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The Love Song Of J Alfred Prufrock Analysis

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The early part of the 1900s was marked with many big changes; lots of technological advances, scientific discoveries, and political turmoil led to a major revolution in thought. This was the period of Darwin and his theory of evolution, Karl Marx and Marxism, Sigmund Freud and his psychoanalytic theory, and many others. These people had new, unique thought processes that rocked the ideologically cramped world of Victorian era thinking. This new wave of thought was called modernism, it completely broke from the mold of antiquated Victorian/ romantic era thought, and rippled outwards, influencing literature and many other aspects of culture.
Writers during this time period decided to go against the grain, and began writing innovatively, starting a “tradition of the new.” It was at the beginning of this movement that T.S. Eliot wrote his famous poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” Eliot’s poem marked a significant turning point from nineteenth century Victorian literature to twentieth century modern literature, this can be seen through many different modern literary characteristics and devices such as “stream of consciousness” writing, an unconventional structure, alluding to earlier authors, and a confused state of identity or reality, just to name a few. With this style, Eliot created the character of J. Alfred Prufrock, a nervous and indecisive man of middle age, best portrayed through the device of “stream of consciousness” writing.
“Stream of consciousness” writing

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