Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock Essay: Stream of Consciousness

Stream of Consciousness in The complete Song of J. Alfred Prufrock The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock is a uniquely styled piece of literature. In this poem Eliot employs a literary method of writing called stream of spirit. This is a difficult method to image outside of the literary genre to attempt to understand it within the context of the higher language of poetry can further confuse readers. Stream of consciousness is simply how our brain thinks. Perhaps as the teacher reads through this poem we hear the word Mermaid. Our minds see the singing mermaids on the rocks in Jason and the Argonauts and then part to Peter Pan and from Peter Pan to Mary Poppins. The idea of stream of consciousness is comparable to channel surfing there are no synthetic traceable transitions. We simply switch from one thing/idea to the next. This is idea of stream of consciousness is seen in the manner in which the author sets the poem. First he places the reader in sawdust restaurants with o yster-shells (Eliot, Longman 2418 l.7) and...