In the poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," Eliot explores the timeless issues of love and self-awareness - popular themes in literature. However, through his use of Prufrock's profound self-consciousness he plays with the reader's expectations of a "Love Song" and takes a serious perspective on the subject of love, which many authors do, but few can create characters as deep and multi-layered as Prufrock; probably the reason that this poem still remains, …showed first 75 words of 2056 total…

…showed last 75 words of 2056 total…the poise and eloquence of Hamlet, slink around the city like a lazy yellow fog, and have his head chopped off like John the Baptist give him a detachment from his day-to-day worries about love and aging, he will never stop torturing himself trying to figure out that "overwhelming ques! tion." The only hope that Eliot gives the reader out of this poem is the hope that we don't end up like Prufrock. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ **Bibliography**