초록 열기/닫기 버튼
Many critics have pointed out the self-reflexive character of T. S. Eliot’s early poetic work “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” With few exception, these critics have read the failure of poem as its main theme. On the contrary, I argue that the apparent failure of meaning-production on the surface level of the text derives from the deliberate choice of the persona called Prufrock who in many ways resembles the young poet behind him. Though yearning to linguistically articulate and resolve the psychic tensions clouding his mind, Prufrock refuses to accept both the readily-available resource of conventional language and the temptation of Romantic illusions. Against both the standardizing, homogenizing forces of the ready-made language and temptation of mystification, he attempts to carve out a room of his own in which he can prolong his quest for alternative ways of symbolization. In this respect, the apparent timidity and anxiety impeding his action are more of pretexts than defects. As in physical symptom in whose guise the repressed psychic impulse awaits for its moment of verbal representation, Prufrock’s inability to communicate with others is a strategic front under which poet’s ego prepares to usher in his unnamed self. Prufrock’s love song is not dedicated to anyone real―either within or outside the text―but to this unexpressed self seeking for a name. His inaction is a testament to this labor struggling to defend this creative space and to maintain his fidelity to the unknown self.
키워드열기/닫기 버튼
self-reflexivity, symptom, love, labor, symbolization, poet, poem-makin
