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Banned
- Joined
- May 20, 2010
- Messages
- 147
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- HSC
- 2011
5 Minute Speech. This is to help people understand what he is trying to say.
My Speech on the analysis on T.S Eliot's Portrait of a Lady. We had to do one at school, but you might not have to.
But even if this helps 1 person, I'll be happy.
[FONT="]Explain and evaluate how context can influence the value placed on texts.[/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]Eliot himself said:[/FONT]
[FONT="]Poetry may make us from time to time a little more aware of the deeper, unnamed feelings which form the substratum of our being, to which we rarely penetrate; for our lives are mostly a constant evasion of ourselves.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Portrait of a Lady[/FONT][FONT="] first published by Eliot in 1915 and one of two Boston poems written by him (The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock being the other) gives us an insight into upper class society of the time - something rather dispirited and forlorn and filled by upper class society ladies, as soulless and empty, as the female subject of the poem – and by young men (like the poet himself) and like the personality of the poem who reveals himself in the course of the poem, as the one who is truly callous and unfeeling.[/FONT]
[FONT="]The world of the poem is covered in smoke and haze – the scene that is evoked is that of a Half Life, the individuality of the characters already swallowed by the abyss of ritual that has lost its meaning:[/FONT]
[FONT="]Among the smoke and fog of a December afternoon
You have the scene arrange itself--as it will seem to do—“[/FONT]
[FONT="]These lines mock by the suggestion of a subtle romantic atmosphere, the poem’s opening lines which are decidedly unromantic. The talk of “fornication” and death is a verbal attack on any reader’s consciousness who wants to see the world in romantic Victorian terms or poetry as “pretty. “[/FONT]
[FONT="]The denial of the Romanticism was apt for Eliot’s own society. Its awareness of the beauty of existence was already tainted by the fruitless slaughter of the First World War, and by the fragmentation of belief that characterised post modernism. Society was marked by fervent desire to break with the past, rejecting literary and social traditions that seemed outmoded (including the taking of tea) and diction that seemed too genteel to suit an era of technological breakthroughs and global violence. [/FONT]
[FONT="]These first lines and the poem define the lifelessness of the characters’ worlds- the scene (an inanimate still picture for all of its staged movement) creates itself- the characters in it having lost all power to behave other than in accordance with a script prepared by others. They are trapped in a play on Life. They have no real life or personal will.[/FONT][FONT="][/FONT]
[FONT="]The lady is all superficiality. Her quoted pointless conversation bring the monologue close to drama and dialogue, but in the end the monologue form prevails as the speaker and his companion are simply unable to connect. Each are trapped in their own worlds, isolated from the warmth of others.[/FONT]
[FONT="]She has prepared a stage set which with its four candles, is reminiscent of a funeral scene (four candles around a coffin):[/FONT]
[FONT="]And four wax candles in the darkened room,
Four rings of light upon the ceiling overhead,
An atmosphere of Juliet’s tomb
Prepared for all the things to be said, or left unsaid.[/FONT][FONT="][/FONT]
[FONT="]She is yet unable to display or engender warmth. The “conversation slips”, and friends are spoken of as a news topic. Even the lilac is tortured in her hands – the small sign of nervousness and lack of ease an outward expression of her inability to utter anything that may reach out to her companion. Her conversation is clichés until her awful confession of “a life composed so much, so much of odds and ends”, her “buried life”.
The terror of her situation is built inexorably through the images of the poem:[/FONT]
[FONT="]The voice returns like the insistent out-of-tune
Of a broken violin on an August afternoon:...[/FONT]
[FONT="]But what have I, but what have I, my friend,
To give you, what can you receive from me?
Only the friendship and the sympathy
Of one about to reach her journey's end.”[/FONT]
[FONT="]The lack of reward in the friendship alienates the persona personality of the poem. He is abandoned entirely to violent thoughts , the darkness of which are barely utterable. Born perhaps out of resentment for being duped by the setting and perhaps the promise of connection unable to be realised. He is forced to a world of his own rituals and through them all:[/FONT]
[FONT="]I keep my countenance,
I remain self-possessed[/FONT]
[FONT="]With all this self possession, the most feeling he can conjure is just “a slight sensation of being ill at ease”.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Yet for one so young, a flight of stairs makes him feel as if he had mounted on my hands and knees.”[/FONT]
[FONT="]Her death and the thought of her dying elevates his consciousness just enough to one question of semi feeling: “ And should I have the right to smile?”
[/FONT]
[FONT="]The student voice of the experimental personality of the speaker by its coldness and disjointed thought embodies is an impersonality[/FONT][FONT="], [FONT="]the perfect metaphor for the alienation of the artist, as he attempts to evade what may be termed 'self-expression'. And the perfect metaphor of the modernist mind.[/FONT][FONT="][/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT="]It is this alienation with which young people today can identify. We too would wish for more, but we are plagued by darker thoughts that emanate from a lonely subconscious in a world drowning in social conventions and preaching nicety and consideration against an actuality of lost meaning and ritual.[/FONT][FONT="] This and other of Eliot’s poems in many respects articulated the disillusionment of a younger post-World-War-I generation with the values and conventions—both literary and social—of the Victorian era.[/FONT]
[FONT="]It is this disillusionment which is our touchstone to Eliot’s poetry.[FONT="][/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT="]And if we find the imagery and the poetry difficult? Let’s be revived by Eliot’s own words”In his 1921 essay "The Metaphysical Poets," he remarks that "it appears likely that poets in our civilization…must be difficult"— it is "a way of controlling, of ordering, of giving a shape and a significance to the immense panorama of futility and anarchy which is contemporary history." [/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
My Speech on the analysis on T.S Eliot's Portrait of a Lady. We had to do one at school, but you might not have to.
But even if this helps 1 person, I'll be happy.
[FONT="]Explain and evaluate how context can influence the value placed on texts.[/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]Eliot himself said:[/FONT]
[FONT="]Poetry may make us from time to time a little more aware of the deeper, unnamed feelings which form the substratum of our being, to which we rarely penetrate; for our lives are mostly a constant evasion of ourselves.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Portrait of a Lady[/FONT][FONT="] first published by Eliot in 1915 and one of two Boston poems written by him (The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock being the other) gives us an insight into upper class society of the time - something rather dispirited and forlorn and filled by upper class society ladies, as soulless and empty, as the female subject of the poem – and by young men (like the poet himself) and like the personality of the poem who reveals himself in the course of the poem, as the one who is truly callous and unfeeling.[/FONT]
[FONT="]The world of the poem is covered in smoke and haze – the scene that is evoked is that of a Half Life, the individuality of the characters already swallowed by the abyss of ritual that has lost its meaning:[/FONT]
[FONT="]Among the smoke and fog of a December afternoon
You have the scene arrange itself--as it will seem to do—“[/FONT]
[FONT="]These lines mock by the suggestion of a subtle romantic atmosphere, the poem’s opening lines which are decidedly unromantic. The talk of “fornication” and death is a verbal attack on any reader’s consciousness who wants to see the world in romantic Victorian terms or poetry as “pretty. “[/FONT]
[FONT="]The denial of the Romanticism was apt for Eliot’s own society. Its awareness of the beauty of existence was already tainted by the fruitless slaughter of the First World War, and by the fragmentation of belief that characterised post modernism. Society was marked by fervent desire to break with the past, rejecting literary and social traditions that seemed outmoded (including the taking of tea) and diction that seemed too genteel to suit an era of technological breakthroughs and global violence. [/FONT]
[FONT="]These first lines and the poem define the lifelessness of the characters’ worlds- the scene (an inanimate still picture for all of its staged movement) creates itself- the characters in it having lost all power to behave other than in accordance with a script prepared by others. They are trapped in a play on Life. They have no real life or personal will.[/FONT][FONT="][/FONT]
[FONT="]The lady is all superficiality. Her quoted pointless conversation bring the monologue close to drama and dialogue, but in the end the monologue form prevails as the speaker and his companion are simply unable to connect. Each are trapped in their own worlds, isolated from the warmth of others.[/FONT]
[FONT="]She has prepared a stage set which with its four candles, is reminiscent of a funeral scene (four candles around a coffin):[/FONT]
[FONT="]And four wax candles in the darkened room,
Four rings of light upon the ceiling overhead,
An atmosphere of Juliet’s tomb
Prepared for all the things to be said, or left unsaid.[/FONT][FONT="][/FONT]
[FONT="]She is yet unable to display or engender warmth. The “conversation slips”, and friends are spoken of as a news topic. Even the lilac is tortured in her hands – the small sign of nervousness and lack of ease an outward expression of her inability to utter anything that may reach out to her companion. Her conversation is clichés until her awful confession of “a life composed so much, so much of odds and ends”, her “buried life”.
The terror of her situation is built inexorably through the images of the poem:[/FONT]
[FONT="]The voice returns like the insistent out-of-tune
Of a broken violin on an August afternoon:...[/FONT]
[FONT="]But what have I, but what have I, my friend,
To give you, what can you receive from me?
Only the friendship and the sympathy
Of one about to reach her journey's end.”[/FONT]
[FONT="]The lack of reward in the friendship alienates the persona personality of the poem. He is abandoned entirely to violent thoughts , the darkness of which are barely utterable. Born perhaps out of resentment for being duped by the setting and perhaps the promise of connection unable to be realised. He is forced to a world of his own rituals and through them all:[/FONT]
[FONT="]I keep my countenance,
I remain self-possessed[/FONT]
[FONT="]With all this self possession, the most feeling he can conjure is just “a slight sensation of being ill at ease”.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Yet for one so young, a flight of stairs makes him feel as if he had mounted on my hands and knees.”[/FONT]
[FONT="]Her death and the thought of her dying elevates his consciousness just enough to one question of semi feeling: “ And should I have the right to smile?”
[/FONT]
[FONT="]The student voice of the experimental personality of the speaker by its coldness and disjointed thought embodies is an impersonality[/FONT][FONT="], [FONT="]the perfect metaphor for the alienation of the artist, as he attempts to evade what may be termed 'self-expression'. And the perfect metaphor of the modernist mind.[/FONT][FONT="][/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT="]It is this alienation with which young people today can identify. We too would wish for more, but we are plagued by darker thoughts that emanate from a lonely subconscious in a world drowning in social conventions and preaching nicety and consideration against an actuality of lost meaning and ritual.[/FONT][FONT="] This and other of Eliot’s poems in many respects articulated the disillusionment of a younger post-World-War-I generation with the values and conventions—both literary and social—of the Victorian era.[/FONT]
[FONT="]It is this disillusionment which is our touchstone to Eliot’s poetry.[FONT="][/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT="]And if we find the imagery and the poetry difficult? Let’s be revived by Eliot’s own words”In his 1921 essay "The Metaphysical Poets," he remarks that "it appears likely that poets in our civilization…must be difficult"— it is "a way of controlling, of ordering, of giving a shape and a significance to the immense panorama of futility and anarchy which is contemporary history." [/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
