Introduction– T.S. Eliot wrote Preludes between 1910-1911. But it was first published in year 1917 in collection ‘Prufrock and Other Observations’. This poem gives glimpses of emancipation of modernism and lack of spirituality in the society. This poem presents a pessimistic picture of modern society.
Central Idea – Poem focuses on materialistic modern society where people are hiding behind masks of pseudo growth and development. They don’t understand that they have jumped on a bandwagon which have deprived them of spirituality. Poet tries to search for spirituality and hope in future but all ends in vain at the end of the poem.
Themes
1. Modernism – Poem is centralized on modernism. Later half of nineteenth and first half of twentieth century saw migration towards cities and booming urban culture. But this urbanity turned into ghettos or gutters. People are working for more than 12 hours on average and living a substandard life. Poet portrays this life when people go for work in morning and come back in evening they do daily same activities. There is lack of originality in their life. Thousands of people open dingy shades and rush towards ‘coffee stands’. They are involved in prostitution and other immoral acts.
2. Spiritual decay – People either don’t have time from their mechanical life or they have forgotten the preaching of divine people like Christ. They are just following other fellow. Then the imagery of a prostitute who is having flashed up dirty images in night most probably due to her work culture. Phrases like ‘grimmy scraps’, ‘broken blind’, ‘sawdust-trampled street’, ‘raising dingy shades’, ‘thousand sordid images’ and ‘ancient women gathering fuel in vacant lots’ indicate towards decline of civilisation and decay in spirituality.
Figure of speech
1. Alliteration – Phrases like ‘broken blinds’ and ‘certain certainties’, ‘ have repetition of consonant sounds of /b/ and /c/ hence alliteration.
2. Assonance – Assonance is used in ‘steams and stamps’ and ‘smell of steaks’ as there is repeation of vowel sounds /e/.
3. Sibilance –
The winter evening settles down
With smell of steaks in passageways.
In these first two lines of the poem ‘hissing’ sound is created by using /s/. Hence it’s an example of sibilance.
4. Anaphora – There are two instances in the poem when first word of three sentences in continuation is same. It is case of Anaphora.
Examples – ‘You tossed a blanket from the bed,
You lay upon your back, and waited;
You dozed, and watched the night revealing’. Here you is the first word.
And another instance is such as –
‘And when all the world came back
And the light crept up between the shutters
And you heard the sparrows in the gutters’. Here And appear in that role.
5. Pathetic Fallacy – ‘Morning comes to consciousness’ and ‘Winter evening settles down’ have pathetic fallacy. Pathetic fallacy is a type of personification but in it non-human (especially nature) things are given human emotions whereas in personification all human attributes are given to non human elements except emotions.
6. Synecdoche – ‘All the hand s’ and ‘muddy feet’ have synecdoche. It is a figure of speech in which a body part represents the whole person.
7. Irony – ‘Night revealing’ has irony as night is supposed to hide things due to darkness but it is here revealing images.
8. Simile – ‘The worlds revolve like ancient women/Gathering fuel in vacant lots’. Here life of people i.e. worlds is compared to one of the most common work of human being done since ancient times mostly by women i.e. fuel gathering. Poet by using this simile wants to say that people will keep doing what they were doing in the past. They are not going to change themselves.
Meaning of the Title – Poem has title ‘Preludes’. Preludes are additional starting part of a song before the original or main song starts. Hence by using this title poet is not only trying to give musical effect to the poem but also indicating towards decay and destruction coming in upcoming years due to modernism. Hence it’s a prelude to that upcoming chaos.
Structure and Rhyme scheme – Poem doesn’t have a proper structure or proper rhyme scheme. Poet is indicating towards chaos in the world by using this sort of improper rhyme scheme.
Read my previous post on critical appreciation of poem ‘London’ of William Blake. Click here
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