"," one of the first modernist poems, has at its center a modernist theme:
the alienation, paralysis, and timidity of the early 20th-century man. Prufrock, whose interior,
stream of consciousnessis the poem, represents the impotent intellectual of
the pre-World War I period. The poem was begun in 1910, before the war began, and published in
1915, after the war had started.
Prufrock might possibly like to do daring
things, asking "Do I dare?"but in reality, he doesn't dare. Instead, he fritters away
his time at pointless parties, all the while knowing he is wasting his powers. He complains that
he "[has] measured out my life with coffee spoons," yet he is so paralyzed that he
continually turns away from the "overwhelming question" he seems to want to ask.
Instead, he focuses on petty issues: his bald spot, his thinning hair, whether to eat a peach or
not. Rather...
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