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Let us go then, you and I Sorry, I'm Busy
Tonight

• Reading Poetry Theory and Practice
• C.M. Bajetta
• Università della Valle dAosta

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T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,
1-3

• Let us go then, you and I,
• When the evening is spread out against the sky
• Like a patient etherised upon a table
• (from Prufrock and Other Observations, 1917)

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But what does it mean?

• In itself
• (without this, all our thoughts about poetry
  would be pure moonshine)
• For us
• (without this, all art is quite useless - Oscar
  Wilde)

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Do we really need this?

• Yes, because there is no way of reading which
  does not imply (whether consciously or
  unconsciously) some kind of "theoretical"
  approach to literature.

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What is literature?

• Plato and Aristotle
• mimesis, imitation (though with remarkable
  differences)
• Sir Philip Sidney (16th cent.)
• poet creator of a "second nature".
• The Romantics
• Literature product of Imagination - thus a means
  to reach the hidden Mystery which lays "behind"
  reality, its inner nature.

???
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What is literature?
20th c. today

• a form of communication.
• (Cf. e.g. Structuralist school Roman
  Jackobson)
• modern theory - starting from the text
• (do not worry, you will get more on this later
  on)

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Something missing ?
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T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,
1-3

• Let us go then, you and I,
• When the evening is spread out against the sky
• Like a patient etherised upon a table...
•  

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Let us go then, you and I,When the evening is
spread out against the skyLike a patient
etherised upon a table...

• 1)"Hey, mate, fancy going out tonight? The
  weather's good".
•  
• 2)"I think it is a most remarkable evening, just
  look at the clouds over there, on the horizon,
  how they stretch from east to west, how very
  picturesque. I would really love to go out for a
  short walk".
•  
• invitation to the local pub for a pint.
• academic pointing out that the sunset is really
  nice this evening.

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Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is
spread out against the sky Like a patient
etherised upon a table...  
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When the Evening

• Forse perché della fatal quiete
• tu sei l'immago a me sì cara vieni
• o sera!
• U. Foscolo, Alla Sera
• The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
• The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea
• The ploughman homewards plods his weary way,
• And leaves the world to darkness and to me
• Thomas Gray Elegy written in a Country Churchyard
  

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When the Evening

• Now air is hushed, save where the weak-eyed bat
• With short shrill shriek, flits by on leathern
  wing
• William Collins, Ode to Evening, 9-10 (1740s) 
• Nox erat et placidum carpebant fessa soporem /
  Corpora per terras ... At non infelici animi
  Phoenissa
• (Virgil, Aeneid, IV, 522-532 )
• It was then night the sound and quiet sleep /
  had through the earth the wearied bodies caught
  ... not so the sprite of this Phoenician.
• (Surrey's Aeneid, IV, 702-715).

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When the Evening

• an image is that which presents an intellectual
  and emotional complex in an instant of time
• (Ezra Pound)

intellect - emotion I M A G E
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- analysis - sources or some kind of
influence - biographical data - history of the
text - history of literature
text
context

• Let us go then, you and I,
• When the evening is spread out against the sky
• Like a patient etherised upon a table...
•  

In itself
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Let us go then, you and I

• Sorry, Im busy tonight!