Prufrock and Other Observations - Primary Source Edition

by T.S. Eliot

Included in Prufrock and Other Observations are the following poems:

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
Portrait of a Lady
Preludes
Rhapsody on a Windy Night
Morning at the Window
The Boston Evening Transcript
Aunt Helen
Cousin Nancy
Mr. Apollinax
Hysteria
Conversation Galante
La Figlia Che Piange

Genres: Poetry, Classics, Fiction, Literature, School, 20th Century, American

42 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1915

About the author

Thomas Stearns Eliot was a poet, dramatist and literary critic. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948 "for his outstanding, pioneer contribution to present-day poetry." He wrote the poems The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, The Waste Land, The Hollow Men, Ash Wednesday, and Four Quartets; the plays Murder in the Cathedral and The Cocktail Party; and the essay Tradition and the Individual Talent. Eliot was born an American, moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 (at the age of 25), and became a British subject in 1927 at the age of 39.

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T.S._Eliot

Reviews

[Meghhnaa (On a Review-Writing Break!) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had a hankering for reading a premise around love, so was decoyed into this by the title “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock“.

T S Eliot dodged me by offering a fallacious title! :-D
It doesn’t have to offer anything around love or romance. 😊

The prosaic name “J Alfred Prufrock”, suggested me some physics professor/scholar with an uninteresting name and a wearisome life, experiencing a lavish unusual love story/song!

But hold on, TS Eliot skilfully manoeuvred the readers into the intricacies and realities of life by offering a bewitching title! Neither is it a love story nor is the man a professor or a scholar. But yes, he is desolate, lonely, with truckload of complexes and bearing the tedium of the harsh raucous world!
He just wants to break free from the humdrumness, but fails to do so! He isn’t articulate and resorts to self-mockery and lastly lamenting over his failed desires!
It is a feat packed with irony!

He appears to be a middle-aged desolate and decrepit man.

Atleast once in a lifetime, we all have felt like Prufrock, filled with doubts, fears, inhibitions, and he turns out to be emblematic of it all!

It is an evocative and surprising poem filled with obscurity and mystery! It is a narration of desire and failure.

The poem opens with an epigraph from Dante’s Inferno. This contrast between the serious heavier epigraph and the lighter poem, is a perfect fusion of levity and sombreness!

The gist of epigraph-
A man condemned to hell in a “prison of flame” for his treacherous advice on earth to Pope, recites the humiliation of his wicked life to Dante, believing that Dante will never return to earth to report what he has confided.

I presume, that the epigraph finds an apt place, as later in the poem we realise that Prufrock is in a similar sombre and insipid situation, in a society, that is hellish for him, and can’t find any way out of it.

This epigraph very subtly foreshadows about what is to be offered ahead!

The opening line of the poem-
“Let us go then, you and I,”

I, is Prufrock, while in the opening line the identity of “You” remains obscure! We may easily assume it to be a lady-lover or the reader? Let us explore more.

The opening para, sets an apt environment in which he is – walking through the sordid streets of a city.

Prufrock takes some time off from the society, by getting into a somnolent/drowsy state, suggesting his mental state of indolence and inactivity. (mostly due to his spiritless and insipid life)

“And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?””

Above lines infuse tension, suggesting his fear of the society.
Moving ahead,
“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,”

He looks back upon an event and reminisces the failure of the event.(We may conjecture it is as some failed love encounter)

“If one, settling a pillow by her head
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all;
That is not it, at all.””

Above lines, very well impart a clue about the identities of “you and I”. We can easily conclude “you” to be the one who settles a pillow by “her” head and Prufrock is all susceptible to be misunderstood by her!

Till now, the meter and tone are filled with Prufrock’s self-mockery and self-condemnation.

But now finally, in the last part of the poem, the tone is filled with romantic longing. (Finally, 😊)

He finally wants to escape the reality of the world into a world of mermaids.
(Don’t we all dream of escaping the unpleasant? It reminded me of Valancy from “The Blue Castle”)

“I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.”

This poem can be easily classified as a dramatic monologue of Prufrock while utilising his stream of consciousness/state-of-being!
Prufrock is aware of his infirmity, and incapability-

“I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.”

He is aware of being inferior.

Aware of the fact that he isn’t Prince Hamlet, the mermaids won’t sing back to him, and he is incapable of taking any firm decision, he finds refuge in self-mockery throughout the poem. (Atleast till the 75% mark)

He is also sensitive towards the criticism of the people-
(They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”)

The major theme of the poem is enshrouded with the dryness, humdrumness and tedium of the routine modern life.
A perfect metaphor to the futility of life.(Reminded me of The Songs of Solomon).

It additionally expounds the lack of communication and articulation-
“It is impossible to say just what I mean!”

It isn’t imperative to know whether “you” is a female or someone else, it is more important to know that Prufrock’s communication with “you” has failed, big-time!

Isolation, loneliness and estrangement from the society takes precedence!

There is no congruent structure to the poem and is free-flowing, inundated with self-mockery, lack of articulation of the narrator, and the failure of desires.

It appeared more like a collage to me, with all the above departments/themes arranged in no particular order/fashion, leaving it to the readers to decipher accordingly(giving a free-hand).

The poem propounds the veritable bitter-truths of life!

A perfect 4-star, for this not-a-love-song!
It was a mockery on me, as I picked up assuming it to be a love-laden-jaunty-ride :-D

[Fergus, Weaver of Autistic Webs · Rating 5 out of 5]

This landmark collection of fiercely insightful and incisively cut gems - on the subject of the rampant hypocrisy that was in part responsible for the wholesale mowing down of young men in the trenches of Flanders - is just too good to ignore!

And it took the disenchanted citizenry of the rapidly and irrevocably changing Western World by storm.

Eliot’s anger is transmuted here into the muted and carefully-planted wasp stings of wit.

For Thomas Stearns Eliot was a punctiliously correct ethical powerhouse.

And he was not afraid to level the ranks of his sneering gnostic critics with deadly and polymathic irony!

But by the time he had found a safe haven in his faith and in his final years of marital concord, the stripes on his back from so many unscrupulous critical lashes had turned him into a Martyr for the Truth, for so many of us.

I’ll never forget the moment in the winter of 1966 when, acting upon the advice of a school friend who was impressed with just such advanced literary reading by his doctor dad - he later followed in his father’s footsteps career-wise - I took this little book out of the family bookcase.

How remarkably intelligent and forthright this man, Eliot, seemed to me then!

You gotta remember, back in those Neanderthal days a kid couldn’t Google allusive quotations he came across in a book, like he can now...

No, all we had was an antiquated, well-thumbed edition of the Encyclopedia Brittanica.

So tracing Tom Eliot to his roots took a LOT of work back then.

But my English teacher, Mr. Lemke, didn’t shy away from that kind of painstaking research...

That kinda of work had made this contentious high school English teacher into a devoted Eliot groupie, and a fellow fan of poems like Prufrock - and a man who expected not only a modicum of fearful respect from his roomful of cynical students, but also drummed into their woebegone ears that there was NO WAY English would prove a SWAN COURSE this year!

THAT, serendipitously, was the same year, 1966. Yours truly - a dozy nerd - was ragged unmercifully by the cool kids (like "He walks! He talks! He crawls on his belly like a reptile!" )

No, it was NOT to be a easy year for my “cool” friends - because Mr. Lemke made these leering, cool jocks in our room QUAKE IN THEIR DESERT BOOTS.

And he taught me just how enormously challenging indeed is the Right study of English Literature.

Old Gert Lemke would strut s-l-o-w-l-y down one aisle of the class, a chip on his tall, broad shoulder the size of a brick and speak in a loud, clear sleepy voice that fooled nobody and warned of storm clouds quickly gathering overhead.

His destination, of course, was the “lounge area” against the back wall, home of the cool dudes who always dissed him once he was out of earshot. And this plan of his to go into their sleepy sector, of course, would put the Fear of God into their suddenly-downcast eyes.

But, then he’d put his weight on one oversized heel, spin around on the other, and C-R-E-E-P ssslowly to the back of senior heartthrob Jack D . Ripper... and Roar... “YOU! RIPPER! WHAT KIND OF MAN ARE YOU, ANYWAY!?”

And then, immediately, sphinx-like, strut back up, slowly as Wyatt Earp - up to the front of the class - his backside to the bullies, all the while continuing his lecture in stentorian tones.

You know, he never said boo to the likes of me.

Tom Eliot might have been proud. I know I was.

Yes, Old Possum himself had been like a Moses laying down the LAW to a bunch of Israelite ne’er do wells, and Mr. Lemke IDOLIZED him.

And it showed, in the way he put down such bullies (the subtle tormentors of us “uncool” guys).

But what RESPECT we had for the man afterwards...

And Eliot was a multilingual and abstruse writer of genius - plus, he had the COURAGE OF HIS CONVICTIONS.

Everybody knows the lead poem, Prufrock. But there are so many other jewels in Eliot’s crown here.

And, these acute social observations, all written 100 years ago, will always be fresh and valid -

However long humanity is around to read ‘em -

And to PAY ATTENTION.

[Gaurav Sagar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poetry, if it is not to be a lifeless repetition of forms, must be constantly exploring "the frontiers of the spirit". But these frontiers are not like the surveys of geographical explorers, conquered once for all and settled. The frontiers of the spirit are more like the jungle which, unless continuously kept under control, is always ready to encroach and eventually obliterate the cultivated area.
- That Poetry Is Made with Words, T.S.Eliot, 1939

T.S. Eliot has attained the status of classic author who offers something to everyone, his imagination of world and his style, originated from a mind and heart that were passionate, complex and riven. There are only afew persons in any generation who can make inner human emotions visible in a rhythmic lingusitic structure bearing aesthetic feeling, conveying, in a way which traverses through time, the sensation of being alive at a particular historical period. His texts could be considered as amputated bits of the self, temporarily buried, which sprouted into aesthetic form as Eliot himself once proposed to his friend Conrad Aiken that "It's interesting to cut yourself into pieces once in a while, and to wait to see if the fragments will sprout"; and in that regard some of his lines have come to stand for the whole of the poems in which they appear-

I grow old.....I grow old
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled


The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock represents a narrator who develops into lacerating ironist of his own emotions, the poem, described as a "drama of literary anguish", is a dramatic interior monologue of an urban man, stricken with feelings of isolation and an incapability for decisive action that is said "to epitomize frustration and impotence of the modern individual" and "represent thwarted desires and modern disillusionment. Eliot exultantly discovered how to represent his emotions without being mastered by them, it's not an unmediated outburst but an analytic diagnosis in patterned language.

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question.....
Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"
Let us go and make our visit.

The poem portrays the random thoughts, jumping around in a person's head, struggling with each other to survive and come out from the labyrinths of the person's mind before the temporal progress kills them as usually happen with random thoughts- we remember them for a moment and the very next moment they vanish to nothingness. The thoughts occur within a time interval, not necessarily in some sequences, and the links between those thoughts are more psychological than logical, this deliberate use of "stream of consciousness" technique of modernism makes it rather difficult to differentiate between symbolism and actual text. There is extensive use of symbols and allusions, to biblical references, Greek history, like in his most of the poems by Eliot. If other consciousnesses exist only as opaque objects for Prufrock, he has an equally unhappy relation to time and space. One of the puzzles of the poem is the question as to whether Prufrock ever leaves his room. It appears that he does not, so infirm is his will, so ready "for a hundred indecisions,/And for a hundred visions and revisions,/Before the taking of a toast and tea". In another sense Prufrock would be unable to go anywhere, however hard he tried. If all space has been assimilated into his mind, then spatial movement would really be movement in the same place, like a man running in a dream.

The poem has evident elements of modernism wherein the intended audience- called as 'you' in the text- is not clear and one of the interpretations of it could be that the reader has been addressed as 'you' and he/ she has to play an active role which is characteristic of post-modernism while other interpretations of it could that it's an interior monologue of Pruforck representing his dilemmas and anguish of a sexually frustrated middle-aged man who wants to say something but is afraid to do so, and ultimately does not, as can be seen in the works of Samuel Beckett and Thomas Bernhard. It also occurs that Prufrock is cribbing out his lamented romantic affair with a woman and has been frustratingly trying to convey his feelings to her, pointing to the various images of women's arms and clothing.

And I have known the arms already, known them all-

Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]

Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.

The dense text of the poem represents the philosophical insight of Eliot, the disillusionment of modern man with society- an examination of the tortured psyche of the prototypical modern man -overeducated, eloquent, neurotic, and emotionally stilted. There is no way to distinguish between actual movement and imaginary movement. However far Prufrock goes, he remains imprisoned in his own subjective space, and all his experience is imaginary. It seems to be some perception of this which keeps him in his room, content to imagine himself going through the streets, ascending the lady's stair, and telling her "all," like Lazarus back from the dead. There is no resurrection from the death which has undone him, and this is one meaning of the epigraph from Dante. The rhyme scheme of this poem is irregular but not random. While sections of the poem may resemble free verse, in reality, “Prufrock” is a carefully structured amalgamation of poetic forms. The bits and pieces of rhyme become much more apparent when the poem is read aloud. One of the most prominent formal characteristics of this work is the use of refrains. Prufrock’s continual return to the “women [who] come and go / Talking of Michelangelo” and his recurrent questionings (“how should I presume?”) and pessimistic appraisals (“That is not it, at all.”) both reference an earlier poetic tradition and help Eliot describe the consciousness of a modern, neurotic individual.

Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:-

Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons:
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how shall I presume?



It's one of greatest works of literature though not an easy one to understand but once you spend time with it, it's definitely worth it.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Question: Why oh why do they make children read Prufrock in school? How can a kid, having run in from recess with pink perfect cheeks and years to go before hairs start sprouting out of weird places, have any idea what T.S. Eliot is talking about? How can someone who thinks 21-year-olds are ancient, possibly get Prufrock? I remember being asked to read this poem in fourth grade, and it is touching in an odd way to think back on the scene in the classroom - my 40-ish, balding teacher, bent almost double over his desk with his passion for this poem, begging, pleading with us callow, bright-eyed children, to get it - his desk might as well have been the Great Wall of China. We just stared and blinked our big anime eyes and thought he was a crazy old fart. Time didn't touch us yet. Like all kids, we thought it never would, that we had been spared by dint of our superiority. Poor Mr. Bull; he must have gone home, shaved his bunions and wept into his tea.

Years and years later, I took a class at San Francisco City College, which focused on three readings: Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, and Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. I had not re-read Prufrock since that 4th grade incident. Growing up in the 60s and 70s, I was inculcated in the theory that if a poem scans, rhymes, tells a cohesive story, or otherwise makes sense, it sucks. Ginsberg, Snyder, Diane DePrima, and anyone who wrote stream-of-consciousness, explosive, expressive id-based barbaric yawps = good; Shakespeare, St. Vincent Millay, Eliot, and essentially anyone whose work appeared in the reviled, rejected, Lackeys-of-the-Imperialist-Bourgeoisie-classical canon = bad.

At 11, I read it and couldn't believe how stupid it was. What the hell was this guy Eliot even talking about? I liked mermaids and peaches, but the rest of the poem might as well have been in a dead language.

At 30, I read it and every line sank into my soul and shook me. I had spent enough time on earth to feel the first stirrings of fear of mortality. I wasn't in my twenties anymore and I thought, this is the best damn poem I have ever read.

Maybe you have to get a bit older before this poem resonates with you - maybe you have to have felt the first stirrings of existential despair and the chill of mortality. Probably you have to have heard the eternal footman hold your coat, and snicker, and in short, be afraid.

There are so many parts of Prufrock that I love - that sum up the so-called 'human condition' so perfectly:
"Let us go then, you and I, when the evening is spread out against the sky, like a patient etherised upon a table.."
"I have measured out my life in coffee-spoons.."
"Do I dare to eat a peach?"
"I grow old, I grow old..I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled..."
"I should have been a pair of ragged claws, scuttling across the floors of silent seas.."

And finally:
"I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown."

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

“And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review
3 of 5 stars to the poetry of T.S. Eliot, specifically, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Other Poems.

In “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, a man confronts his physical sexuality during an elite social gathering. The man, J. Alfred Prufrock, breathes in his surroundings and then uses them to define his own appearance as the antithesis of what he sees. The man has no self-esteem and therefore constantly dwells on his negative attributes and less-than-perfect features. In the poem, Prufrock recites a long monologue that is characteristic of almost every other human being. T. S. Eliot uses Prufrock as a symbol, for humanity in general, to show how all persons are doubtful at times of their attractiveness.

Prufrock is a man of uncertain age. (Spender 31) Therefore, he can be portrayed as a teenager, a middle-aged man, or a person of any other age very easily. If one looks at Prufrock through the eyes of a teenager, he can easily be seen as a seventeen-year-old. While Prufrock is “like a patient etherized upon a table” (line 3), teenagers roam the halls at school like puppy dogs with their mouths open, dazed and lost in space. Both are in love with some beautiful woman and wander the paths practically drooling. While Prufrock is busy finding time “for a hundred indecisions, and a hundred visions and revision” (lines 32-33), teenagers are occupied thinking of ways to approach the person they want. Both seem to put facades on to make themselves sound better so that they will get the person they want to get. While Prufrock is worrying “with a bald spot in the middle of his hair - (How they will say his hair is growing thin!)” (lines 41-42), teenagers constantly, in vain, check their own hair in the mirror to see if it is just perfect! There are several similarities between young people like teenagers and Prufrock. However, not only does Prufrock resemble teenagers, but he also resembles middle-aged men who are hitting a mid-life crisis. They worry about their hair balding or becoming gray and whether they are attractive enough. They go out and try to reinvent themselves as different people just as Prufrock does with his revisions, decisions, and visions. Prufrock has characteristics of several different people of all ages. Eliot is showing that all men (women included) have doubts and occasional low self-esteem. Whether you are 17, 37, or 57, you are capable of having no confidence occasionally. This is Eliot’s generalization of all men.

Prufrock’s worries concerning his sexuality and appearance not only show his resemblance to all men, but they also stop him from continuing on with his life as a happy, caring, and normal man. “He is Eliot’s archetype of the great refusal, the man who fears to dare and so misses life... ...Prufrock initiates Eliot’s obsession with the lost opportunity and the missed life.” (Mayer 127) Prufrock is so busy concentrating on his less-than-perfect features and supposed negative attributes that he lets life pass him by. “I grow old... I grow old... I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.” (Line 120-121) Prufrock loses the future by concentrating on the present. His inhibitions about the opposite sex hold him back. “‘Prufrock’ is built around the arid, timid, conventional persona of a man sexual enough to admit desire, but insufficiently sexual to do anything about it.” (Raffel 24) In every person’s life they feel like this occasionally. They love someone, but they hold themselves back because of some fear, etc. Eliot uses Prufrock as a symbol for all men again.

“Prufrock is inhibited, self-conscious, obsessed with image, self-possessed, and afraid... Fear is in the way - the fear to dare, to live honestly, to tell all, to be the Fool. The mermaids will not sing to Prufrock because he will not sing to anyone. His “love song” to himself is a cry of anguish...” (Mayer 128-129) While Prufrock sings to himself, men everywhere are busy talking outlook to the stars, the sky, and the moon about how much they wish they could get the girl they loved or be more handsome, more intelligent, or more loved. Some of these men will cry out in anguish and they will not tell anyone how they feel because of inhibitions. The mermaids (women) therefore will not sing to him if he will not sing to them! All men are afraid to tell a woman how they feel about them often in reality. They will stutter and beat around the bush. Besides the mermaids, there are several other minor characters who can support this theory. Prufrock talks about Prince Hamlet, Lazarus, the Footman, and an attendant lord. He has characteristics of all these men. He attends to others and never pleases himself like the attendant lord. “Hamlet embodies Prufrock’s aspirations to live - that is, to be or not to be”. (Mayer 117) All men have asked themselves that question; Should I do it or shouldn’t I? (Referring to asking someone out) All of these people have traits in common with Prufrock, moreover with every other man. Once again, Prufrock is shown to be a symbol for all men.

In the middle of the poem, Prufrock talks of other men and the effect of the yellow smoke that curled around the windows. “...And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows.” (lines 71-72) Prufrock obviously identifies with the lonely men (despite their shirt-sleeves), and perhaps sees their leaning out of the windows as symbolic of his own desire for contact with the world. (Spurr 7) Since Prufrock identifies with the lonely men, therefore, that is proof that others have felt this way. Prufrock, like all others often in their lives, back away from pursuing love from a paralyzing fear that results in the ultimate loss of the object he desires. “Prufrock watches his possible moment of greatness flicker because of his anxiety over his looks.” (Spurr 56) All men seem to follow in his footsteps.

If one looks at a few words specifically in the poem, like “let us go then, you and I” (line 1), one can see why Prufrock really is a symbol for all men in general. “The “you” and “I” of the first line present greater difficulties. Critics have commonly interpreted them as referring to two parts of Prufrock, carrying on a conversation with himself.” (Headings 24) Many times Prufrock seems to be having a conversation with someone else, perhaps another man, or even his object of love. However, the poem is really one long monologue. Prufrock is speaking to himself. Men in reality will often do the same when trying to make a decision. They will ask themselves whether they really love the woman, or want to marry her, or want to kiss her, etc. Talking to oneself is a common practice to make a decision.

J. Alfred Prufrock is a man who is in love with a certain woman, but he is somehow held back from approaching her. He feels unworthy of her, he feels unattractive, and for some reason he is sexually inhibited. At one time in their life, whether it be as a teenager, a middle-aged man, or an older person, men have felt like Prufrock. They have doubts, fears, and inhibitions. Prufrock is truly a symbol for all of humanity in general.

About Me
For those new to me or my reviews... here's the scoop: I read A LOT. I write A LOT. And now I blog A LOT. First the book review goes on Goodreads, and then I send it on over to my WordPress blog at https://thisismytruthnow.com, where you'll also find TV & Film reviews, the revealing and introspective 365 Daily Challenge and lots of blogging about places I've visited all over the world. And you can find all my social media profiles to get the details on the who/what/when/where and my pictures. Leave a comment and let me know what you think. Vote in the poll and ratings. Thanks for stopping by. Note: All written content is my original creation and copyrighted to me, but the graphics and images were linked from other sites and belong to them. Many thanks to their original creators.

[carol. · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite poems. After following Mr. Peter's serial illustrations of T.S. Eliot's poem on his blog, I was unable to resist buying a paper copy for my own library. Peters uses a variety of styles, but he uses pen and ink here, in a semi-realistic illustration of the fanciful lines of Eliot's poem. I love how he interprets the winding streets, and the formality of the setting is perfect for the stuffiness of the beginning.

You too can now have this experience, because Joseph Miller reads the poem aloud to the pages of the poem.
https://julianpeterscomics.com/2020/1...

Pictures from the blog: https://julianpeterscomics.com/page-1...

[Stella Dinielli · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is an examination of the tortured ego of the modern man—overeducated, eloquent, neurotic, pompous and disturbed, who’s ironically tortured due to his overwhelming brilliance. The main character, not someone of fame and wealth but rather an unacknowledged poet, sees the world as spiritually exhausted and a wasteland. Humans are incapable of communicating with one another because their psychological state is too fragile and afraid of change. He notices all these things by observing people and nature, and yet is unable to do anything to change any of it because he is “etherized like a patient” by his own fear of rejection, change and indecisiveness. While a part of him would like to shake them up and wake them from their cookie cutter, meaningless lives, another part of him knows to accomplish this change he would have to “disturb the universe” and change is hard. All this realization and character development given to us by T.S. Eliot through Prufrock’s eyes is from simple observation and figurative language. This work is a perfect example of just how T.S. Eliot mastered figurative language.

[hawk · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this short collection - T.S. Elliot's first published collection of poems - twice before it went back to the library. I might need to read it again some time, to appreciate it/the poems more. admittedly the first time I read it I was really tired, and dozed thru a few bits 😉

the thing that stood out for me most (even while dozy) was its structure and rhythm and rhyme - I really liked that 🙂😁 all the poems felt nicely, and carefully/meticulously, composed.

the poems are quite varied in length and content - the first two or three being long poems in parts, and most of the rest of the collection being shorter (including some very short) poems.
some engaged me more than others, but I think all of them were good, and some possibly good in ways I didn't/couldn't fully take in the times I read - I think some are quite referential, and I'm not sure I have all of the reference points to fully appreciate 🤔🙃🙂

the stand out poem for me in the collection was 'Preludes'. I found it intensely evocative in its description of place, activity, emotion and spirit/soul. I loved how it unfurled over its four parts, and the different levels it worked on and engaged 😍❤


🌟 🌟 🌟


accessed as a National Poetry Library audiobook, read by Douglas Harvey.

[Paula Mota · Rating 4 out of 5]

4,5*
#JulhoNobel

Que prazer que é voltar a um fabuloso poema décadas depois, sem ter agora de o dissecar... Este livrinho que contém uma versão bilingue só merecia uma nova tradução que transpusesse toda a musicalidade dos versos para português e que não tivesse opções duvidosas como “argumento” para “argument”.

(...)
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all –
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room
So how should I presume?
(...)

[Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock is the most beautiful poem I have ever read. I'm not a big poetry connoisseur, so feel free to disagree.

I would eat this poem if I could. Or marry it. I would hold the hair of this poem while it puked, if it were the type of poem to drink heavily to the point of wretching, but it's not. This poem is far too good for those sort of shennanigans. (Instead, it partakes of tea and cakes and ices and lingers in dooryards and ponders the beauty and futility of life, which is why I love it so.)

I don't know about the rest of the poems in this book because Prufrock is so brilliant it burned all the rest of the pages of this book with its white-hot awesomeness.

[Eliasdgian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ποιητικό ορόσημο στον μοντερνισμό, απαρχή της σταδιοδρομίας του Έλιοτ ως ποιητή και ένα από τα πιο οικεία ποιήματα παγκοσμίως, το Ερωτικό Τραγούδι του Τζ. Άλφρεντ Προύφροκ (1915) θα μνημονεύεται στον αιώνα τον άπαντα (για όλα τα παραπάνω, αλλά και) για την ατολμία του ομιλητή (Προύφροκ), την αδυναμία του «να συνδιαλλαγεί με την εξωτερική πραγματικότητα» και την διστακτικότητά του να πράξει. Διότι, όπως ακριβώς ο νεαρός Έλιοτ (στην ηλικία των 23 ετών, όταν και ολοκλήρωσε το ποίημά του αυτό), έτσι κι ο Προύφροκ, είχε δει κι είχε μάθει τον κόσμο «κυρίως μέσα από τα μάτια άλλων, από αναγνώσεις περισσότερο, παρά από προσωπική εμπειρία».

Πολυσημία στην έκφραση, μοντερνισμός, υπαινικτικές αναφορές σε διάφορα λογοτεχνικά κείμενα και μια εισαγωγή όνειρο:

«Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table…»

Το ξαναδιάβασα με αφορμή τα σχόλια και το επίμετρο του Τάκη Καγιαλή, όπως δημοσιεύτηκαν στο Περιοδικό Ποίηση μερικά χρόνια πριν (Περιοδικό Ποίηση, τ. 3, Άνοιξη 1994, σελ. 11-32

[⋆.˚ Ariana ᡣ𐭩ྀིྀི · Rating 3 out of 5]

”Do I dare / Disturb the universe? / In a minute there is time / Fro decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.”

This poem felt quite personal. In the name of the poem can be misleading, but my understanding is that it’s a love song to the life he’s never got to live. He’s full of regret and insecurities. He’s old and that makes him depressed, especially his physical decay. He tries to reassure himself that there will be more time for him, yet at the same time, he understands that he’s running out of time and is close to the grave.

[Julia · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Do I dare disturb the universe?"

Anxiety, worries, and fears rendering you unable to act on your thoughts. Not knowing what to expect from the future besides the foreseeable outcome of thinning hair and growing old. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock portrays these common concerns with eloquence.

There are many lines throughout the piece that I have thought over. The third line states, “Like a patient etherized upon a table”. I think that Eliot uses this image as a foreshadowing of Prufrock’s inability to act, a numbing feeling which leads him to be incapable of entering the house full of women conversing about Michelangelo. Eliot also writes about a fog; “The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes, The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes”. I can’t help but notice that this fog takes on animal-like qualities. This description sounds more like a cat to me than a yellow fog. Is Prufrock the cat? Why doesn’t he enter the house? Is he afraid of the women or nervous to speak to them?

Prufrock questions himself incessantly with the question “Do I dare?”. He asks this on a couple different occasions; “Do I dare Disturb the universe?” and “Do I dare eat a peach?”. The latter question is interesting. I found that a peach is a Chinese symbol for marriage and immortality. Is Prufrock afraid of these things although he actually desires them? In fact, there are many questions throughout the entire piece. Prufrock seems indecisive and confused. Also, the fog (cat?) at the beginning of the piece never enters the house. This further strengthens the theme of indecisiveness.

He worries about growing older and how this will affect his outer appearance. His hair is thinning along with his arms and legs. He says, “I grow old…I grow old…I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled”. Apparently, rolling up the bottoms of one’s pants is an attempt to ward off death. This hints back to the previous point I made about Prufrock wanting immortality. His concerns about getting older show that he knows his desire is impossible.

Overall, my thoughts about this piece is that Prufrock has been bothered his whole life with his indecisiveness and his lack of taking action. He goes back and forth questioning himself about if he is daring enough to do the things he wishes (voice his opinion to the world, get married, live a full life [immortality?], etc.). His fear paralyzes him and he’s growing older. He is trying to hesitantly figure out what to do before it is too late.

[Exina · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a required reading at literature seminar. I like poetry in general, and I enjoyed many of these poems.

[Trevor · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is an odd thing, but recently I read someone on this site say that they had always thought Eliot was English and was a bit surprised to find out that he was actually an American. Now, I’ve always thought of Prufrock as being English, but the odd thing is that now that I think about why I should believe that I really couldn’t tell you. I mean, as a cultural phenomena I think it is generally Americans who use their middle name, but keep their first initial dangling, so J. Alfred Prufrock would seem to fit that particular cultural mould. All the same, I just can’t see him being American – he may measure his life with coffee spoons (another sure sign of American-ness, perhaps) but somehow to me the fact he also takes toast and tea carries much more weight.

And it is not just Prufrock that is of indeterminate nationality – what about the fog?

“The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.”

Now, once upon a time I was in a library and there was this book. It was one of those books that young people are sometimes expected to read so as to learn how to read poetry. There is an idea that poetry is such a terribly strange thing that only those who have been properly instructed will have any hope of ever reading it. I was flicking through the book and there was a section on this stanza of the love song. The person who wrote the book said that Eliot is playing with the similarity of sound between ‘fog’ and ‘dog’. And since there is a similarity of sounds between them Eliot does that odd thing that poets sometimes like to, which is to get carried away and give the fog the literal characteristics of a dog.

Now, this is all very clever, but the only problem is that I would be prepared to bet rather large amounts of money to say that the fog isn’t being compared with a dog at all, but rather to a cat. I know that cat doesn’t quite rhyme with fog (not even if you say it fast) – but all the same I think that it is much more likely that a cat, rather than a dog, would make a sudden leap or curl up to fall asleep or rub its muzzle on the window-panes.

This is a poem about a man who has reached a certain age – an age were he struggles to even sustain his fantasies. To me this is made clear by the line after the first couplet. The poem starts in what could easily be a kind of romantic dream, in fact, the romantic images which appear repeatedly throughout the poem are constantly undermined, but always are there – Let us go then, you and I, / When the evening is spread out against the sky. We have been lulled (and remarkably quickly, I’ve always thought) into thinking this is going to be a certain type of poem by these two lines with their simple rhyme – which is why I think that the next line, Like a patient etherized upon a table comes as such a surprise.

Of course, one is only ever etherized on a table to have something bad cut out of them. Every time Mr Prufrock starts getting a bit of a fantasy going – he might be chatting to a woman in a shawl or sniffing her perfume and saying things to her that might sound like the sorts of lines a woman listening to a man like him might even find a bit interesting - he worries that not only will she not find those things interesting, but even think that he has completely misunderstood what she is talking about. He constantly undermines his own fantasies.

As a case in point:

Shall I say, I have 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? ...

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

We start off with what could be exactly the sort of thing that you might think a woman would find interesting to chat about – the image of men leaning out of windows and smoking in the early evening is a very potent image and one that has stuck with me for years. But immediately after thinking about this image Prufrock is plunged into a state of near total despair – it is hard to consider oneself more worthless than to imagine yourself as a pair of ragged claws – and of course that lovely piece of alliteration in which all of the 's' sounds imitate the sounds of ragged claws in their scuttling.

Whenever someone tells you they are not something in a poem, well, or in a novel, or even in life itself I suspect, it is probably best to think that they may well be exactly what they claim they are not.

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous--
Almost, at times, the Fool.

Given Hamlet is the literary definition of ‘he who hesitates is lost’ it is hard not to see Prufrock as being a bit of a Prince of Denmark. The fact he sees himself in terms that are even more self-deprecating does nothing to prove the negation he has set up – no matter how emphatic he is in saying No!. Just as it is also probably true that the answer to his saying, “Do I dare / Disturb the universe?” is most likely going to be, “Well, no, you probably won’t.”

Hamlet isn’t the only person who is referred to in this poem, and I’m not totally sure why the others are. The two biblical references, John the Baptist and Lazarus, had been, I guess, sort of forerunners to Jesus. John as the forerunner of Jesus as redeemer, and Lazarus as Jesus as resurrection. I guess that is part of the meaning – that Prufrock never feels like quite the ‘real thing’, but I don’t know if I feel totally satisfied with this reading. Of course, I’m not sure what other reading to make of these lines. Prufrock (in both cases) says he is these people so perhaps I should do the opposite here, except that the image of John the Baptist being decapitated due to the sexual desires of someone else is a hint to something I also think that is going on here for Prufrock.

To be honest, I’m not sure if I understand this poem – all the same, I do feel that I get the feelings that compose this poem and I do love the images that this poem presents almost as in a slide show, and one after another. Pound said somewhere that poetry is about images, and the images here come thick and fast.

It is also interesting to see how he undermines so many of the images he creates. The last few stanzas, with the mermaids singing to each other (naturally, they won’t sing to him) and combing the hair of the waves is again a very romantic vision and naturally one that is immediately undercut.

There are so many things I love about this poem, there are even long sections of it that I know by heart. I feel like I’ve known this poem for most of my adult life and it is a poem that has grown with me. Like so many men, the older I get the more ambivalent I become to the idea of ‘romantic love’ – and as such this poem has become increasingly a bit of a touchstone. All the same, I can’t help feel that there will always be things about it that I simply will never understand.

[Adan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Prufrock ... can any other poem excel in its description of the monotonous life of an average man!
Short on caprice to explain my love for this wholesome poem (modernism at its best). I’ll be back in my 30’s, maybe. Till then.

[Lily · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not a fan. I suppose this poem did wrestle with very real questions and doubts, but the poetry itself was mediocre. Okay, not just mediocre. It was terrible.

[✨ jami ✨]

let us go then ... you and I

I actually love this poem so much. I read it in high-school and it actually stuck with me so that means something because not all poetry does.

Do I dare
Disturb the universe?

There is a version of this on spotify and the person reading it reads it so well and I love it so much I listen to it all the time because I'm a certified nerd and I'm Extra

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

[Arghoon · Rating 4 out of 5]

And indeed there will be time

To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”

Time to turn back and descend the stair,

With a bald spot in the middle of my hair —

(They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”)

My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,

My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin —

(They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”)

Do I dare

Disturb the universe?

In a minute there is time

For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

[Dave Cheng · Rating 5 out of 5]

My copy of this book I stole from my high school library.

In my freshman poetry class, we were told to memorize a poem of at least 10 lines. I told my teacher that this was a pointless assignment and that rote memorization doesn't teach anything, but honestly I was just lazy and hated the idea of memorizing anything.

Then I stumbled upon The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. It took me one night/morning to memorize the 132 lines.

[leynes · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have reviewed Eliot's complete poems extensively in one single review. As I'm pretty obsessive over my book cataloguing here on Goodreads, I decided to mark every single collection as "read" on here as well, as it's more accurate. But since I'm also obsessively reviewing everything that I read I wanted to at least share some tidbits about every single one of Eliot's poetry collections in their single reviews as well. Yes, I love making things harder for myself.

Eliot became one of my favorite poets of all time last year (2024). Since his initial impression on me is still so fresh at the beginning of this year I would currently consider him my favorite poet of all time. This man's poetry has me in a chokehold, bitch. For over a decade I keep these little DINA6 journals to write my favorite quotes down, not just from books I read but stuff that I see on the internet or that are said to me in real life etc. Usually, I try to limit the book quotes to one quote per book (as to not clog up these journals with quotes I've written down elsewhere—namely in my book reviews). With Eliot, I couldn't reign myself in. I dedicated a whole mosaic page to him with all of my favorite quotes from this. Like, I am obsessed. You would never understand.

Anyways, my love for him started with this slim collection: Prufrock and Other Observations. I will never be chill about the fact that THE FIRST POEM this man ever put to paper—"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"—is literally the most brilliant thing I've ever read IN MY LIFE. It is not funny how obsessed I am with it. Eliot began writing the poem in 1910, when he was but a mere 22 years old (MY SWEET SUMMER BOY), and it was finally professionally published in the June 1915 issue of Poetry: A Magazine of Verse at the instigation of fellow American expatriate Ezra Pound. Besties, when I tell you, WE OWE SO MUCH TO EZRA POUND. He was such a fan and supporter of Eliot throughout his literary career (literally coining the iconic "Waste Land" epigraph etc. etc.)—Ezra, baby, I am coming for youuuu.

The most famous line from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"—"Do I dare / Disturb the universe?"—is one that keeps me up at night. Like HOW THE FUCK do you write something like that at age 22???? Thomas Stearns, honey, you did disturb the universe and you had every right to!!! At the time of its publication, the poem was considered outlandish, but the poem is now seen as heralding a paradigmatic shift in poetry from late 19th-century Romanticism and Georgian lyrics to Modernism. Thomas Stearns was THAT GUY. Forever, forever obsessed.

My favorite line from the poem, the one that I personally resonate most deeply with (and would actually get tattooed on my fucking tits if I weren't such a coward [please ignore me, I'm channeling an energy for this review that I've never channelled before—but you need to understand how OBSESSED I am; anyways, moving on]) goes as follows: "I am no prophet – and here's no great matter. / I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, / And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker / And in short, I was afraid." HULLOOO??? Are you okay??? Are you still in the room with us bc I sure ain't—I am deceased. Eliot wrote an anthem for all the burned out gifted kid/student girlies out there and I am here for it. "I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker" and "And in short, I was afraid." are lines that I will literally NEVER forget, they speak so deeply to my soul??? And I don't wanna get into it bc it's none of your business but the girls that get it GET IT!!!!

Eliot narrates the experience of Prufrock using the stream of consciousness technique developed by his fellow Modernist writers. The poem, described as a "drama of literary anguish", is a dramatic interior monologue of an urban man stricken with feelings of isolation and an incapability for decisive action that is said "to epitomize [the] frustration and impotence of the modern individual" and "represent thwarted desires and modern disillusionment".

Prufrock laments his physical and intellectual inertia, the lost opportunities in his life, and lack of spiritual progress, and is haunted by reminders of unattained carnal love. With visceral feelings of weariness, regret, embarrassment, longing, emasculation, sexual frustration, a sense of decay, and an awareness of aging and mortality, the poem has become one of the most recognized works in modern literature.

The history of the epigraph for "Love Song" is also fascinating as it underwent some changes. In a draft version, Eliot chose Dante's Purgatorio, canto XXVI, line 147–148 as epigraph: "'be mindful in due time of my pain'. / Then dived he back into that fire which refines them." He finally decided not to use this, but eventually used the quotation in the closing lines of his 1922 poem "The Waste Land". The quotation that Eliot did choose comes from Dante also. Inferno (XXVII, 61–66) reads: "If I but thought that my response were made / to one perhaps returning to the world, / this tongue of flame would cease to flicker. / But since, up from these depths, no one has yet / returned alive, if what I hear is true, / I answer without fear of being shamed." (Am I the only one who wants to the reread the Commedia now?? And I am also the only one who gets major Oscar Wilde, De Profundis vibes. Yes?? Mmkay.)

Critics contends that Prufrock himself is suffering from a split personality, and that he embodies both Guido and Dante in the Inferno analogy. One is the storyteller; the other the listener who later reveals the story to the world. He posits, alternatively, that the role of Guido in the analogy is indeed filled by Prufrock, but that the role of Dante is filled by the reader ("Let us go then, you and I"). In that, the reader is granted the power to do as he pleases with Prufrock's love song.

[Huda Aweys · Rating 3 out of 5]

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool

To read and hear ! :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2l-EV...
اول لقاء لي مع .. ت.س. إليوت .. كان في سنوات نشأتي الأولى من خلال عمل قصصي او مع مسرحي على ما اتذكر ، و ما كنتش اعرف عن موضوع الشعر قبل اليوم حقيقة :) .. و الصراحة كانت مصادفة غريبة انهارده انى لسه منتهية من قراءة (حوار طفل ساذج مع قط مثقف) لأحمد بهجت من شوية ، و اللي ذكر فيها قصيدة بديعة لـ ت.س. إليوت عن القطط ، لأجد بعدها القصيدة الرائعه دي في طريقي مصادفة

[José Simões · Rating 5 out of 5]

Não é o grande livro de Eliot, mas é um excelente exemplo de um estado anterior da sua poesia. Ou um observatório da medida da sua evolução, se quisermos. Anterior a Wasteland e Four Quartets, dois colossos do séc. XX, evidencia muitos dos seus temas, das suas imagens e da fragmentação que explorará genialmente naqueles dois livros. Não é tão denso nem tão brilhante (negro?) como eles, mas como em toda a boa arte, um Eliot é um Eliot.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

I revisit "Prufrock" almost anytime i'm jonesing for poetry and lately i've been in a poetry zone of sorts. I dig its music and (maybe cuz i'm a very privileged person) i don't take offense to Eliot's poetic views.

The other poems in the collection didn't do much for me other than call my attention to the repetition of tropes, all of which delighted me in "Prufrock" but felt like mere repetitions elsewhere.

Speaking of repetition, i noted all instances of repeated words and phrases and composed a ¿poem? from them.

Weave

There will be time if
the lady and gentleman
wish to take their tea in

the garden. You dance
so much, weave afternoon,
but what have I?

Many days? You do not
know how I grow old.

Note: That was my first pancake. I went on to do others, with just as much "success" in The Year Of Our Epidemic. It kept me entertained.

[Edita · Rating 4 out of 5]

And indeed there will be time
[…]
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
[…]
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
[…]
And indeed there will be time
To wonder, ‘Do I dare?’ and, ‘Do I dare?’
*
Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;

[Afra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

[Donald Powell · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a gloomy, depressing, bleak and confusing poem. I will confess to be "lost" with poetry. This was a stream of consciousness of a sad, unfulfilled, lonely and self effacing man. It is a famous work and the volume I had included some other material. I wish I could find poetry as moving as many say it is.

[Emma M.]

There is something about this poem. I know everybody reads it in high school and in 100 level English classes, but there are some lines that I think about all the time that just help to shelve this poem into my list of favourites. I’ve read it for two different courses, and each professor had different things to say about it, which really shows the strength of it.

[حسن · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons

When I was asked by BBC Culture what would be my favourite line by the great poet T.S. Eliot, this famous expression from his poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock came up instantly to my mind.
Not for my adoration for espresso (worship would be the appropriate term), but for being intrigued by how a simple line provides multiple figurative meanings..
http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/2015...

The reference to the coffee spoon has various interpretations. Many people mistakenly thinks it is just humorous. However, this expression denotes that rationality, the carefulness in the way of thinking and the moderation in taking decisions, in accordance with the essential theme of the text which is despair, leaves little space for ambitions and leads to a mediocre monotone life.
The implied meaning of this expression is close to Nietzsche's (Yes, i'll mention him in every post, sue me) wonderful aphorism One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.

Eliot’s metaphor indicates boredom and bitterness as through this poem the narrator is evaluating retrospectively his life and is regretting its mediocrity..
The poem, described as a drama of literary anguish, highlights the narrator's inertia, his cowardice to approach women, his ineptness and his spiritual flaccidity.
With his physiological and psychic states of apathy and inertia, he evokes ”Oblomov”, Ivan Goncharov’s famous character:
When you don't know what you're living for, you don't care how you live from one day to the next. You're happy the day has passed and the night has come, and in your sleep you bury the tedious question of what you lived for that day and what you're going to live for tomorrow.

The poem takes a form of a dramatic interior monologue or a modernist stream of consciousness, which according to J. Harlan and K. McCoy, epitomize(s) frustration and impotence of the modern individual" and "represent(s) thwarted desires and modern disillusionment.
Mr. “Prufrock”’s lassitude and defeatism are also a reminder of the Chekhovian characters.

Consequently, the little quantity a coffee spoon can hold is an allusion to the little his life experiences amount to, how insignificant are the steps the ineffectual and dull "Prufrock" has taken and his frustration over the lost opportunities.
“Prufrock" was incapable to take decisive actions. He has surrendered to the monotone acts and rituals (as same as we use the coffee spoon daily) and he fears to pursue change. He then uses the coffee spoon as a measure unit to assess his life, because he is diligent and meticulous and therefore doesn't dare to drop carelessly the sugar in his tea or coffee.

According to a different interpretation that I have read once, a literal one that tends to separate it from the rest of the poem, a coffee spoon alludes to the social, as we spend most of our time when drinking a coffee or a tea cup in the company of other people, discussing, debating and telling our secrets.. So whenever you are nostalgic or thinking of your life, others would be present in these memories and they are the witnesses of it.