Close Reading of "Prufrock" a la Brooks

This tension in the first stanza of Prufrock as created by the contrasting imagery could be, as all metaphors in poetry, a greater metaphor for poetry itself. Brooks’ notion that all poetry, regardless of the poet’s intention, is paradoxical and self-referential merely by the nature of poetic language is supported here. Poetic language is necessarily paradoxical because of the presence of metaphor. Metaphor serves to compare two superficially unlike similar to reveal a mutual similarity. Here, “etherised” compares and contrasts “evening” on several different levels. The evening is described as though it were viscous, syrupy substance separate from the sky rather simply a darkening of it. The evening that generally connotes the calm and mysterious is contrasted with the gruesome image of a human body sprawled against a cold, impersonal medical table. “Etherised” in the immediate poetic context denotes a hospital patient under the influence of ether, an inhalation anesthetic. But ether’s secondary definitions include “the clear sky” and images of the divine cosmos, which supplements the positive connotation of “evening”. Additionally, as Mike had offered in Friday’s class, the last two lines of the first stanza are meta-poetic as well. “Oh, do not ask, ‘What is it?’” could be a direct address to those who attempt to simply paraphrase poetry as well as historicists who look for contextually dependent references. Instead the speaker recommends that we, as readers of poetry, “go and make our visit”. Poetry is an experience of the paradoxical, unlike an epigram that compares two unlike elements as a metaphor does, but is merely a witty statement—a moment in time rather than a progression of such.