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"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot and "When I heard the learn'd astronomer" by Walt Whitman are two poems of vastly differing writing styles and points of view. However, they describe a similar sort of conflict. The type of conflict they share is one that exists within the speaker but suggests some kind of larger social problem. In the case of Walt Whitman's poem, the speaker's conflict is internal, but describes a larger problem of man's relationship to nature. For Prufrock, the source of conflict is his own ineffectual nature. Both men face difficulty reconciling themselves with their environment before ultimately finding their respective resolutions within themselves.

Actually, I might not go so far as to say that anything is resolved in "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock". At best, it is probably a coming-to-terms with the source of Prufrock's distending inner turmoil, his own perspective.

At its outset, the current (sort of) evening is "etherized", a personification that I feel truly reflects Prufrock's own hazily withdrawn, numb existence. He is a young man, but with the obstinate, preventative perspective of a cynical old hermit. We get the immediate impression in reading the poem that while he is not unintelligent, he is not entirely sound. Despite the level of ambiguity in "The Love Song", we come to understand the character of its focus as a deeply troubled man. The poem is, at its core, a characterization of its speaker. The poem serves to disclose his anomalous personality. J. Alfred Prufrock is a man who is mired in an angst-laden, obsessive lifestyle marked by mental obstacles and highly constrained personal conduct. I tend to see his state of being as a mental condition - possibly anxiety, depression, or possibly even some form of psychosis. As odd as it may sound, Prufrock displays many of the outward symptoms of a schizoprenic man.

He begins with an invitation, which is eventually proven worthless. For, inescapably, he is resigned to inaction, as he always is.

The poem's progression is punctuated by undefined temporal shifts, back and forth; the result is the broken, inconsistent timeline that likely only exists as it is inside Prufrock's mind. It suggests a distorted point of view on the part of the speaker, which most likely constitutes his problem of motivation. Further and further aspects - or faults - of Prufrock's perspective can be drawn as the poem advances. He seems awkward, perpetually unready, and increasingly incoherent. Prufrock's attention wanders; his stream of consciousness is disorganized. His mind turns abruptly from one half-formed thought to face another, which is often only vaguely related to the last. This is how his perspective is ultimately portrayed, as a problem of consistency between what he feels and observes with what he is and does. His difficulty in communication, a manifestation of this problem, is such that he constantly seems to be chasing his thoughts around in erratic little patterns.

Prufrock thinks of time itself with respect to his entire lifetime, one of monotony, without any resolutions or goals. His behaviors are cyclical and self-defeating. His point of view is one of self-fulfilling prophecy. He believes he is to be seen in a negative light by others, which holds sway of his behaviors, hindering them, and ultimately proves him correct. It begs the question of which comes first, one's self-concept or how one is perceived by the others that surround him. The people involved in his story are all crudely defined. That is, other than Prufrock himself. Our speaker pays supreme attention to detail when it comes to introspection and reflection on his own appearance and activities. However, whenever he makes an attempt to understand others, he presumes (probably correctly) that he will misunderstand them. After all, his views of other people are often fragmented, reduced to arms or hands or eyes, effectively distancing them. This solipsism seems to be at the heart of his misfortune. His ideas of and expectations from himself and others are radically disproportionate. He also thinks in terms of quantity, rather than quality, with an undue emphasis on sensory details and parts of a whole. He utilizes these abstractions to strengthen his predispositions and reinforce his tendencies.


There is ostensibly no way for Prufrock to halt the evolution of his affliction. For him to be able to gain the necessary perspective on his life to live it effectively, he would need to reconcile his concept of his own self-government with how he is to be seen. Nothing about him suggests this is possible. His tendency to rehash his plans, for even the most mundane activities, belies the preponderance of his fears with respect to his desires. Yet somehow in the course of his life, which is not yet long and has been on hold indefinately, he has observed much. These numerous observations preclude a normal life. He rebegins repeatedly asking himself if it would be worth it, trying to provoke his will, find some reason to change, to act. His resolve is always nevertheless unmovable. It is all predecided, predicated on his overwhelmingly suspensory problem with his anxieties.

Prufrock recounts his opinion of himself when he makes the contrast of himself with Hamlet. He is not intended to struggle, he feels sure. He begins things but abandons them before they're realized. He, being fearful, careful, analytical, "meticulous", is able to observe only, to plan without acting, so as to be as humorous. He is the fool. His thoughts themselves are constantly delayed because of the inherent short-sightedness of his perspective. He is caught up in himself, to an extreme degree.



Walt Whitman's "When I heard the learn'd astronomer" is a much shorter poem, stated in a single sentence, carried over a scant eight lines, wherein he gives an account of his experience at an astronomy lecture. The poem demonstrates its mastery through its author's mode of expression: precise and efficient, saying much without
using too many words. The speaker's conflict is never stated.


The first four lines set the tone. There, the reader is informed of the the occaision's mood and setting. It appears to me that, to begin with, the tone is set through the particularly nondescript description of the lecture; it introduces the speaker as being unconcerned with what he was engaged in observing. This feeling the speaker held, that the lecture was not somewhere he'd like to be, was buried in the casual, noncommital observations of the lecturer's actions seemingly mediocre and trivial. The audience around him apparently held a comparatively higher opinion of the academic spectacle. They are mentioned on the fourth line as applauding delightedly, responding as if the lecturer were some kind of mystifying disillusionist.




No points of persuasion or personal emotions on the part of the observer were directly stated. Before its middle, it had seemed empty. Upon finishing the poem, however, I had found its significance, which I believe was this: There is no way to capture the simple beauty of nature with mathematics, and attempting to do so is not only a waste of time but a sickening affront to nature and our own existence; the poem advocates a more humble regard for nature versus what he probably sees as a more presumptuous or trivial method.