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

Reading Poetry: Theory and Practice

C.M. Bajetta Università della Valle d’Aosta

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 skyLike 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?

• 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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20th c.

today

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

skyLike 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 sky

Like 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".

 1) invitation to the local pub for a pint. 2) 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 skyLike a patient etherised upon a table... 

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 leaThe ploughman homewards plods his weary

way,And leaves the world to darkness and to me

Thomas Gray Elegy written in a Country Churchyard Reading Poetry - Theory and

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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)

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- analysis- sources or some kind of influence

- biographical data- history of the text

- history of literature

Let us go then, you and I,When the evening is spread out against the

skyLike a patient etherised upon a table... 

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In itself

text

context

Let us go then, you and I

Sorry, I’m busy tonight!

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