Of all of the divisive people in history, T. S. Eliot ranks at the top of the list in the literary world. Some find “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” incomprehensible, fragmented, and boring. Some consider it an inspired masterpiece. In a letter to his brother, the poet wrote that this poem was a “grouse against life; it is just a piece of rhythmical grumbling.” I love its wonderful lines, such as “There will be time, there will be time to prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet; there will be time to murder and create…”
T. S. Eliot, Collected Poems of T. S. Eliot (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1936), p. 13.
I think TS Eliot poems are like Bob Dylan songs – filled with interesting characters on the edge of the mainstream – fully drawn in a few strokes of the pen or fingers on the frets.