|
This project is a collaboration between students in China and America under the instruction of Tom R. Chambers
at Zhaoqing University (Zhaoqing, Guangdong Province, China) and Jennifer Burg at Wake Forest University (Winston-Salem, North Carolina, U.S.A.).
This poem (composed February 1910 - July 1911) is in the book "Prufrock and Other Observations" published by T. S. Eliot in 1917, which marked the start of his career as arguably the twentieth century's most influential poet. "Prufrock" is still one of the dozen most famous 20th century poems in English.
The poem itself tells the inner feelings of a man in love who realises that his aspirations and his outlook on life are much deeper than those of the rest of the people. He feels the need to stir those around him, to make them conscious of the seriousness of life and of their frivolity, but at the same time he fears being rejected and mocked. Another thematic element is the subject of aging: the speaker contemplates his wearied heart (the mornings and afternoons he has known), the repetitions inherent in life causing his physical deterioration (a bald spot, weak teeth making him fear food), and the consuming idea of an impending death [www.prufrock.com].
The students at Zhaoqing University used a translated version of the poem in Chinese. As both groups of students acquire and enhance their digital media skills, which is pertinent in a vocational sense, they'll also become more aware in an interpretative/aesthetic sense. The latter is more important, perhaps, in terms of laying a foundation for critical thought and evaluation. By going through an exercise such as this visual interpretation of the poem requires the students to be more cognizant of "life", "the forces of nature", "the Cosmos", "inner-self", "human nature/emotions", etc. So, they're learning about themselves through the aforementioned.
The complete poem follows [the visualized lines are highlighted in yellow]:
S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s'i'odo il vero,
Senza tema dŐinfamia ti rispondo.
LET us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question ...
Oh, do not ask, "What is it"
Let us go and make our visit.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.
And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
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,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
And indeed there will be time
To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?"
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair-
[They will say: "How his hair is growing thin!"]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin-
[They will say: "But how his arms and legs are thin!"]
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
|
For I have known them all already, known them all:-
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?
And I have known the eyes already, known them all-
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?
And I have known the arms already, known them all-
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
It is perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?...
I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep ... tired ... or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet-and here's no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.
And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: "I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all"-
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: "That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all." |
And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor-
And this, and so much more?-
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
"That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all."
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous-
Almost, at times, the Fool.
I grow old ... I grow old ...
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
T.S. Eliot, 1917
| Listen to "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" in which Eliot conveys the frustration and irony of this notable poem. Taken from the HarperAudio release, "T.S. Eliot Reads." Click below, and please allow loading time. And as you listen, you might want to follow along by scrolling and reading the text. |  |
|
Review by Harvey J. Bott, Sculptor, Houston, Texas, U.S.A.:
"This is a most remarkable collaborative exhibition. The crossover of poetry with what the visual artist perceives, within both the confines and the absolute limitless intent of the original formalized language, is the most significant aspect of your thought provoking assignment. Mixing both literal and abstract images from two language sources is almost ominous in the understanding, and therewith the misunderstanding, of our inabilities to communicate as well as we do. The very layerings of this exhibition becomes pithy grist for courses in language(s), philosophy, psychology, journalism and any/and/all of the arts. Congratulations. Thank you for sharing this important presentation."
Tom R. Chambers
Visiting Lecturer, Digital/New Media Art
Fine Arts Department
Zhaoqing University
Zhaoqing, China
|
