Nancy you say two selves or personae of the poet; I take that to mean
the poem's narrator, correct?
Do you see "talk of you and me" as referring to a third "you"?
Best,
Diana
Sent from my iPod
On Jan 31, 2010, at 4:07 PM, Nancy Gish <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I think you're probably right, but I also think Eliot especially
> found too much reality more than he could bear. His generalization
> assumes that his own conception of "reality" is Truth. I think a
> great deal can be borne if one sees it as a more complicated mixture
> of sensual and emotional joy and beauty as well, clearly, as
> horror. And I don't, obviously, mean his concept of a joy beyond
> sensual joy as the only possibility. Ironically, his early poetry,
> full of yearning and desire for just that, seems never to have been
> something of a world he discovered until perhaps in his last few
> years.
> Nancy
>
> >>> David Boyd 01/31/10 3:32 PM >>>
> '('We') humankind cannot bear much reality' maybe illuminates the
> personae involved here ??.
>
> Regards
>
> David
>
> On Sun, Jan 31, 2010 at 1:36 AM, Nancy Gish <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
> Dear Tom,
>
> I've been out of town, so there are no doubt many responses to this
> already. But Eliot himself gave different answers to the question.
> I've written about it several times, but the most recent, and the
> one I stand by because of all the research behind it, is the
> discussion in my article in T. S. Eliot and Gender, Desire, and
> Sexuality (Cambridge, 2004).
>
> It has been read in many, many ways, but I think it is two personae
> or selves of the poet; in a 1962 interview Eliot says pretty much
> that.
> Best,
> Nancy
>
> >>> Tom Colket 01/24/10 11:53 AM >>>
> In Eliot's "Prufrock" there are numerous places where the narrator
> addresses or refers to another person, a "you" or a "we". My question
> is: Is the narrator referring to one specific person (i.e., the same
> person) in all these lines, or is more than one single individual
> being referenced?
>
> Here are the six references (among all Prufrock lines with "you/your"
> or "we/us/our") that I'm particularly interested in:
>
> 1) "Let us go then, you and I . . . Let us go and make our visit."
>
> 2) "And indeed there will be time . . . Time for you and time for me"
>
> 3) "And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully! . . .
> Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me."
>
> 4) "And would it have been worth it, after all, . . . Among the
> porcelain, among some talk of you and me,"
>
> 5) "Would it have been worth while,. . . To say, 'I am Lazarus, come
> from the dead,/Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all' "
>
> 6) "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."
>
>
> -- Tom --
>
>
> Hotmail: Trusted email with Microsoft’s powerful SPAM protection. Si
> gn up now.
>
