Coffee Talk: The Grind of Time

"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Elliot is a curious and complex piece of poetry.  I don't think it would have impacted me in the same way had I read it in my youth.  Time is interpreted differently in different stages of one's life, and I think that is part of what this poem speaks to:  the idea that time stretches out infinitely and full of possibility in one's youth and becomes almost antagonistic in middle age.  The reader interprets allusions to time through his or her own bias or experience and that in turn alters the poem's meaning or significance.  A young person might heartily endorse the narrator's view, "There will be time, there will be time" (26).  One who has more life experience might react to the same passage with sorrow or even bitterness.  The line, "I have measured out my life with coffee spoons" (51) speaks volumes to me.  I think it addresses the same sense of our having lost sight of life’s beauty in the mad rush for success or merely subsistence that Wordsworth was all riled up about in "The World is too much with us." The drudgery of repetition can cause one to slip into a trance-like existence, with senses dulled to pain or pleasure.

It is interesting that this poem was written during the time Elliot was studying Greek philosophy at Oxford.  There he was, an American, surrounded by the ancient culture, art, and architecture of Europe.   It is easy to imagine him, newly arrived from a nearly newborn country, confronted by the vast storehouse of the western world's greatest achievements and wondering if he will contribute anything worthy of addition to the treasury.