The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

Eliot's The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock

I wanted everyone to have a chance to see the translation from the beginning of Eliot's poem.

S'io credesse che mia riposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s' i'odo il vero,
Senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.

Translation: If I thought my answer were to one who could return to the world, I would not reply, but as none ever did return alive from this depth, without fear of infamy I answer thee. The words are spoken by Count Guido da Montefeltro, a damned soul in the Eighth Circle of Hell in Dante's Divine Comedy (Inferno, Canto 27, lines 61-66.)

Translator and Quotation Source: G.B. Harrison et al., eds. Major British Writers. Shorter ed. New York: Harcourt. 1967, page 1015.

Comment: Eliot opens "The Love Song" with this quotation from Dante's epic poem to suggest that Prufrock, like Count Guido, is in hell. But Prufrock is in a hell on earth—a hell in the form of a modern, impersonal city with smoky skies. The quotation also points out that Prufrock, again like Count Guido, can present his feelings "without fear of infamy."

http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AnS/english/English151W-03/prufrock.htm 

ACTIVITY:
Literary Critics about the poem:
Read what the literary critics have to say about the poem.  Summarize the argument of individual
critics.

http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/eliot/prufrock.htm