The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot (1915). Eliot’s first major poem is a dramatic monologue in the voice of a spiritually exhausted, emotionally sterile Everyman. Prufock has “measured out my life with coffee spoons.” He tells himself “There will be time to murder and create,” though he fears to act—“Do I dare to eat a peach?” Prufrock was only the first of Eliot’s many disillusioned city dwellers, but with his ridiculous name and fastidious appearance, he may well have been the most poignant.
Total Points: 5 (RBP 5)