Modernism in T.S. Eliot’s the Love Song of J.Alfred PrufrockThe concept of modernism emerged in the eighteenth century . Now it is a comprehensive term applied to international tendencies and movements in all creative arts in the 20th century. Modernism employs a distinctive kind of imagination and it implies a historical discontinuity, a sense of alienation, loss and despair and rejects traditional values and assumptions. And also it looks for fresh ways of looking at man’s position and function in the universe. Modernism elevates the individual and his inner being over social man and prefers the unconscious to the self-conscious. Its most interesting artistic strategy is its attempt to deal with the unconscious. It rejects the traditional rhetoric by which tradition values and assumptions were communicated. It is bent on stylistic innovations and experiments with language, form, symbol and myth. Modernism is known for its symbolism,imagism, aestheticism,expressionism, the stream of consciousness,surrealism, existentialism,theatre of the absurd.The Love Song of J. Alfred Prerock is a lyrical, dramatic monologue of a middle-class male persona who inhabits a physically and spiritually bleak environment.There is a would-be listerner of an unnamed and nebulously developed woman who follows ramblings of Prerock.By this way Eliot reveal a great deal about Prufrock's personality and state of mind;The poem uses the stream of consciousness technique,it is often difficult to determine what is meant to be interpreted literally or symbolically;Eliot also uses imagery which is indicative of Prufrock's character, representing aging and decay. For example, "When the evening is spread out against the sky / Like a patient etherized upon a table", as well as the mermaids "Combing the white hair of the waves blown back " show his concern over aging.In addition ,a great deal of allusion is also applied to this poem e.g in "Time for all the works and days of hands" , the phrase 'works and days' is the title of a long poem - a description of agricultural life and a call to toil,"I know the voices dying with a dying fall" , echoes Orsino's first lines in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night."There will be time to murder and create" is a biblical allusion to Ecclesiastes In the final section of the poem, Prufrock rejects the idea that he is Prince Hamlet suggesting that he is merely "an attendant lord,a likely allusion to Polonius. Prufrock also brings in a common Shakespearean element of the Fool, as he claims he is also "Almost, at times, the Fool exc.Prufrock is "modern" in his isolation. He keeps his monologue to himself,indicating that he is not even a part of that 'group'. He feels he doesn't belong anywhere, and this may be related to the feeling of alienation 异化 characteristic for the Modern period.For many readers in the 1920s, Prufrock seemed to epitomize the frustration and impotence of the modern individual. He seemed to represent thwarted desires and modern disillusionment.
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