Hi Everyone,
Welcome back. Here is your latest installment of American Literature! Below is your class video about modernist poetry (see syllabus at top of page; all poems are hypertext). You’ll also see a video of T.S. Eliot reading “Prufrock.”
1. You might want your notebook during the video, as it’s rather long, and it includes your assignment at the end.
2. Ask me questions! I am here! Feel free to respond to this post and question/comment on the video content!
3. I encourage completing the assignments and posting them by April 10, so we can move on to the next readings.
If there is any MEDIA (photo, painting, video, etc) you want to add to your post, you can generate a new post by clicking on the + sign at the top of our page.
4. You might notice that Pound’s “In a Station of the Metro” resembles a haiku, though it doesn’t follow the rules. This is true! Pound was influenced by Japanese haiku.
5. When you post, let us know how you are doing, and what is getting you through these days. I have been going on walks to IKEA waterfront park and Valentino Pier in Red Hook; drinking chamomile tea; and tuning in to Governor Cuomo’s press conferences.
6. Before our next break 4/8, I will post about our class final project, not to worry.
-“I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker”
– The words flicker and snicker is such a good rhyming pair. Anyways having someone’s coat is a way to signal that it’s time to leave – if you are at a party, and your husband grabs your coat, you know it’s time to go. That’s what’s happening here he sees death holding his coat and he knows that it is almost time to leave and in the face of death he sees everything he has accomplished throughout his life and what could have been accomplished.
– “Do I dare disturb the universe?“
Favorite line in the whole poem. I think we often think our actions are greater than they are, which makes us afraid to do anything at all, to take any risks in life. Will this one decision disturb bother the universe.
The Tree
A Noble giant, keeping a gentle eye over the goings on far below.
I agree with “I think we often think our actions are greater than they are, which makes us afraid to do anything at all.” It can also be the reason why people don’t do things because they imagine a chain of bad events may come from it. Sometimes the mind irrationally scares people into thinking about bad things that probably were never going to happen, nor had any chance of actually happening.
Jose,
This is a very smart response to these stunning lines from “Prufrock.” The first line speaks to mortality, and I love that you brought in the coat/party habitual routine. What imagery!
The second line you chose, “Do I dare disturb the universe?” I find particularly relevant right now. We have so much personal and collective responsibility in this pandemic, to not only protect ourselves but also think of others. One person can actually disturb the universe– or at least a store, street, block.
1. The Restriction of The Abode
“Constant familiar faces and going through the same exits
The repetition of the same blue walls
Could the possibility exist
That this repetition will continue through fall”
2. “Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets”
These may mean that the narrator is asking someone to go on an outing with them. These lines are not very unrelated to the current events. The virus epidemic has caused nations to become so cautious that most people remain indoors and streets have become mostly barren. “Like a patient etherized upon a table” is a metaphor also applies, albeit accidentally because of the many hospitalized people.
Jared,
This is a very moving poem about the cabin fever that some of us are experiencing, the repetition of the same walls. I think you’re playing with time here (can the repetition continue through fall) in the same vein that Eliot does– considering how we spend the time that we have here on earth, and how daunting these decisions and eventualities can be.
I appreciate how you pointed to the opening lines of the poem, which seem to be filled with hope and freedom and possibility–until the patient is lying on a medical table. The despair, anguish, and self-doubt multiply as the poem progresses.
Nice work.
I am not the greatest poet to exist so please bare with me , poetry was never part of my qualities.
Empty is how the world is right now,
Empty house
Empty room
Empty streets
Sorrow silence is beneath yet still
giving us hope to seek that light at the end of the tunnel
I got inspired by “The Great Figure”
Thanks for your work here, Daselin. I like how you explore different spaces (house, room, world, streets). Today it strikes me that Williams’s portrait of the fire truck is one we’re familiar with on a daily basis, with the heroic first responders coming to people’s aid.
I really like your poem. I especially like the ending because while the emptiness is definitely felt and, I won’t lie, I started to feel a little down, you ended on a visual that symbolizes hope.
My poem influenced by the imagist poem “The Great Figure”- (i try)
Throughout this moment
And only this moment
A moment of time
Is when we can finally see
How real everything is becoming
In this hard
And true moment when
Being stuck here together
And creating only a moment we can never forget.
What I’m trying to show here is the memory and time we’re creating by coming together and trying to fight off the covid-19, making this a moment we can never forget.
A few lines from “Prufrock” that I appreciate are
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.
I struggle a bit in trying to understand the poem but this line kind of made a bit more sense in a way you can understand what he means when interacting with some one and trying to understand them without much bugging you from behind your thoughts.
Hi Cindy,
Thanks for your response here. Eliot is tricky, not to worry, but we can try to break down lines and get at his meaning.
The question is: what is the overwhelming question? (IRONY)
Does anyone have any thoughts on this? What is he wondering about? What is he referring to when he asks, “And would it have been worth it, after all?”
My favorite line in the poem was:
“In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse”
Time is equally created but we give more meanings to certain moments of our lives. It takes only a minute to state the decision, but can take hours, months, years to make some major decisions. This minute that we can never get back can change the course of our lives. Generally we would put “a minute” under this big umbrella of time, but I love the fact that he reversed it: in a minute there is time…
This was my favorite line because I often daydream about different outcomes my life would’ve resulted in, had I made some different decisions in the past.
a little girl
in her
new dress
her mom bought
to wear
to canceled class
not canceled is
the petals
of soft pink
cherry blossom
leaning against the wind
and together they
dance
to remind
the dormant city
of spring
I really love the lines you chose and how you described them. Its true T.S Eliot made a minute sound like it was so much time. He emphasized the word Time so much also. As if time was the epicenter of all our problems and perhaps it is . I also think about the many decisions I could’ve chosen instead of the one I actually chose. Maybe my life would be different maybe not. I tend to dwell on it so much which is why I try not to as much. Overall I love your statement made from those lines.
Heeyoun,
You’ve done an admirable job here pointing to one of the poem’s marvelous lines, concerning intention and regret. There is such international uncertainty and despair in the time Eliot is writing; he experiences this struggle personally as well and asks his reader to think about time and mortality in the process.
Wonderful poem zeroing in on the (as yet to be worn as it was intended) dress.
I am no prophet — and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker
This is my favorite line form “Prufrock” My parents are often telling me I came to this world for a reason and I serve a purpose but looking at the 19 years I’ve been alive , all i’ve served is disappointment. “here’s no great matter” All of the great achievements disappear in an instant. So fast like when you flicker the lights on and off. These lines really bring a powerful meaning to me and there were more but these just really got me thinking.
Daselin,
This is a poignant reply and I wanted to respond to you. We have all seen moments of our greatness flicker. We have all made mistakes and endured self-doubt. But I am sure, despite not knowing you well, that your parents are right! You serve a purpose! You are meaningful! You are doing important work in life right now, on numerous levels. Thanks for being in ENG 2201 at City Tech.
Modernist Poem (inspired by “The Great Figure”)
a thought
a drop
another
down the pipeline of my consciousness
a drop
another
echos against the walls
a drop
another
a puddle starts to form
a deep dark pit that sits uncomfortably in my frame
a reflection in the waters I recognize as anxiety
the drops fall more quickly now
a drop
another
how long until these walls are filled
a drop
another
a drop
a drop
a drop
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”—
Throughout his poem, I sense frustration. Prufrock seems to want to ask some overwhelming question, or question something/someone around him but he doesn’t at the end of the day. He seems to be asking if it would be worth it. I sense a bit of disillusionment with society as if he is frustrated living in this modern world and something about it keeps interfering with some hidden desires. I believe this ties with the theme of existentialism as well as death. The mention of Lazarus is a call to either a parable in the bible in which the beggar Lazarus returns on behalf of a rich man, who was not permitted to return from the dead, to warn the brothers of the rich man about Hell, or Lazarus whom Jesus raised from the dead. Either way, there is a connection to death. It could also be both, but I believe its the former since he includes the words “Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”. It’s as if Prufrock has something he really wants to say and that he may or may not regret it if he does; wanting to say something and the feeling of regret tie in with the Lazarus mention. A recognition that there is a time where all of this is up and we might have to ask, “Was that worth it?”