Preludes

"Preludes" is a series of verses about the decadence and decline of modern society, and more particularly of modern urban society. Each prelude deals with a different aspect of this decline.

Thomas Stearns Eliot was born in St Louis, Missouri, in 1888. He attended Harvard University and graduated with a Masters degree in Philosophy. While there, he published several poems in the Harvard Advocate.

The poet left the United States in 1910, moving first to France, then Germany and finally London. He married Vivienne Haigh-Wood in 1915, which caused him to settle permanently in England.

His marriage was never successful, however, and they separated in 1933. In 1956 he would remarry, this time to Valerie Fletcher.

Early during his stay in London, Eliot fell under the influence of Ezra Pound -- the great American poet -- who also assisted in the publication of his early poetry.

The publication of his first book of poetry -- Prufrock and Other Observations, 1917 -- revealed Eliot as a forerunner of Modernism, the philosophy of Modern Art. His next book -- The Waste Land, 1922 -- is claimed by many to contain some of the most important poetry of the 20th century.

Eliot was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948. He died in London in 1965.

"Preludes" has been described as a vivid portrayal of the decadence and decline of modern society, and more particularly of modern urban society.

This was not a new theme. Indeed, Oswald Spengler -- the great German Philosopher of History -- was already writing about the collapse of Western Society. The Great War of 1914-18, Spengler wrote, was simply a manifestation of this collapse.

Eliot and Spengler were contemporaries and it is probable that the poet would have read the German's writings while studying philosophy at Harvard University, although Spengler's best known work -- The Decline of the West -- would be published only in 1918, one year after Eliot's own publication of "Preludes".

Read the left column and then answer
the following questions:


"You dozed, and watched the night revealing
The thousand sordid images
Of which your soul was constituted;
They flickered against the ceiling."

• What are the "thousand sordid images"? (4)

[Need help?]

One interpretation claims that the poet is speaking about prostitution, that you are a prostitute climbing out of bed, and that the sordid images are what you are remembering from the night before! But this is surely not what the poet has in mind? It is more likely that the poet is referring to the thoughts of society, the jaded thoughts of a decaying society which has grown tired now and has reached the winter of its life. You, the reader, are the personification of that society and so your soul is constituted of the sum of all the thoughts of all the people in that society.

• Why should the images be "sordid"? (4)

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The images are "sordid" because they are dirty or squalid, ignoble and mean. They are not the positive thoughts of a society which is at the height of its spiritual fulfilment but the ugly thoughts of a society nearing its death.

• To what does the pronoun "they" refer? (2)

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"They" refers to the "thousand sordid images" which constituted your soul.

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"And when all the world came back
And the light crept up between the shutters
And you heard the sparrows in the gutters,
You had such a vision of the street
As the street hardly understands."

• What is being personified in the line "the light crept up between the shutters". (2)

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The poet is referring to dawn, is he not? The dawn or the sun is being given the characteristics of being a person. The sun is rising and a new day is beginning.

• Why is the light creeping between the shutters? (4)

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The sun is definitely not rising boldly. It's rays are creeping into the room. Why would it be so stealthy? Is it afraid of the squalor it will find there? Is the sun representing nature which is pure and clean? Is the sun afraid of humanity which has come to live in the darkness of its own pollution and decadence?

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"You had such a vision of the street
As the street hardly understands."

• What do you think the poet means by this? (4)

[Need help?]

What would the street understand? The street has been made for a purpose but the poet believes your vision of it is one of squalor. It is also possible that the poet uses "street" to signify all the people walking in the street -- a case of metonymy where the part represents the whole. It is the people, therefore, who are jaded, soiled from toil, no longer celebrating the purity of their lives.

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"Sitting along the bed's edge, where
You curled the papers from your hair,
Or clasped the yellow soles of feet
In the palms of both soiled hands."

• Comment on this very rich image. (6)

[Need help?]

The curling papers from your hair would signify poverty. You are no longer able to use proper curlers and so have to use either brown paper or even newspaper. There's a working-class attitude here: it was common for working-class people to use paper to curl their hair. There is also a charade of wanting to have an outward appearance of beauty but no longer having the means to achieve it -- you want curly hair but cannot afford curlers. And the soles of the feet are yellow. From age? From drudgery? And the palms of both hands are soiled. From what? One interpretation claims that the soles of the feet being clasped by both hands signifies an attitude of prayer. Would you agree? If so, why? If not, why not?

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GENERAL:

If one contrasts this third prelude with the two which have gone before, one notices a marked use of the personal pronoun. Where Preludes 1 & 2 used the personal pronoun only once each, Prelude 3 uses it no less that ten times.

• Would you like to comment on this dramatic change of usage? (6)

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Up until now, it would seem that the poet has wanted to paint a picture without any form of subjective involvement. He and the reader have merely been looking on as uninvolved and unidentified observers. Now, however, the poet wishes the reader to become involved, to be identified with the actions of the poem. You are involved, you are performing the actions, you are personifying all the thousands of unnamed persons of this poem.

• In what way is the theme of decadence and decay continued in this prelude? (6)

[Need help?]

Look at the wording of this prelude: your soul was constituted of a "thousand sordid images"; you are using paper to curl your hair; the soles of your feet are yellow; your hands are soiled. What does all this tell you?

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