow streets /
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes / Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out
of windows” (ll. 70-72) because he is unsure about what to discuss in a social gathering. He
thinks about the banality of the modern world— “the narrow” (l.70) “half deserted streets” (l.
4), the “restless nights in one-night cheap hotels” (l. 6), and the “sawdust restaurants with
oyster shells” (l. 7)— and speculates if these are appropriate topics of conversation. Prufrock
imagines them in his head but does not execute them. He assumes that this is not the desired
conversation of women who “come and go / Talking of Michelangelo” (ll. 35-36), “where the
titan Michelangelo” according to Halverson “is no more than the subject of teatime chatter”
(577). This sort of “polite and restrained and superficial conversation” with “rigorously
Alam
8
subdued emotions” (Smith 7) is something that the speaker Prufrock cannot bring himself to
perform. He finds the social rituals of “teacups,” (l. 103) “marmalade,” (l. 89) “porcelain,”
(l. 90) “novels,” (l. 103), “cakes and ices” (l. 79), to be pointless compared to the deep
philosophical dilemma going on in his mind.
What he wants is, to engage in more philosophical and existential conversations, such
as what Lazarus would say if he was resurrected into the modern world (l. 95). Such
conversations, “clouded with… matters so fundamental and personal” (Halverson 579), are
not the kinds that socialites are interested in at gatherings. The speaker finds himself in a
situation where, out of fear of judgment, he cannot get himself to have meaningless
conversations nor bring himself to talk about issues that he is interested in talking about.
This conflict of interests makes Prufrock feel that socializing is pointless, and leads him to
confess that he would rather “have been a pair of ragged claws / Scuttling across the floors of
silent seas” (ll. 73-74). He would rather remain in solitude and pass his time indefinitely
walking across the silent seas than in the presence of women.
Prufrock cannot pretend to be anyone other than who he is. He cannot “prepare” his
“face to meet” the other prepared “faces” (l. 27) that he will encounter at the superficial
gatherings. Preparing a face insinuates deceit, as if the real face has to be masked or hidden
before one sets out to socialize. Likewise, as indicated by Prufrock trying to decide suitable
topics for discussion such as watching lonely men wait by the windows (l. 72), conversations
also have to be prepared. Prufrock decides that he is better off meditating about matters that
are interesting to him instead of trying to decipher the rhetoric of conversation. He believes
that what is interesting to him will not be interesting to the supercilious women because they
are interested in Michelangelo while he is interested in philosophical thoughts about Lazarus.
At the end of the poem, the speaker reveals that he would rather fantasize about being
in the presence, or at least in close proximity, to “mermaids” (l. 125) and “sea- girls” (l. 131)
Alam
9
than actual women simply because these imaginary beautiful women are not judgmental. In
Prufrock’s imaginary world, the mermaids sing (l. 125), ride the waves (l. 127), decorate
themselves with wreathes (l. 131) and float in the “chambers of the sea” (l. 130). They are
not hostile towards him, nor do they demand hollow conversation. In fact they do not even
interact with them but only lingers voyeuristically in their presence. The word “chamber”
implies a secured and quiet place where Prufrock can “linger” by himself surrounded by
these beautiful imaginary women. He is safe and able to linger indefinitely in the caverns of
his imagination, “in the chambers of the sea / By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and
brown.” However, it is only when “human voices wake” (ll. 130-133) him, that he drowns.
What makes this poem stylistically Romantic is Prufrock’s experience and because his
Romantic commitment to self-realization is far more important to him than women or
society. When Prufrock is engaged in self-analysis there is an “emergence of a distinct
selfhood alienated from others and threatened in its existence” (Hühn 230) by the intrusion of
others. His quest for ultimate self-identity and absolute self-knowledge is threatened by the
incursion of human voices because they will disrupt his meditation by bringing him back to
the undesirable reality.
With real women, there is always the danger that no matter what the speaker is trying
to communicate, it will either be misunderstood or worse, not understood at all because
Prufrock is afraid that if he starts talking about his interests the women will condescendingly
say, “That is not what I meant at all. / That is not it at all (ll. 98-99). Even if he could expose
his “nerves in patterns on a screen” (l. 106) with the aid of a “magic lantern,” his thoughts
would still remain inexplicable and incommunicable to others. Since it is impossible for him
to communicate with the women, he would rather be a crab than be present in these
gatherings at all. He would rather denounce the company of real women and linger with his
imaginary ones in the chambers of the sea (l. 130). He feels that “scuttling across the floors
Alam 10
of silent seas” (l. 74) is time well spent, alone and far away from the company of real women.
By doing so, he can at least meditate and achieve something that is intrinsically important for
his own self-growth, rather than being instrumentally engaged in a social purpose. By
remaining in solitude and meditating, he can try to attain absolute self-knowledge” (Hühn
244), which is more important to him than impressing superficial people with conversations.
The academic world has witnessed countless debates regarding this poem, two of the
most popular being whether eroticism is present in the poem and what the speaker means
when he talks about the “crisis” (l. 80) and the “overwhelming question” (l. 10). Many critics
have combined the two debates and have claimed that “Prufrock is meditating a proposal,
proposition or a declaration” and, since the question is something that he cannot get himself
to ask in the “ presence of women” (Halverson 571), “it can only be erotic” (Halverson 572).
Critics like Grover Smith have asked, “Who is this ‘you’ to whom Prufrock sings his ‘love
song’?” (7) and John Hakac has suggested that the poem uses “contrasting motifs of real love
and ideal love as impossibilities in order to intensify Prufrock’s agony of no-love” (54). 7
While this is how some of the critics dealt with the eroticism conundrum, Elisabeth Schneider
writes that, 8 “at its most abstract level it does ask a central question, ‘Is inner change
possible’ (Schneider 1103)? Other critics, such as Halverson and Weitz have suggested that
since the “overwhelming question” is existential in nature, the poem is essentially religious.
They have suggested that the speaker’s “overwhelming” queries are about whether or not life
offers a “meaningful existence” (Halverson 576); and in doing so, they have inferred that
Prufrock’s “failure is above all spiritual” and not amorous (Halverson 578). Like Halverson,
Weitz has also suggested that Prufrock does not know or recognize “the possibilities of
salvation” in a modern world, which makes the poem “deeply religious” (Weitz 54) and
depicts the speaker as one in search of divine salvation.
Alam 11
Concerning the accounts that “Prufrock” is a poem about proposing love to a woman
or that it is a religious poem, I must beg to differ. Some critics have argued convincingly that
the poem is about a proposal of love, and while I agree that the poem is stylistically
Romantic, I do not agree that the poem is merely about love between a man and a woman. I
think the poem can be read as the speaker’s philosophical quest for ultimate self-identity,
unadulterated by women or society. In his book, Tracing T. S. Eliot’s Spirit, A. David
Moody suggests that the fear of the speaker is not a fear of women in particular, but that it is
a fear of “human relations” (184), and I agree. The essay will now try to show that the erotic
conundrums stem out of epistemological concerns. It will address the religious debates by
offering a philosophical reading for the “you” and “I” in the third section of the essay.
There is no mention of “love” in the entire poem except in the title, which acts as a
misleading irony. It is misleading because the title influences critics to forcibly trace a
relationship between the speaker and the women in the poem. Could not the ‘love song’ be a
song about self- love? Since the poem is fundamentally a poem about “self-examination”
(Halverson 574) and, as I have already suggested, a typically Romantic one, one plausible
interpretation can be that the speaker is choosing self-love over love with a woman. Prufrock
rejects relationships with real women for a number of reasons: I would first suggest that
Prufrock cannot trust women to love him unconditionally, secondly I will address that he
believes that woman are obstacles in attaining self-wholesomeness, self-identity and selfawareness, and third I will try to show that what at first appears to be an inferiority complex
in Prufrock towards women, is in fact reversed into a superiority complex.
As I have mentioned before, Prufrock finds real women to be dismissive and
condescending. He finds the women to be judgmental because they are always trying to
dissect and formulate him into a stereotype, like an entomologist would with an insect (ll. 5558). He cannot bring himself to trust them at all because he feels their judgmental eyes “fix
Alam 12
[him] in a formulated phrase” (l. 56). He knows these types of socialite women too well and
can confidently speculate what they are thinking. Prufrock undoubtedly knows that their
eyes have already judged him and have decided to deem him unworthy of their attention.
This suggests that Prufrock does not have any faith in women. He cannot expect such
women to love a person like him at all, let alone unconditionally or forever. The only
relationship he can actually rely on unconditionally is a meditative and contemplative
relationship with his own self in the chambers of his solitude (l. 130).
In the words Moody, self-love “is a love that is not demanding or threatening in the
way the love of women has been in his experience” (189). Moody goes on to say that this
kind of self-love “is a love to which he can submit himself absolutely in the assurance that he
is absolutely accepted” (189). In solitude, there are no external tensions in the internal quest
to find one’s identity or in trying to achieve self-wholesomeness; but such tensions do exist
and are sometimes rampant in any human relationship, especially with women. Prufrock can
willingly forego any relationship with real women because he is satisfied fantasizing about
imaginary ones. He can execute full control by creating these women with the help of his
imagination and according to his preference. In this way, he will not have to choose a
woman over himself. This type of thinking echoes philosophies of self-transformation by
self-aggrandizement where the philosopher would rather choose himself over anyone or
anything else so that he can achieve ultimate self-identity and become who he really is,
namely, “a self with an infinite dimension”(qtd. in Moody 192). 9 There is also no guarantee
from the socialites that a woman will accept him just the way he is because he imagines them
scrutinizing his appearance (ll. 41-44). Since unconditional love is not possible between him
and women, he can neither trust women nor find it plausible to be in love with any.
In his book, The Cult of the Superman, Eric Bentley writes about modern man’s
doubts regarding love and the ideal lover. He writes that modern man’s concept of an ideal
Alam 13
lover is not practical because he wants his lover to be absolutely compatible to him. Bentley
writes, “The sex antagonism which the modern age stresses has its complement in a feeling
that the lover should be nearly as possible a projection of the self” (42). This implies that
such a lover, or in the case of Prufrock such a woman, is impossible to find. It is not possible
to find a counterpart that will be so similar to one’s own self that s/he will be a direct
“projection of the self.” Similar to Bentley’s modern man, Prufrock is having trouble finding
a woman to engage with. They have different interests, while the women are socializing with
confidence and ease, Prufrock cannot.
The women make Prufrock feel obliged to take part in their version of socially
acceptable conversations such as “talking of Michelangelo” (l. 14). This is another reason
why Prufrock feels that women are an obstacle on his path to self-wholesomeness and selfidentity because he would rather talk of Lazarus and existential crises. Moody suggests that
the speaker’s “self-possession is threatened” (184) by the distracting women in the room. He
also states that “the supreme importance of his own individual being” (193) is far more
significant than nurturing human relations. He further suggests and I agree, that Prufrock
rejects human relationships so that his ultimate quest can be dedicated to self-growth.
Prufrock feels confident that being engaged in a relationship with a woman will not work
because he is committed to his own quest. Investing time and energy in a relationship
destined for doom would be a waste of Prufrock’s precious time, time that could have been
spent in undisturbed self-analysis in the “chambers” (l. 130) of his mind. Since it is not
possible to find a lover that will be perfectly congruent and compatible with Prufrock, it is
better not to sing a ‘love song’ for women, but rather for the self.
Although most interpretations of this poem will make the reader think that Prufrock is
suffering from extreme inferiority complex towards women, I think this is a misleading
interpretation. The entire poem characterizes women as judgmental, hostile, supercilious,
Alam 14
and pretentious socialites. This means that there are hardly any positive attributes associated
with them. In fact, they are made to seem undesirable and ugly in nature, that in comparison,
Prufrock seems more genuine and honest. So then why should he feel inferior towards
women? He feels that he cannot please them, because they are very hard to please; he feels
that he cannot talk to them, because they do not want to hear what he has to say. This
portrays the women in a rather negative light, which warrants his philosophy of being better
off in solitary meditation. His philosophical interests about the “universe” (l. 46) or
existential “crisis” (l. 80) are more meaningful to him than conversations of “Michelangelo”
(ll. 14, 36). He assumes that these women do not have what it takes to engage in elevated
conversations whereas he does because he imagines them dismissing his queries about
Lazarus (l. 95-99).
I think what in fact appears to be an inferiority complex in Prufrock can also be
inverted into a superiority complex. Moody suggests that what is more “remarkable than his
fear and failure and alienation is the undiminished sense, manifest in his tone and style, of his
own superiority” (185). Prufrock believes his thoughts and queries to be too intellectually
demanding for the women because they are unable to converse about Lazarus (l. 95-99). He
would rather be a crab in the sea than be in their presence, or would rather be floating around
with mermaids than engage with the real women. We find Prufrock “putting them down and
mastering that world with his superb wit” (Moody 185) by sarcastically making himself
appear inferior because he is unable to inspire the women with his talks of Lazarus.
However, it is sarcastic because he is in fact pointing at the intellectual inferiority in the
women because they are unable to meet his expectation. The women casually “come and go /
Talking of Michelangelo” (ll. 13-14, 35-36) as if the great “Titan” (Halverson 577) artist is
worth no more than casual, arbitrary teatime conversation. He imagines the women to be
more interested in judging the way he looks, belittling his balding head and his outfit, rather
Alam 15
than conversing (ll. 40- 44). They dismiss his queries about existentialism when he tries to
talk about Lazarus (l. 95- 99), which alludes to the fact that he does not think they are able to
intellectually converse with him. Since Prufrock does not have anything in common with
them and they are not compatible with him, he would rather commit himself to self-growth
instead.
When the women dismiss his discussion on Lazarus, he feels that it is their inferiority
that makes them dismiss it, not his. The women are not able to engage in existentialist
conversations, whereas he is. He values his own interests more and would willingly forego
society for solitude in his own mind’s “chamber” (l. 130). Since he does not value what the
others do, he does not find truth or worth in their opinions. The only activity that is
worthwhile to him is meditating, undisturbed by others. Elisabeth Schneider states that,
“Solid confidence in one’s own value, even a confidence of superiority, can coexist with fear
that one’s value has no meaning for others or will not be recognized” (1107). It is precisely
this fear of being undervalued and undermined by the women that is transformed into selfconfidence for Prufrock. In this way, what appears to be a fear-ridden inferiority complex in
Prufrock is actually a superiority complex.
There is a connection between Prufrock’s superiority complex and Langbaum’s
theory of “romanticism as a modern tradition” (9). Langbaum states that the Romantics used
“the idea of… the superior individual as giving meaning to an otherwise meaningless world”
(11) in their poetry and this trend can also found in Modern poets such as Eliot. Prufrock’s
superior philosophical mind cannot find any worth or meaning in social gatherings. The
rituals of “tea,” “cakes” (l. 79) and preparing a face to meet other prepared faces (l. 27) are
meaningless to him. Prufrock’s dismissal of others for the sake of self-realization is also
stylistically Romantic. Prufrock’s reasons for rejecting women are Romantic because he is
willing to forego them for his epistemological quest for absolute self-knowledge. Philosophy
Alam 16
defines epistemology as the theory of knowledge; for Prufrock, his journey is epistemological
because it is a quest to find out what can be known and what cannot be known. Prufrock’s
monologue acts as a form of speech therapy, where he ponders the possibility of knowing
another person other than the self. He wonders if it is possible to completely know another
person well enough to be with them for the rest of one’s life? Is it possible to love another as
unconditionally as one loves oneself? Prufrock’s epistemological conundrum is about the
possibility of “human relationships” (Moody 184), making his quest stylistically Romantic
and philosophical, not erotic.
A combination of Romantic tropes and philosophical beliefs can be traced in a
number of Eliot’s early poems, including “Portrait of a Lady” (1910). The speaker in this
poem is not as talkative as Prufrock and so the reader does not explicitly know what the
speaker thinks of the lady he is visiting. When the speaker does talk, he only talks to himself
and never with the hostess. Similar to Prufrock, there is an underlying connotation that the
young speaker does not think the elder lady is worthy of his friendship because he feels
superior to her. In his article, “Eliot’s ‘Portrait of a Lady’ Restored,” Derek Roper writes that
“critics agree: she is indeed deplorable, and too ridiculous to be taken seriously, though she
may deserve charity or compassion” (43). The speaker visits her on three different occasions,
but does not directly interact with her. Is it sympathy and polite behavior that forces him to
visit her as he mounts the stairs on his “hands and knees” (l. 87)? She is portrayed as a lonely
elderly woman who is looking for intellectual friendship, which may invoke feelings of
pathos in the speaker. Why else would he forcibly “mount” on his “hands and knees”?
However, at the very end of the poem, the speaker smiles at the thought of his hostess’ death
(l. 123-124), which seems to imply that he is unsympathetic after all. Does he visit her
because the lady’s misery feeds his superiority complex? On all three occasions he listens to
Alam 17
his hostess lament her youth and never directly responds to her, remaining wrapped up in his
own imagination.
Critics such as Grover Smith, Hugh Kenner, Lyndall Gordon and Laurie J.
MacDiarmid have tried to suggest that the lady is sexually interested in the young speaker
(qtd. in Roper 44-45). However, like Roper, I disagree. As Roper points out, “Neither love
or sex is mentioned in the text” (44) and, moreover, given their age difference which is
evident from the lady’s conversation, it is highly improbable. It is also clear from the kind of
conversations she has with the speaker that she is only interested in developing “into friends”
(l. 98) or relating feelings (l. 103) to each other by engaging in elevated discussions. Since
her conversations are mostly about music, her fleeting life, her memories, and the enjoyment
of having friends, I believe that there is no sexual tension between them.
The lady in the poem is looking for a friend whom she can intellectually and
emotionally depend on but the young speaker responds “particularly badly to her offers of
friendship” (Roper 45). Compared to the women in “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”
this lady is not as superficial. Nonetheless, the young speaker does not engage with her.
Whenever the lady speaks, the speaker recoils in his mind, thinking about music and other
mundane social acts such as admiring “monuments” or discussing “the late events” (ll. 3738). While she is highly emotional, he is mechanical and self-absorbed. As she laments her
youth fading away while he still has his, the speaker cannot dignify her with any response
other than to “go on drinking tea” (l. 51).
From the moment the lady starts to talk, the speaker imaginatively transforms her
voice into different melodies coming out of various musical instruments such as the
“attenuated tones of violins / Mingled with remote cornets” (ll. 16-17). It is not possible for
the speaker to tolerate the subject matter of the lady’s conversations, so with the help of his
imagination he transforms her words into tunes and melodies instead of responding to her.
Alam 18
On the second visit the speaker blatantly says that the lady’s “voice returns like the insistent
out-of-tune… broken violin” (ll. 56-57), causing a disruption in his flow of imagination.
Similar to Prufrock, this young speaker feels that the lady’s presence is an intrusion and a
distraction. When she asks him to write to her, his “self- possession flares up” (l. 94). Like
Prufrock this speaker would also like to be left alone to indulge in his musings. It is possible
to posit that the young speaker is committed to his self-realization but his hostess is an
impediment to his process. The same Romantic trend of a speaker’s commitment to a self,
which is intruded upon by the presence of others can be traced in this poem, as well as in
“Prufrock.”
At first, the poem seems to be, much like “Prufrock,” another dramatic monologue.
However there is a subtle hint where she says, “you knew? You are not blind” (l. 22)! This
indicates to the reader that this is not a monologue but a dialogue or a conversation.
Although the young speaker does not verbally respond to anything she says, the line implies
that there must have been “a sympathetic noise” (Roper 43) or a gesture from his end to help
carry on the lady’s conversation. During the speaker’s first visit the lady talks about the
experience of listening to Chopin’s music with “intimate” (l. 10) friends. The speaker uses
the word “velleities” (l. 15) to describe the ladies attempts at starting conversation, meaning
her efforts do not possess enough vigor to spark a dialogue between the two. He finds the
lady’s topics of discussion too pretentious for his taste and so does not participate in any of
them. While she speaks to him, the reader gets a chance to eavesdrop on the speaker’s
internal monologues. For the majority of the piece, the speaker’s internal monologue
revolves around music, “Inside my brain a dull tom-tom begins” (l. 32). The speaker is also
concerned with monotonous everyday rituals, such as correcting “watches by the public
clocks” (l. 39) or “Reading the comics and the sporting page” (l. 72). The musings are not
necessarily even in response to what the lady is talking about.
Alam 19
The speaker, like Prufrock, cannot pretend to be anyone other than who he is. He
cannot rise up to the occasion and make superficial conversations for the sake of politeness,
so he would rather visit, but not contribute to, the conversation at all. Similar to Prufrock, he
can effortlessly linger in his chamber of musings, but no matter how sentimental the lady
becomes he cannot naturally empathize or engage with her. “With the smell of hyacinths
across the garden” (l. 87) he is effortlessly able to romantically ponder “things that other
people have desired” (l. 88), but no amount of emotional conversation from the hostess is
enough to rouse an ounce of sympathy in the speaker.
Then what are the reasons for the young speaker to visit the lady but not talk to her?
Since I have previously established that there is no sexual or amorous tension between the
young speaker and the Lady, there is no possibility of erotic unconditional love. Even the
possibility of unconditional, friendly love is not probable between the young speaker and the
elderly hostess because, while one is overtly expressive and needy, the other is stiflingly
reserved and independent and as such, they are clearly incompatible. By the third visit, the
speaker confidently knows that they are not going to be able to communicate with one
another. He had to make himself “mount” [emphasis mine] the stairs (l. 86) on his “hands
and knees” (l. 87), which is indicative of the speaker’s forced efforts to visit her this third and
last time. He knows enough about the lady to confidently assert that they will not be able to
be companions. If it is not unconditional love, then it must be compassion that enables his
visits.
It is textually evident from the speaker’s ennui that he purposely chooses not to
engage with the lady. Langbaum reiterates the Romantic claim that, “the inability to find
meaning in the world leads to the inability to respond or feel” (15). Similarly, it is plausible
to interpret the speaker’s ennui in this Romantic manner because he does not find the topics
of lady’s discussions uninteresting and meaningless, which is why he does not partake in any
Alam 20
one of them. The speaker’s thoughts, like Prufrock’s, are threatened by the hostess’ constant
need to communicate. It is enough that he visits her, not once but three times, out of
compassion; but that does not oblige him to actively engage in conversation. A plausible
reason why he constantly retreats to his imagination is that he would rather meditate on
mundane things than engage with her. He, like Prufrock, feels that she is an obstacle to his
meditation because her voice is always intruding upon him like “a broken violin” (l. 57) that
is “out-of-tune” (l. 56). In this way, this poem can also be read Romantically because his
commitment to self-realization is being interrupted by the lady’s constant need to
communicate. The young speaker compromises enough just by visiting, talking or directly
engaging with her. Whereas Prufrock had “overwhelming questions” and universal crises to
ponder, this young speaker has no such elevated philosophies to contemplate other than
ordinary events from the daily newspaper (ll. 71-83). The speaker knows that he is better off
in his head thinking about ordinary things than being engaged in pathetically pseudointellectual “velleities” (l. 15) of conversation.
Roper writes, the speaker longs “for a situation free of emotional complications” (47)
but realizes that such an arrangement is impossible with another human being. It is only
possible in his own mind, which is why he feels most comfortable there. Since the lady could
be a potential obstacle to his musings, he never leaves his thoughts nor does he even talk to
her. No matter what, there is always a “gulf— whether between herself and her visitor,
between youth and age, or between any two persons” (Roper 50). The speaker does not feel
the presence of the gap engaged in his imaginations. Similar to Prufrock, it is very easy for
him to slip into meditation but it is impossible for him to engage with another human being.
Although he has been invited as a friend, he is also a guest, which connotes that he
should behave accordingly, “yet… his attitude is surprisingly critical” (Roper 45), bordering
on rude. They do not share any common interests and are rather incompatible. She states
Alam 21
that “ordinary life is disgusting to her” (Roper 46) and explains that she does “not love” (l.
22) life’s “odds and ends” (l. 21). While she only values friends and friendship above all
else, ironically the speaker does not value her as a friend and only engages in thinking about
ordinary life by himself. The hostess passionately believes that “without these friendships—
life, [is] a cauchemar’” (l. 28); in other words, a life without friends is a nightmare.
Contrarily, a life shared with friends is undesirable because he yearns for solitude. In this
way, they are quite opposites while he is a “confident, superior, hypercritical young man”
(Roper 55), she is an elderly lady who lacks in self-confidence and acts inferior because she
is the lonely victim of time.
I agree with Roper that the young speaker is superior compared to his hostess because
she is vulnerable and he is “invulnerable” (l. 61). They are so incompatible that the speaker
cannot even relate to her insecurities and vulnerabilities. When she laments her age (l. 44-49,
52-55), exposing her insecurities, the speaker does not even try to console her with
sympathetic words. Instead, he “takes his hat” (l. 69), which could mean either that he is just
fiddling with it in his hand as a means of compensation— since he cannot respond verbally,
he makes physical gestures, or that he is getting ready to leave. Either way, he is dismissive
and her inferiority feeds his superiority and empowers him. We find yet another similar trend
between this poem and “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” Both speakers are aware of
the inferiority of others, which helps them feel superior allowing them to prioritize their own
selves over others. Along with feeling compassion for the hostess and finding her
conversations meaninglessness, the other reason why the speaker does not talk to his hostess
is because of his superiority complex. The speakers’ superiority complex justifies their
Romantic commitment to the self.
In his article, “‘A Gesture and a Pose’: T. S Eliot’s Images of Love,” Martin Scofield
writes, “Both ‘Prufrock’ and ‘Portrait of a Lady’ are about the failures of love, which need
Alam 22
not be the same as its absence” (12). I think this is a very important distinction because love
for the self is present in both poems, but there is no love for women, society or any human
relationships in either. The speaker does not have any problems staying engaged in his own
thoughts, but he describes the intrusion of the lady’s voice in his head as “a dull tom tom” (l.
32) “absurdly hammering” (l. 33) its undesired presence in the speakers mind. Similar to
Prufrock, he would like to remain undisturbed while musing in his chamber of imagination.
Both speakers are, in the Romantic fashion, committed to their own self- realization.
Keeping these similar Romantic themes in mind, the next poem I want to discuss is a
poem that Eliot had a lot of trouble publishing during his lifetime. “The Triumph of Bullshit”
was written in 1910 but could not be published, like most of his early bawdy poems, because
of the amount of profanity in it. In the anthology Inventions of the March Hare, Christopher
Ricks cites an excerpt from the correspondence between Ezra Pound and the publisher
Wyndham Lewis (305), where Lewis explains to Pound why the poems could not be
published. 10 In her article “T. S. Eliot’s Bawdy Verse: Lulu, Bolo and More Ties,” Loretta
Johnson aptly surmises that the male speaker is thumbing “his nose at the ladies” (17) who
are condescendingly judging him. In the first stanza he tells the “Ladies” (l. 1) that if they
think that he is a person whose “merits” (l. 2) are: “Etiolated, alembicated,” (l. 3) “tasteless,”
(l. 4) “monotonous, crotchety, constipated / Impotent galamatias (ll. 5-6), then, “For Christ’s
sake stick it up your ass” (l. 8). Similarly, the rest of the stanzas begin with negative
adjectives that the ladies use to describe the speaker’s character but end with the speaker
telling the supercilious ladies to stick their opinions about him in their “ass.” This speaker’s
voice is more commanding and confident than both Prufrock and the young speaker from
“Portrait of a Lady” combined. To me this poem seems to be what Prufrock would have
wanted to say to the judgmental women if he had the courage to do so. The last line of every
stanza, “For Christ’s sake stick it up your ass” (ll. 8, 16, 24, 28), confirms that the speaker is
Alam 23
not at all apologetic for who he is. He is proud even if the ladies do not like him for it. This
speaker has a rather bold voice and does not care about propriety or acceptable social
conduct; rather, he is not afraid to speak his mind.
The speaker is not negatively affected by what ladies think of him because he
converts their negative comments into a source of positive attitude. Similar to the women in
“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” the ladies of “The Triumph of Bullshit” are also
condescending and have a superior attitude towards the speaker. This speaker takes the
ladies’ superiority and inverts it, making him superior to them, by not giving them the power
to negatively affect him. By not giving the ladies the power to verbally put him down, he in
fact retains the power for himself and puts them down instead. He is effortlessly able to
dismiss their comments using one single line: “For Christ’s sake stick it up your ass” (ll. 8,
16, 24, 28). He uses his wits to make it seem as if their comments are “impotent galamatias”
(l. 6) insisting that their opinion is ineffective and nonsense. This powerful dismissal shows
how hollow and useless their negativity really is. Since the speaker blatantly dismisses them,
it is as if everything the ladies are describing is a projection of their own selves and not a
judgment on the speaker. Women are no longer a potential threat to his path to selfaggrandizement and self-identity because he does not value or credit anything they say.
Women are not able to negatively affect him because he does not give them the power to do
so. Their opinions about the speaker are as valuable as the title of the poem: “Bullshit.” 11
Women are no longer obstacles for achieving the speaker’s identity because their opinions do
not matter to him at all.
This speaker is characteristically very different from Prufrock; they are almost the
exact opposite. However, the Romantic condition of attaining ultimate self-identity and
absolute self-knowledge remain the same for all early Eliot speakers, namely, the rejection of
all human relations in order to become oneself. The speaker is finally able to completely
Alam 24
reject the obstacles that were in his path to selfhood. While Prufrock and the young speaker
from “Portrait of a Lady” were too busy cultivating a negative attitude towards the women,
this speaker successfully dismisses the absurd power struggle, and is on his path to attaining
ultimate self-identity, even if his personality appears deplorable in the eyes of the ladies.
This speaker does not waste his time, he confidently understands that an epistemological
connection between himself and others is not possible and, as a result, does not bother to
make it happen. He is Romantically committed to his quest of self-realization and remains
unaffected by society. Similar to the poems addressed so far, this is another poem about
prioritizing self- love above everything else.
Early poems such as “In the Department Store” (1915) and “Entretien dans un parc”
(1911) also share the same commitment to self. “In the Department Store” is a very short
poem where the speaker describes a “business like” (l. 3) sales woman, working in the
“porcelain department” (l. 1). He describes her as one who “smiles at the world through a set
of false teeth” (l. 2) implying that although she has a strong and serious façade, she may be
fragile like porcelain and deceitful because smiling is a part of her job. Despite her cold
veneer, the speaker imagines that the lady may actually be characteristically very different
when she does not have to put on a show at work. He imagines that, behind her “business
like” (l. 3) “sharpened eyes” (l. 4), she might be thinking about “Summer evenings in the
park / And heated nights in second story dance halls” (ll. 5-6); implying that she may be a
genuinely sensitive person when she is not at work. The speaker concludes his short musing
by stating, “It is not possible for me to make her happy” (l. 8). It does not matter whether the
lady is cold and fake or sensitive and genuine. No matter what kind of a personality she has,
she will never be congruent to or “nearly as possible a projection of the [speaker’s] self”
(Bentley 42). He confidently knows that they will not be compatible for one another. The
poem does not allude to either an amorous or a friendly relationship, it only states that “It is
Alam 25
not possible” for the speaker to “make her happy” (l. 8), implying that no matter what the
nature of their relationship is, happiness in any relationship with another person is not
achievable. He will never really get to know the lady even if he tried to, because
epistemologically it is not possible to know another in the way that one can know oneself.
The speaker realizes that there is no point in trying to communicate with her, or to even think
of her as a potential lover or a friend because he omnisciently knows that no matter what, he
will not be able “to make her happy.” Similar to the poems investigated thus far,
commitment to another person remains impossible, whereas commitment to one’s self is not.
The poem “Entretien dans un parc (1911),” is in the form of a monologue where the
speaker is silently, irritatingly, ridiculously, and oddly (ll. 10, 18, 19, 31) strolling in a park
with a woman who could either be a friend or a lover. Like most of Eliot’s early poems, the
two are having trouble communicating with one another. Although they are holding each
other’s hands as they silently walk (l. 9-10), there is an undeniable tension between them.
The speaker is exasperated (l. 22) by the farcicality of their situation and says, “All the
scene’s absurd” (l. 19)! Neither of them is able to understand what has become of their
relationship (l. 20). The speaker wonders “if it is too late or soon / For the resolution that
[their] lives demand” (ll. 6-7). He knows that communication is imperative for the survival
of their relationship but wonders whether it is too late or too soon for the “resolution” (l. 7) of
their problem. Neither of them is able to articulate what the problem is or what the probable
resolutions could be. Even though their relationship is at a crossroad, neither of them can
communicate with one another, let alone try to solve the problem. As I have said before, we
do not know the nature of their relationship, but, consistent to other early Eliot poems, this is
another human relationship that the speaker cannot seem to maintain because he or they are
unable to communicate with one another. Similar to Prufrock, “It is impossible to say just
what” (“Prufrock” l. 105) this speaker means as well. Whereas in “In the Department Store”
Alam 26
the speaker omnisciently knows that there is no point in approaching the sales lady, the
speaker in this poem tries to communicate with his companion by at least holding her hand
and maintaining a connection. However, he realizes that neither he nor his companion is able
to verbally communicate. Once again, communication with another person, for most of
Eliot’s early speakers, seems to be impossible unless it is with the speaker’s own self.
In her article Outing T. S. Eliot, Suzanne W. Churchill aptly describes these speakers’
predominant feelings. She writes and I agree that, “In early poems such as ‘The Love Song
of J. Alfred Prufrock’ and ‘Portrait of a Lady’ voices of the others are intrusive and
antagonistic to the self” (Churchill 20). There is a connection between what Churchill writes
and what Langbaum is alluding to when he comments on Modern poets using “romanticism
as a modern tradition” (Langbaum 9). Both writers claim that for the sake of ultimate selfidentity and absolute self-knowledge, unadulterated subjectivity has to be prioritized over any
other human relationship. She also says that the speakers end up in a “catastrophic
relationship between self and others” (Churchill 20) because they are incompatible and have
conflicting goals. Most of the speakers have an epistemological problem: they are absolutely
convinced that they cannot communicate or ever know another completely, which implies
that the pursuit itself is futile. This futility is why they would rather remain committed to
self- examination than trying to commit to another person. The voices of the females are
threatening to the speakers because they pose obstacles to the commitment of attaining
ultimate self-identity and absolute self-knowledge. While critiquing the modern man, Eliot
in one of his essays, writes, “there is only one real remedy— the slow regeneration of the
individual man” 12 prioritizing ultimate self-identity and absolute self-knowledge as a remedy
of fragmented Modernity. The style and theme of Romantic commitment to one’s self
permeates into most of his early poems. In order to get to know one’s self, one needs to
separate from all other beings and delineate his or her own identity from others. The only life
Alam 27
worth living is one that is spent in becoming an individual unadulterated by external
distractions.
Langbaum’s suggestion concerning the similarities between the Romanticists and the
Modernists is plausibly argued. The constant discovery of the self through the speakers’
experience and their adamant commitment to self- realization is a Romantic trend that
transcends through to Modernism. He further states that the poetry of the “twentieth
[century] can thus be seen in connection with a poetry of experience” (35), which is a
typically Romantic style of composing poetry. This is very true for most of Eliot’s early
poems because all the poems discussed so far are about the speaker’s experience. In this
way, the early Eliot poems are stylistically Romantic because they are committed to
maintaining the preservation of the self by rejecting others.
Experimental Bawdy Poems
The tendency to read early Eliot poems as a failure of love enables critics to posit that
since the speakers are unable to have an amorous relationship with women, they must prefer
men instead. In her article, Churchill writes that a lot of critics “figure homosexuality as
failed heterosexuality— if J. Alfred Prufrock can’t talk to women, he must be gay” (10).
Similarly, since the speaker of “Triumph of Bullshit” is also antagonistic towards women he
must be attracted to men and since even the speaker of “Portrait of a Lady” cannot converse
with an elderly lady, all of them must favor the company of men instead. Some critics have
used Eliot’s failed marriage to Vivienne Haigh-Wood as an example of his own troubled
sexuality and, as a result tend to read his poetry as the poet’s confessions. The same critics
who tend to interpret Eliot’s poetry biographically have boldly claimed that since his
speakers seem to be rejecting females, Eliot the poet must also feel the same way. They
Alam 28
claim that Eliot, alike his constructed speakers, must also be a homosexual, or even an
asexual, as his poetry reveals his incompatibility with women.
As the speakers of his poems are afraid of women or reject women as companions,
these critics claim the most plausible deduction is that, along with the speaker, the poet
himself must also be a homosexual. As a result of this type of biographical criticism, some
critics read his newly discovered bawdy poems as confessions of his homosexuality. As
Churchill points out, “A typical strategy deployed against monological biographical readings
is to assert, in good New Critical style, a complete separation between author and speaker”
(16). This should be a prerequisite to interpreting any poem; the intentions of the critics
aught not be to try and delineate the poet’s own historical life through his poetry. “Rather
than coming to a poem seeking evidence of who the poet really was,” Churchill suggests, “we
instead recognize each poem as an ever-changing site of mutual self-definition and
transformation” (24). Each poem and speaker should be evaluated separately, independent of
the poet’s actual historical life. The speakers of each poem should be regarded as separate
imaginary characters that are deliberately created by the poet and placed in their respective
situations on purpose, so the reader can trace their possible reactions and actions. Poems,
like novels, are at best hypothetical scenarios where certain characters are crafted in a certain
way in order to see what they make of their given situations. They are by no means literally
biographical or confessional, unless they are specifically acknowledged to be
autobiographical or confessional by the poet themselves.
There really is no point in looking at Eliot’s poem through this monolithic point of
view. Unwarranted gossip about the poet’s sexual orientation aught not be the guide to
interpret his poetry. Rather, if each poem and each speaker is looked at individually, the
interpretations are much more dynamic. While some of Eliot’s canonical early poems and
their speakers aroused suspicious about the poet’s sexuality, some of his pornographic poems
Alam 29
solidified some of the beliefs and assertions of these misdirected critics. However, no matter
how the newly discovered bawdy poems affect rumors about the poet’s sexuality, their mere
existence and content, threaten the misguided tendency of regarding early poems, written
prior to Eliot’s conversion, as religious. The pornographic poems are a testament to the
experimental themes employed in various Eliot poems, which do not warrant the religious
reading that Halverson, Weitz, and Moody have provided.
Christopher Ricks was the first critic to bring some of Eliot’s pornographic poems
into the public eye through his publication of Inventions of the March Hare. This essay will
take a close look at a couple of these pornographic poems, namely, “Columbo and Bolo
Verses” and “Fragments” (1915) in order to simplify the speakers’ sexual orientation. In her
paper, 13 Gabrielle McIntire claims that while the poet wrote canonical poems such as “The
Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” and “Portrait of a Lady,” “he was simultaneously
composing a long cycle of intense sexual, bawdy, pornographic and satirical verse that has
recently come to light” (283). As a poet, Eliot was always experimenting with
characteristically different speakers in various types of scenarios to make his poems more
interesting and to give his body of work more dynamism. McIntire writes, “The Columbo
and Bolo stanzas are not an occasional literary preoccupation: their composition spans Eliot’s
entire adult lifetime and the body of work they represent is substantial, totaling at least
seventy-five stanzas in all. So far twenty-nine have been published… and dozens more sit
unpublished” (McIntire 286) in the Yale Library because of copyright issues. Although Eliot
was not permitted to publish most of these poems during his lifetime because of his extensive
use of profanity, McIntire provides historical evidence that he “had been writing the
Columbo and Bolo poems at least since he was an undergraduate at Harvard (1906-1909)”
(287). And “we know from Aiken,” a very close friend from Harvard, “that Eliot was still
writing them until close to his death” (McIntire 288). McIntire further posits that
Alam 30
“astonishingly, the Bolo verse were the ones that Eliot most unceasingly returned to and
produced” (288) throughout his entire life. The poet himself circulated a few of these stanzas
in letters amongst close friends, but they were always accompanied by complaints about not
being able to publish them. The long body of such pornographic and bawdy work along with
the time invested in composing them is evidence of Eliot’s preoccupation with human
sexuality. Since there is no historical proof of Eliot’s homosexual relationships, Churchill
suggest that critics “move beyond the question of proof” (10) and invest more time and
energy in worthy investigations about the creative content of the poetry and not the poet.
Although the “Columbo and Bolo Verses” are fundamentally a colonial critique, 14
this essay will use excerpts from it to argue against a monolithic sexual reading of Eliot’s
poem. Critics have used this poem to posit homosexual allegations regarding the speakers of
the poem and the poet himself. Along with explicitly scatological images, homoerotic group
masturbations, “orgies” and “debauchery” (Johnson 21), the poem contains almost as much
homoerotic imagery as hetero-erotic ones. There are instances when Columbo and his men
are in whorehouses and are raping wives of other men and one instance where he copulates
with King Bolo’s queen “on the sofa” (l. 92)- all of which are explicitly heterosexual images.
There are also overtly homoerotic stanzas where “Columbo” grasps the cabin boy “by the
balls / And buggered him in the ass-o” (ll. 83-84). Other scenes depict Columbo practicing
group masturbation with his mariners (ll. 119-120) or being raped by multiple male mariners
(ll. 121-124), which is indicative of homoeroticism. There are other instances of indirect
homoeroticism where “A bullet came along the road / And up Columbo’s asshole” (ll. 103104). All these images are depictions of one man engaged in various different sexual
situations where he is simultaneously having both hetero and homosexual experiences. At
best, this poem can be interpreted as Columbo being represented as a bi-curious or a bisexual
being. Columbo does not explicitly choose one sexual orientation over the other but engages
Alam 31
in both without any judgment or preference. Even if critics were to delineate Eliot’s sexual
orientation from these bawdy poems, they would still not be able to posit that the poet prefers
homosexuality to heterosexuality. At the same time, the poems are not confessions. The
poet has consciously and deliberately created the scenarios out of his imaginative mind. Eliot
has placed his characters in their respective situations to see how they act and react with one
another and to see the possible outcomes of their actions, not to cryptically confess his sexual
orientation.
While the main character in this bawdy poem is either hopelessly confused or very
utilitarian with his sexuality, the main character in “Fragments” (1915) is undeniably a
sexually violent person. He is known as “the jolly tinker” (l. 1) and is endowed “With his
long-pronged hongpronged / Underhanded babyfetcher / Hanging to his knee” (ll. 4-5). This
“jolly tinker” may even be a male prostitute as one of the girls in love with him asks him if
“half a dollar will do” (l. 9). However well he is endowed, he can harm and even disfigure
people with “his eight and forty inches hanging to his feet” (l. 7). He has managed to
completely disfigure the girl who is in love with him and even the cook is scared because
there is a chance that the “jolly tinker” is “gona fuck us all” (ll. 15, 17). There is no textual
evidence whether the cook is male or female. If the cook is a man, the “jolly tinker” can also
be seen as bi-curious or bisexual just like Columbo. In this way, “the jolly tinker” like
Columbo, does not explicitly prefer one sexual orientation. This is again another example of
the dynamic nature of all of Eliot’s speakers, whether they are in a bawdy poem or in a
respectably intellectual one.
Eliot was exploring these types of characters through his poetry all through his life.
That does not imply that Eliot himself was exactly like these characters at some point in his
life, but rather highlights the various different characters he has tried to create through his
poetry. Some are antagonistic to sex like Prufrock, while others are overtly sexual like
Alam 32
Columbo. Since these speakers do not reflect anything about the poet’s personal or historical
life at all, it is wrong to read these poems as biographical or confessional. The main reason
why I have explored them, specifically the “Columbo and Bolo Verses,” is to show that while
some of Eliot’s critically acclaimed and important early poems were written and published,
these bawdy and pornographic poems were also being composed simultaneously. This means
that alongside poems that are extremely serious such as “The Love Song of J. Alfred
Prufrock,” Eliot was also experimenting with the bawdy ones.
The two bawdy poems considered in this essay have a similar theme in common with
the other poems discussed so far— the characters are self-centered like the speakers of the
other poems. It is evident that both Columbo and the Jolly Tinker are free to do whatever
they want to without ever having to think about the consequences of their actions or how the
other characters will perceive it. Although their commitment to the self is not due to deep
philosophical reasons such as Prufrock’s is, but both Columbo and the Jolly Tinker are
nonetheless self-centered and committed to themselves only. In this way, similar to the other
poems investigated so far, the bawdy poems are also considered stylistically Romantic. By
looking at the vastly different, yet thematically or stylistically similar early poems together,
Churchill asserts that “Our understanding of Eliot is richer and more profound if we attend to
the many shadows—male, female, internal, external, Christian, anti-sematic, gynophobic, and
homoerotic” (Churchill 25). I agree that our understanding becomes more dynamic than
being stiflingly monolithic by interpreting early poems independent to his religious
conversion. This is why it is not credible to make a generalized claim that Eliot’s poems are
religious or that the early ones are indicative of a religious conversion. As this essay
demonstrates, some of the early poems are very sexual and not at all religious. Even Eliot’s
early religious poems cannot be interpreted as being soundly religious and the third section of
Alam 33
the essay will show that some poems that are meant to be religious such as “The Love Song
of St Sebastian” or “The Death of Saint Narcissus” contrarily, is sexually problematic.
Not Religious but Philosophical
Reading Eliot’s work, as being fundamentally Christian just because of his conversion
in 1927 does not do justice to any of his poems. If critics can say that his later poems are
religious because he became religious later in life, they can also say that his early poems are
philosophical because he was primarily a philosopher before he became religious. When
Eliot wanted to write explicitly Christian poetry, he did; and critics agree that Eliot’s later
collections of poems such as Ash Wednesday (1930), The Ariel Poems (1930), and Four
Quartets (1940-1945) are indubitably religious. However, an early poem such as “The Love
Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (1910-1911) cannot be justified as a religious poem seeking for
divinity in the way that Halverson, Weitz and Moody have insinuated.
Halverson writes that, “Eliot’s critics persistently refused to see the religious nature of
his poetry until he finally hit them over the head with Ash Wednesday and “his conversion to
Anglo-Catholicism” (586). As I have mentioned earlier, critics tend to interpret Eliot’s
poems as religious because of his conversion in 1927. They try to show that all the poems
written before 1927 pave the way to his conversion because they are riddled with hints of his
predestined religious conversion. Halverson’s deductions for interpreting “Prufrock” as a
religious poem depend on the way he interprets the “overwhelming question” or the “crisis”
that the speaker addresses. Halverson starts by first claiming that Prufrock’s question- “Do I
dare / Disturb the universe?” (ll. 45-46) “is… of explicitly universal significance” (Halverson
572). He reads Prufrock’s dilemma as “a crisis of existence” (Halverson 578) and I agree
that fundamentally it is, however this essay tries to offer a more Romantic interpretation of
the crisis. I believe that Prufrock’s crisis is essentially Romantic because it ponders on the
Alam 34
possibility of attaining ultimate self-identity in a superficial and fragmented modern world.
While the universe is running its course, full of mundane rituals and supercilious socialites,
does Prufrock have the right to disrupt the natural order by asking philosophical questions
relating to the Self and the universe? He does not think that the women, who he is going to
converse with, will want to engage in his interests.
The climax of this philosophical dilemma occurs when Prufrock tries to utter and
bring up that which he wants to discuss:
And would it have been worth it, after all
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it towards some overwhelming question
To say: ‘I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all’—
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: ‘That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.’ (ll. 88-99)
This stanza is central to understanding Prufrock’s philosophical conundrum. The mentioning
of Lazarus (l. 95) as well as “the eternal footman” (l. 86), in the stanza preceding the one
quoted above, signifies that his thoughts are revolving around existential notions of life and
death. Grover Smith, along with Halverson, agrees that the “eternal footman” “is primarily a
striking and obvious image of death” (Halverson 576) and in this way, the crisis becomes
existential. Prufrock believes that people are more interested in social rituals of “cups,”
Alam 35
“marmalade” and “tea,” than in intellectual conversations about existentialism. Since
Prufrock cannot pretend be anyone other than who he is, he cannot suppress his real anxieties
“with a smile” or discard it. He wonders if he can bring up matters of his interest, in a more
private setting. The word “pillow” (l. 97) implies a more private setting than a social
gathering because it is indicative of a bed or pillow talk. Prufrock wonders whether he can
present his interests in a more private and intimate setting, for example on a bed or a sofa
with a pillow because maybe then a person will be willing to shed their pretentiously
prepared face and engage in profound intellectual matters.
Lazarus rising from the dead to tell the secrets of life and death is indicative of
existential conversations regarding the Self. In order to know or understand the meaning of
existence, one needs to philosophically think about life and death. Prufrock’s unfaltering and
Romantic commitment to self-realization through self-examination also echoes Socrates’
canonical line “the unexamined life is not worth living” (Plato 38a). 15 Socrates insisted that a
worthy life is one spent in the quest of self-examination; similarly it is evident from the
poem, that Prufrock can forego society in order to spend his whole life in the philosophical
quest of self-examination to attain self-wholesomeness. For him, an unexamined life is as
good as “death in life” (Halverson 577). An unexamined life is a hollow life, a life spent in
vain because without self-analysis, ultimate self-identity will not be attainable. He thinks that
the women and socialites are living meaningless lives because they have not examined
something as profound as their own life that is why they favor banality over profundity. For
Prufrock, an unexamined life is as good as being symbolically dead while being physically
alive. He believes that since complete communication with any other being is impossible
there is no point in even trying; rather a person should try and understand himself because,
with constant dedication, self-knowledge is actually attainable. A socialite’s life is a fruitless
life and a waste of time because they are engaged in superfluous activities such as
Alam 36
socializing, whereas a life spent in self-examination is not only worth living, but the only
form of acceptable living.
Prufrock feels that when he will present the subject of Lazarus and his queries of life
and death, people will be willing to participate, as long as they are in a more private and
intimate setting and not in public. When he imagines raising the subject, he confidently
anticipates that there is no point in doing so “For [he has] known them all already, known
them all” (l. 49). He knows that the recipient will brush the matter off, as simply as one
settles a “pillow” behind one’s head and will say, “That is not what I meant at all. That is not
it, at all” (ll. 98-99). Profound matters of discussion are neither allowed in polite society nor
allowed in private settings. Modern people would rather engage in talks of “porcelain” (l. 90)
than talk about existential crisis.
Other than trying to decipher the “overwhelming question” another rampant debate is
about – whom the pronouns “you” and “I” in the poem “Prufrock” refer to. Halverson cannot
convincingly posit who the “you” and “I” are. While he reads the “I” as the speaker, he
claims the “you” is the reader. I disagree because I think both “you” and “I” are personae of
the speaker because he is not able to converse with other humans other than with himself.
Halverson himself mentions that the poem takes “the form of self-examination” (574) but
warns that, “it is tempting to regard the ‘you and I’ as two selves of the speaker” (574). He
claims that reading “Prufrock” in such a way, as two selves in an internal monologue, will
lead to the conclusion that Prufrock has “an extraordinary lapse in psychological
verisimilitude” (574). I do not think that is necessarily true. Normal and psychologically
healthy people have conversations in their heads. A simple internal dialogue with oneself
such as “should I call the pretty girl and ask her out on a date?” or “I do not want to think
about this right now,” does not make anyone seem psychologically unsound. Similarly,
Prufrock, talking to himself about grave philosophical dilemma, does not seem unsound.
Alam 37
The few times the phrase “you and I” appear in the poem, is congruent to the
interpretation that this paper offers. When the speaker asks one of his personae not to “ask,
‘What is it?’” (l. 11) he means that he does not want to think about these grave matters just as
he is trying to or imagining to “make” his social “visit” (l. 12). Further along when the
speaker says “beside you and me” (l. 78) he means that, after an “afternoon” of meaningless
socializing, the private “evening” (l. 75) is “stretched on the floor” (l. 78) and “sleeping”
“peacefully” beside his two selves – allowing him to be in meditation, undisturbed by
society. Lastly, when the speaker says “among some talk of you and me” (l. 89), he again
means that after the social rituals of “tea” and “marmalade” (l. 89) while he has some time to
think by himself, he debates, “would it have been worth while” (l. 90) to bring up his
philosophical dilemma as a conversation with the socialite ladies? In every case, it seems
that the two personae of Prufrock are trying to test the possibility of raising profound
philosophical dilemmas in polite society; and as the poem reads on, it seems that it is in fact,
impossible. He cannot commit to society or anyone else because similar to the Romanticist,
he is only committed to his own self- realization through his experiences.
Halverson’s reading of the “you” as the reader seems specious and unsound. When
the speaker talks about the intrusion of “human voices” (l. 131) disrupting his meditation and
drowning him, I do not think that the reader will sympathize and denounce their social life or
want to drown or remain isolated like Prufrock willingly does. Generally, people are social
and not introverted like Prufrock. It cannot be expected that every reader is an introvert like
Prufrock and like him, will want to remain indefinitely isolated from society. It is also not
plausible to think that Eliot is writing to an exclusive group of introverts who will feel the
same way he is. While reading the “you” as the reader is a speciously safe bet, I do not think
that it fits soundly with the poem. However reading the pronouns as the “two voices of
Prufrock himself in an internal debate” (Halverson 574) is plausible. Reading the “you” and
Alam 38
“I” as two personae of Prufrock, emphasizes the speaker’s subjectivity and the Romantic
commitment to the self and absolute self-knowledge.
Halverson further claims that there is an underlying sense of failure in the poem and it
is “above all spiritual” (578) in nature. Weitz claims that, since the speaker is searching for
salvation in the depths of seas and in solitude, the poem is “religious” (Weitz 54). I partially
agree with Halverson that the poem may be spiritual in a secular or philosophical way
because the poem can be interpreted as a self- searching poem, where Prufrock is searching
for his ultimate self-identity. However I do not think it is religiously spiritual and I cannot
agree with either of them when they deem it religious. This essay presents the early Eliot
poems as being highly experimental, essentially philosophical, and stylistically Romantic. I
also cannot agree that these poems are a transition into the religious. They are independently
complex and experimental, with wonderfully constructed characters, who display conflicted
beliefs. At most, “Prufrock” can be described as a poem that has an underlying secular
connotation because of its self-searching and existential content. However, it is still not
essentially religious or Christian. Moody claims that even if the speaker of the poem has
rejected love with women, “he is still questing after love, though now it is in the form of the
saint’s occupation, that is, giving one’s self up wholly to the drawing of divine Love” (187).
Even Moody tries to veil the philosophically secular nature of the poem and interpret it
religiously. However, as this essay demonstrates, there is not enough evidence in the poem
to make such allegations.
Eliot did not write many obviously religious poems in his early years. “The Love
Song of St. Sebastian” (1914) is an early poem about a Saint, which would entail that the
poem is a religious one but Eliot has highly eroticized it. There is imagery of self-flagellation
in very beginning of the poem where the sacred dubiously borders on the carnal— “I would
flog myself until I bled” (l. 4). According to the dictionary the word flagellation has two
Alam 39
connotations: religious and sexual gratification. The speaker in this poem uses the word
“flog” as both because he talks about the action of flogging being full of both “torture and
delight” (l. 6). The poem is further problematized when the reader finds out that the speaker,
who is a saint, is getting into bed with another person and resting his head between his
companion’s “breasts” (l. 20). It is not obvious whether St. Sebastian’s bedfellow is a man or
a woman, which makes the poem even more problematic because like Columbo and the Jolly
Tinker he could either be homosexual or heterosexual. The climax of this sacred and carnal
dichotomy carries on until the end of the poem because eventually the reader finds out that
the speaker has strangled and killed his bedfellow (ll. 34-38). The saint is torn between his
sacred ideologies and his carnal needs. This poem is evidence that even when Eliot is writing
in the religious mode, he is still problematizing it during his early years. However when he
writes religious poems later in his life, he does not problematize them in this way. This
further confirms my claim that the early poems are highly experimental and pose more
philosophical dilemmas than religious ones.
One of the bawdy poems discussed earlier also problematizes religious connotations.
In “Columbo and Bolo Verses,” religious Sundays are highly sexualized. Sunday is the only
day of the week that is mentioned in the whole poem and it is only on Sundays that
whorehouses are visited, other people’s wives are raped, and group masturbation is practiced
for example: “Columbo and his merry men” (l. 17) “One Sunday evening after tea / They
went to storm a whore house” (ll. 23-24) and “One Sunday morning out at sea” (l. 69)
“Columbo grabbed [the bosun’s wife] round the neck / And raped her on the bowsprit” (ll.
75-76). The last time Sunday is mentioned in the poem, is in the second to last stanza:
“On Sunday morning after prayers
They took their recreation
The crew assembled on the deck
Alam 40
And practiced masturbation, (ll. 117-120)
This is more evidence that even in an essentially bawdy poem, the sacred is not only
mentioned but is highly sexualized. Likewise a poem that aught to be religious such as, “The
Love Song of St. Sebastian,” is also sexually problematized.
Another early poem, called “The Death of Saint Narcissus” (1915), is also about a
religious figure with conflicting sacred and carnal ideologies. The last stanza of the poem
reveals to its readers that the saint enjoys the pain that he feels when the arrows pierce his
body. Loretta Johnson describes the last stanza as “The portrait of the martyr pierced by
arrows with the look of sexual ecstasy on his face” (24). Similar to “The Love Song of St.
Sebastian,” this is another poem where the speakers are confused about how to feel. Both
saintly speakers have tainted their religious ideologies with carnal pleasures and cannot
resolve their feelings. The speakers are in ideological flux and shift from the sacred to the
carnal. They are not committed to God as they aught to be, but are rather like Columbo and
the Jolly Tinker, committed to themselves, their carnal desires, and hedonistic pleasures. In
this way, these poems can also be interpreted as being stylistically or thematically Romantic
like the others poems discussed so far.
How then, is it still possible for critics to regard Eliot’s early poems as religious
when they are, evidently highly experimental with contradictory philosophies existing
together? Such variously diverse and conflicted characters show off the poet’s range of
creativity and intelligence. In his article “T. S. Eliot’s Voices and His Voices: III,” Delmore
Schwartz writes that Eliot’s poetry offer “the voices of various human beings of differing
classes and stations in society, a diversity of beliefs, values, habits of speech, and views of
life” (233). I agree that the poems are experimental but are by no means autobiographical or
confessions. The constructed speakers are just mediums of creative expression, not a direct
representation of the poet.
Alam 41
One last poem that should be mentioned is written later than the time frame this essay
addresses. However, it is necessary to discuss a critical stanza because it will make the
purpose of this essay more concrete. “Gerontion” (1920) is essentially a religious poem
written only a few years before the poet’s religious conversion. Although Halverson
mentions that critics such as Grover Smith and Hugh Kenner have tried to offer a sexualized
interpretation of the poem in vain, I disagree because there is some unmistakably sexual
imagery present in the poem. The way history is personified is not only very feminine, but
“she” (l. 36) is described as a figure of the sexualized female:
History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors
And issues, deceives with whispering ambitions,
Guides us by vanities. Think now
She gives when our attention is distracted
And what she gives, gives with such supple confusions
That the giving famishes the craving. (ll. 33-38)
Not only is history personified as a woman, she is described as a female genitalia. McIntire
claims and I agree that, “Although it has rarely been read as such, this passage refers rather
explicitly to females genitalia as a metaphor for the permutations of history” (McIntire 285).
Adjectives such as “cunning” and “contrived,” which are used to describe her can also be
used to describe the female genitalia as well and the tone, with which she is portrayed, for
example “the giving famishes the craving” (l. 38) is very sexual. Nonetheless, all three poems
that are supposed to be primarily religious in essence are sexually problematized. This
implies that even some of his later, more obviously religious poems also have the dichotomy
of the sacred and the carnal juxtaposed simultaneously.
Alam 42
Even though I have traced some similar themes in Eliot’s early poems, it does not
mean that they should all be deemed as misogynist, self- aggrandizing and philosophical.
There are various other early poems with comparatively different themes, which this paper
did not address. All the poems that have been investigated so far can also be interpreted with
various other lenses, not just the perspectives offered in this paper. The purpose of showing
such a specific pattern is not only to rescue his early poems from religious interpretations, but
also to show the dangers of generalizing. Each poem needs to be interpreted and regarded
independently; and if one cannot help but find a common underlying theme in some of the
early poems, it should not be in parallel with the poet’s biographical life. To reiterate the
philosophies of New Criticism, interpretations of Eliot’s poems aught not be based on the
poets biography, but should be treated as individual works of art and interpreted
independently. If it is imperative to link and pair some poems, it should be based on the
themes, plots, characters, and speakers of the poems, not the poet and his private life. This
essay also tries to remodel Grover Smith’s statement. He says that by reading “Eliot’s poems
in chronological order, we may have to remind ourselves that we are watching the evolution
of one man’s point of view” (5), but this paper demonstrates a slightly altered view. Instead
of tracing the evolution of the poet’s view, it is more important and analytically noteworthy
to look at the evolution of the philosophies and themes of the speakers of the poems. The
evolution of their beliefs and characteristics is always in transition, always in flux, and is
always interesting. Some of the poems investigated so far are similar and also very different
at the same time. While some are sombre and philosophical, others are playful and sexually
problematic. This implies that the early poems were transmitting a more philosophical and
experimental approach to creativity whereas the later poems were conveying a more
theological and moralistic approach.
Alam 43
This essay offers exactly such a reading of Eliot’s early poems. I have traced the
common philosophical themes of the speakers, but did not link any of the patterns with the
poet’s historical life. This paper merely demonstrates that not all of Eliot poems are
essentially religious. Even though he converted to Anglo-Catholicism and some of his later
poems do portray religious beliefs and anxieties, as a reliable critic, it is not plausible to
directly link creative works of art with the artist or the artist’s private life. The speakers of
the poems still have to be regarded as figments of the poet’s imagination. One could soundly
argue that a poet or an artist draws inspiration from the world as much as he does from his
own life and that the artist’s creation has his own life influences indirectly present in them.
While this is plausible, a sharp distinction still has to be maintained; namely, the distinction
between the actual and the imaginary. Even if the artist uses his or her own life experiences
as influences or stimuli for their creations, a critic aught not make experience and creation the
same thing.
Such a malpractice dilutes the complexities and dynamics present both in the poem
and in the constructed speaker. As I have mentioned before, each poem deserves an
independent reading and interpretation using a few perspectives, not just a monolithic one.
When Eliot did start writing Christian poetry, he did so unabashedly and its fundamental
religious essence is indubitably present throughout those poems. However, his earlier poems
are much more philosophically complex and characteristically explorative.
Eliot’s obsession with the self and how the self relates to others was a constant
preoccupation, as I have tried to demonstrate in this essay. He was more interested in the
epistemological relationship between the self and the other. In his early poems, there exists a
predominant theme— whether it is possible for the self to be able to completely know
another. Eliot has repeatedly tried to explore this theme in his early poetry by placing his
speakers in various different situations but coming up with the same result. The speakers
Alam 44
have taken for granted that it is impossible to know another as well as it is possible to know
one’s own self. This is why trying to form amorous connections or getting to know another
is portrayed as a fruitless pursuit whereas the Romantic commitment to know oneself is not.
Since change is the only constant in the universe, it is not even possible to know one’s own
self completely. However, the quest is worthy, pragmatic and attainable than trying to know
a complete Other.
Poems such as “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (1910-1911), “Portrait of a
Lady” (1910), “The Triumph of Bullshit” (1910), “In the Department Store” (1915),
“Entretien dans un parc” (1911) are all essentially epistemological in nature. They all
conclude that commitment to self-examination is more important than trying to nurture
doomed human relationships. Their main goal is Romantic as all the speakers of the poems
mentioned above are in the quest for “ultimate self-identity, self-presence and absolute selfknowledge” (Hühn 244). The speakers believe this is possible as long as society, women,
and other meaningless human interactions leave them undisturbed, allowing the characters to
develop independently.
The attitude that Halverson takes with regard to his conversion is rather dubious. He
writes, “Eliot’s critics persistently refused to see the religious nature of his poetry until he
finally hit them over the head with Ash Wednesday” and “his conversion to AngloCatholicism” (586). The phrasing of this sentence is very telling of the attitude that some
critics have towards Eliot’s early poems. Halverson says that Eliot “hit them over the head”
with his religious conversion and Christian poetry, implying that Eliot was scheming a
conversion to confuse or ridicule his critics and readers. Halverson’s words allude to a plot
that Eliot might have devised to trick his readers by writing early poems such as “Prufrock”
and making the critics think that it is not religious. The climax of this trick is achieved when
Eliot does convert and write obviously Christian poems and the critics feel silly for thinking
Alam 45
that “Prufrock” or any other poem was anything other than essentially religious. This is
exactly what New Criticism warns critics not to do— directly relating the poem to the poet’s
historical life, interpreting it only through that monolithic perspective.
I had mentioned before that I partially agree that “Prufrock” could be argued as a
spiritual poem, but even that is a stretch. Just because a biblical figure, “Lazarus” is
mentioned in the poem, does not make it fundamentally religious or Christian. The presence
of an epistemological theme or the solipsistic theme is what could connote a secular
interpretation, but not necessarily a religious one. Since the poem has so much to do with the
“regeneration of the individual self” 16 by denouncing the company of society, it could be read
as a secularly spiritual poem, but primarily in the grain of epistemology. As mentioned
before, I cannot agree with Halverson’s claim that “Prufrock” is a poem about spiritual
failure (578). I think Prufrock, similar to a few other vulnerable speakers, fails to
harmoniously coexist with other human beings. Prufrock’s extreme selfishness and
superiority complex prevents him from accepting others. The possibility of his inability to
understand others inversely manifests into their inability to communicate, meaning his own
lacking is mirrored into theirs.
A. A. Mendilow aptly describes the changes in Eliot’s poetry: 17
In the earlier part of Eliot’s literary career, the structure was still the
instrument of, to quote Wordsworth once more, his ‘feeling intellect’ (The
Preludes (1805), XIII, 205). Later, with his deepening interest in Christian
doctrine, he became more conscious of its theological implications. (327)
I absolutely agree with Mendilow; the earlier poems that are discussed in this paper are a lot
more intellectual and philosophical in nature than the later ones. I believe that around the
time Eliot wrote “Gerontion” (1920), some of his poems started incorporating an underlying,
almost overwhelmingly moralistic tone. Up to that point, the other poems were more
Alam 46
intellectual in nature, not moralistic or theological. It is only when we start finding moralistic
tones in his poetry that we find a major shift in his work. Ronald Schuchard in his article
Eliot and Hulme in 1916: Toward a Revaluation of Eliot’s Critical and Spiritual
Development, writes that poems such as “Prufrock” “are those of a despairing, skeptical poet
probing spiritual bankruptcy in the modern world,” a stance which is strikingly different that
the “sudden turn from an esthetic and literary theory of tradition to a moral and religious
doctrine of orthodoxy” (1083) in his later poetry. Schuchard goes further and posits that
most of Eliot’s work “even in 1916 was as much moral and ‘religious’ in its formulation and
attitude as it was esthetic and literary” (1084). While this may be true of Eliot’s prose, I
would argue that his verses developed moralistic and monotheistic undertones a little later in
poems such as “Gerontion” (1920), “The Hollow Men” (1925) and Ash Wednesday (1930).
The poems prior to these were intellectual, skeptical, and epistemological in nature while
being stylistically Romantic and the poems after them became and remained moralistically
Christian. However no matter what the specificity of the dates connote, it cannot be forgotten
that Eliot did continue to write bawdy poems, such as his lengthy “Columbo and Bolo
Verses” until the very end of his life. Maybe he did not dichotomize the themes as much as
in the later poems, albeit the highly sexualized theme was separately running alongside the
Christian poems.
Similar to Mendilow and Schuchard, Martin Scofield writes, “there is a feeling that in
his later work Eliot simply retreats from the complexity of human love into somewhat
attenuated and disembodied idea of religious love” (5). Critics interpret Eliot’s change in
theme by positing that the unrequited human love was later resolved by a love for divinity.
Viewing the early poems, as transitioning into the religious is premature, as this paper has
tried to show. T. S. Eliot’s early poems depict a style that is traditionally Romantic and
Alam 47
thematically epistemological, where the speaker’s subjective experience is “a process of selfrealization” (Langbaum 25).
Eliot’s bawdy poems did not surface until recently, which is why they still require
much careful attention. These poems will inspire critics to use new lenses and perspectives
of interpretation that will shed a different light on this dynamic poet’s body of work. Since
there many more stanzas still locked up in copyright vaults, Eliot critics have a lot to look
forward to. This essay merely touches on the periphery of the content of the bawdy poems,
to argue against a religious reading and to posit a philosophical and Romantic reading of
Eliot’s early poetry. These new and extraordinary finds remind readers and critics alike of
the imperative need to revisit Eliot’s poems and “transvaluate” 18 their interpretations.
[Word Count: 16767]
Alam 48
Notes
1. See Easthope, especially pages 40-48 titled, Enunciation and enounced, for an in depth
analysis of this trend.
2. See Smith, “Getting Used to T. S. Eliot.”
3. Quoted in Weitz, page 53.
4. Inventions of the March Hare is a title given by Eliot himself. He had initially
compiled manuscripts of his early poems along with his own notes, into a “Notebook.”
Christopher Ricks, the editor re-printed the poems found in the Notebook, in Inventions with
detailed and extensive annotations by the editor Christopher Ricks.
5. These bawdy poems were never openly published during the poet’s lifetime due to their
profanity. Eliot shared some stanzas of these bawdy poems amongst his close friends and
peers in his letters all of which can be found in The Letters of T. S. Eliot.
6. See Hühn Peter, “Outwitting Self-Consciousness: Self-reference and Paradox in Three
Romantic Poems.”
7. See Hakac, “The Yellow Fog of ‘Prufrock.’”
8. See Schneider, “Prufrock and After: The Theme of Change.”
9. See Moody page 192; Moody quotes from Charles Taylor’s book Sources of the Self:
The Making of the Modern Identity pages 449-51, where Taylor paraphrases Kierkegaard’s
ideas of self-transformation.
10. See Inventions of the March Hare page 305. From the content of the letters, it is
obvious that in spite of the continuous effort from both Eliot and Pound, the profanity present
in most of Eliot’s early bawdy poems is the sole reason why the poems could not be
published during the poet’s own lifetime. These un-publishable poems were a sore point that
was countlessly discussed amongst Eliot and his close literary friends. Also see The Letters
Alam 49
of T. S. Eliot, vol. 1, 1898- 1922 edited by Valerie Eliot pages 40, 42, 86, 125, 206, 455, 505,
568 where the reasons why his bawdy poems were not published are clearly stated.
11. See Inventions of the March Hare page 308. The word “Bullshit” is first documented
in the letters that were exchanged between the publisher Lewis, Pound and Eliot.
12. Eliot, “A Commentary,” Criterion, pp. 308-9.
13. See McIntire, “An Unexpected Beginning: Sex, Race and History in T. S Eliot’s
Columbo and Bolo Poems.”
14. This paper will follow the same order of stanza arrangement of the Columbo and Bolo
Verses as it appears in Inventions of the March Hare.
15. See Plato’s Five Dialogues, page 41.
16. See note 6.
17. See Mendilow, “T. S. Eliot’s ‘Long Unlovely Street.’”
18. See Nietzsche’s Twilight of the Idols and The Antichrist for more insight on this term.
In my understanding, transvaluation is as a process of constant revaluation of ones
philosophies and beliefs.
Alam 50
Works Cited
Bentley, Eric. The Cult of the Superman. London: Robert Hale Limited, 1947. Print.
Childs, Donald J. “Etherised upon a Table: T. S. Eliot’s Dissertation and Its
Metaphorical Operations.” Journal of Modern Literature 18.4 (1993): 381-394.
Print.
---. “Knowledge and Experience in ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.’” ELH 55.3
(1988): 685-699. Print.
Churchill, Suzanna W. “Outing T. S. Eliot.” Criticism 47.1 (2005): 7-30. Print.
Easthope, Anthony. Poetry as Discourse. New York: Routledge, 2003. Print.
Eliot, T. S. “A Commentary.” Criterion X (1931): 308-9. Print.
---. The Complete Poems and Plays. London: Faber and Faber, 1969. Print.
---. Inventions of the March Hare: Poems 1909-1917. Ed. Christopher Ricks.
New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1998. Print.
---. The Letters of T. S. Eliot. Ed. Valerie Eliot. Vol. 1. New York: Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich Publishers, 1988. Print.
Hakac, John. “The Yellow Fog of ‘Prufrock.’” The Bulletin of the Rocky Mountain
Modern Language Association 26.2 (1972): 52-54. Print.
Halverson, John. “Prufrock, Freud, and Others.” The Sewanee Review 76.4 (1968):
571-588. Print.
Hühn, Peter. “Outwitting Self-Consciousness: Self-reference and Paradox in Three
Romantic Poems.” English Studies 72.3 (1991): 230-245. Print.
Johnson, Loretta. “T. S. Eliot’s Bawdy Verse: Lulu, Bolo and More Ties.” Journal of
Modern Literature 27. 1 (2003): 14-25. Print.
Langbaum, Robert. The Poetry of Experience. London: Chatto & Windus, 1957. Print.
McIntire, Gabrielle. “An Unexpected Beginning: Sex, Race, and History in T. S.
Alam 51
Eliot’s Columbo and Bolo Poems.” Modernism/Modernity 9.2 (2002): 283-301.
Print.
Mendilow, A. A. “T. S. Eliot’s ‘Long Unlovely Street.’” The Modern Language
Review 63.2 (1968): 320-331. Print.
Miller, James E. The Making of an American Poet. Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania
State University Press, 2005. Print.
Moody, A. David. Tracing T. S. Eliot’s Spirit. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1996. Print.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Portable Nietzsche. Ed. & Trans. Walter Kaufmann. New
York: Penguin Books, 1954. Print.
Plato. Five Dialogues. 2nd ed. Trans. G. M. A. Grube. Indianapolis: Hackett
Publishing Company, 2002. Print.
Roper, Derek. “Eliot’s ‘Portrait of a Lady’ Restored.” Essays in Criticism 57.1
(2007): 42- 58. Print.
Schneider, Elisabeth. “Prufrock and After: The Theme of Change.” PMLA 87.5
(1972): 1103-1118. Print.
Schuchard, Ronald. “Eliot and Hulme in 1916: Toward a Revaluation of Eliot’s
Critical and Spiritual Development.” PMLA 88.5 (1973): 1083-1094. Print.
Schwartz, Delmore. “T. S. Eliot’s Voice and His Voices: III.” Poetry 85.4 (1955):
232-242. Print.
Schwartz, Sanford. The Matrix of Modernism. Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1985. Print.
Scofield, Martin. “‘A Gesture and a Pose’: T. S. Eliot’s Images of Love.” Critical
Quarterly 18.3 (1976): 5-26. Print.
Smith, Grover. “Getting Used to T. S. Eliot.” The English Journal 49.1 (1960): 1-
Alam 52
9, 15. Print.
Spender, Stephen. “Remembering Eliot.” The Sewanee Review 74.1 (1966): 58-84.
Taylor, Charles. Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1989. Print.
Weitz, Morris. “T. S. Eliot: Time as a Mode of Salvation.” The Sewanee Review 60.1
(1952): 48-64. Print.