English 12 / Unit 6: Modern and Postcolonial Literature
6.3 Modernist Poetry: Yeats and Eliot
Notes
- W. B. Yeats, "The Second Coming" (1919): "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; / Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world." The poem imagines a world losing order after the war. The "falcon" cannot hear the "falconer," a metaphor for lost control.
- T. S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (1915): "Let us go then, you and I, / When the evening is spread out against the sky / Like a patient etherised upon a table." The unexpected simile gives a feeling of numbness and anxiety. Prufrock says, "I have measured out my life with coffee spoons," which suggests a small, wasted life.
- Eliot's The Waste Land (1922) begins "April is the cruellest month," reversing the traditional joy of spring.
Practice
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold" suggests:
The lines express fear of chaos after the war.
"I have measured out my life with coffee spoons" suggests that Prufrock's life has been:
Measuring life in coffee spoons suggests trivial, repetitive days.
"When the evening is spread out against the sky / Like a patient etherised upon a table." Why is this simile surprising?
Instead of beauty, the image suggests numbness and illness.
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