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Work #1167 · Early

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

Thomas Stearns Eliot
1910-11 (drafted), 1915 (published) · English
Dramatic monologue / Lyric poem · Anglo-American modernism / Modern poetry

Eliot's 1915 dramatic monologue — early modernist breakthrough; the inhibited consciousness of J. Alfred Prufrock

Attribute Fingerprint

Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.

Attribute The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (Early)
Time · Extent Infinite
Time · Ontological Status Substantival
Time · Grain Continuous
Time · Freedom Non-Deterministic
Time · Traversability Linear
Time · Dimensionality One
Time · Direction Uni-directional
Space · Extent Finite
Space · Ontological Status Substantival
Space · Curvature Flat
Space · Dimensionality Three
Space · Locality Local
Matter · Extent Infinite
Matter · Ontological Status Substantival
Matter · Conservation Conserved
Matter · Dimensionality Three
Matter · Locality Local
Observer · Time Instance Single
Observer · Space Instance Single
Observer · Knowledge Extent Partial
Observer · Knowledge Retainment Partial
Observer · Physicality Embodied
Observer · Agency Passive
Observer · Number Singular
Observer · Metaphysical Agency None
Observer · Moral Authority Experience
Observer · Theological Method
Energy · Extent Infinite
Energy · Ontological Status Substantival
Energy · Conservation Conserved
Energy · Dispersibility Irreversible
Information · Ontological Status Substantival
Information · Cosmic Conservation Variable
Information · Personal Conservation Variable
Information · Granularity Continuous

Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence

What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.

Time

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

The 1910-11 composition period; the early-twentieth-century urban moment.

Space

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

The urban-bourgeois setting of Prufrock's consciousness.

Matter

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

The embodied Prufrock whose self-consciousness the poem articulates.

Observer

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

Prufrock as participant-observer of his own inhibition.

Energy

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

The inhibited-cognitive energies of modern urban consciousness.

Information

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

The dramatic-monologue content of the poem.

Internal Tensions

Where each work's argument pulls against itself.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

Prufrock has been universally canonical; the question of whether Prufrock-the-character is to be understood as Eliot's self-portrait or as wholly dramatic remains an interpretive issue.