"A poem is not merely ordinary thought with a few turns and twiddles added on to make it pretty or memorable. A poem (a good poem, at least) uses its poetic form to probe deeper into human experience than ordinary speech or writing is usually able to do, to pull back a veil and allow the hearer or reader to sense other dimensions. Sometimes this provokes a shock of recognition: 'Yes, we think, I have felt exactly like that, but I’d never seen it so clearly.' Sometimes the shock is of something new: 'I’d never seen that angle before, but now that I’ve seen it, I won’t forget it.' Sometimes it’s a combination of both of these, and often more besides."
Wow! I was trying to copy a passage about poetry from a book on the psalms. And now I have done it though I'll be jiggled if I know how. Which is too bad because doing that would frequently be useful. In any case, the book is by N. T. Wright and the quote seemed immediately applicable to what I see going on in Prufrock. The Case for the Psalms: Why They Are Essential, by N. T. Wright.
While I am here: I thought it might be useful first to number the sections in Prufrock to provide an easier and more efficient way of referring to the poem. So,
#1. Let us go then...(to the end of the first couplet, "Michelangelo." )
#2. The yellow fog...fell asleep.
#3. And indeed there will be time...(to the end of the second couplet, "Michelangelo."). While I am here, the first time Prufrock uses the couplet, it focuses where he is going; the second time he uses it, it indicates that he is there. [Needless to say, my divisions are arbitrary, for I get confused easily. In fact I got lost on my own street today, during my somewhat short walk. It was raining. I looked up and saw nothing familiar for a moment.]
#4. And indeed there will be time...which a minute will reverse.
#5. For I have known them all already
And I have known the eyes already...
And I have known the arms already.../And how should I begin?
Down to the break, the five periods.
#6. Shall I say...silent seas.
These five lines make up the climactic center of the poem. Let me see if I can explain. Prufrock sets off to visit a woman, and we are inside his head as he walks through the dirty, dingy streets of his town, letting the details o his walk work in his mind. The key "event" in the journey is his refusal to think that the squalid environment suggests that that is the nature of reality, and that reality is essentially meaningless. In other words, love between a man and a woman can't be real because love is not real, if life is essentially meaningless. Think how far we have come from the world of Shakespeare's comedies and tragedies, where love is part of the nature and structure of reality itself. Now reality (the "modern world") blindly sees matter in motion as the only reality. If you can weigh it and measure it the thing is real. It just has no inherent meaning, and neither does a person presumably.
The problem in the poem is that when Prufrock fails to face the question of meaning, that failure has repercussions throughout the rest of the journey. One of his most serious violations is his failure to face the meaning of time. I think in section #3 he is trying to justify his failure to face the issue, saying essentially, don't worry about it for we have lots of time to think about such things in the future, especially the desires for a real relationship that we have, reflected in the physical images of the yellow smoke and its cat-like behavior. If life is meaningless, sex is just another bit of data. Prufrock, however, cannot escape the questions, which then recur throughout each of the sections. The most interesting line in #3 is that "there will be time to murder and create..." Those are two poles in human life, meaningful actions, real acts with real consequences. Yet Prufrock doesn't stop to think about them either or their implications. In a sense with his "Time for you and time for me," he is acknowledging the problem of the self in this world, both aspects, but just putting the reflection about their relationship off. Also, the matter of action is there too: in 3 there will be time for "indecisions"; in #4 they have become "decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse." We seem to be getting near to some decisive decision, yet how can you act meaningfully in such a world?
If #3 has us still in the streets, before the house, #4 has us now in the house, climbing the stairs toward the fateful (ha) encounter with "her." Prufrock's reflection on himself, his appearance, dominates section 4. He knows what he looks like and he thinks he knows what the women think about such a person. He has probably just turned 30, definitely aware that he is growing bald and that he is not a particularly attractive specimen of a man, especially if a person is only how he appears.
Prufrock's actions, significant actions, that is, apparently take place only when he gets dressed. His collar mounts "firmly" to the chin, his necktie, "rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin." Prufrock is outside the room (in 4) where the women are, running these thoughts through his mind. Obviously he believes his body is a major part of his problem: he has emotions and desires for a real relationship, yet he believes that given his physical makeup and appearance and the nature of the world he lives in, there will be no real meaningful encounter.
One more thought before I go: what links the two sections, 4 & 5 (in 5 he is in the room where the women are) together logically and grammatically is the "for," in the sense of "because," the real reason for his attitude he uses to present his prepared face to the prepared faces that are there with in the room.
Well, enough is enough for a while. I will "publish" these notes for the moment, then, later, see what it is that I have exactly said, or said exactly. Two thoughts: Martin Buber: Real life is meeting. Real meetings can be very scary when there is a lot at stake.