The Hollow Men
Author: Eliot Theme: Art for Art's Sake/Decadence OR Alienation/Disillusionment Summary: The poem begins with two epigraphs: one is a quotation from Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness remarking on the death of the doomed character Kurtz. The other is an expression used by English schoolchildren who want money to buy fireworks to celebrate Guy Fawkes Day. On this holiday, people burn straw effigies of Fawkes, who tried to blow up the British Parliament back in the 17th century. The poem is narrated by one of the "Hollow Men."
The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock
Author: Eliot Theme: Consciousness-Formation Summary: J.

Alfred Prufrock performs his "love song" in the form of a dramatic monologue in verse. At the beginning of the poem, he asks an unknown "you" to accompany him on a walk through the red light district.

Tradition and the Individual Talent
Author: Eliot Theme: Art for Art's Sake/Decadence Summary: "Tradition and the Individual Talent," one of Eliot's early essays, typifies his critical stance and concerns; it has been called his most influential single essay. Divided into three parts, appearing in The Egoist in September and December, 1919, the essay insists upon taking tradition into account when formulating criticism—"aesthetic, not merely historical criticism."
"This is the dead land This is cactus land Here the stone images Are raised, here they receive The supplication of a dead man's hand Under the twinkle of a fading star.

"

Title: The Hollow Men Author: Eliot Theme: Art for Art's Sake/Decadence
"We are the hollow men We are the stuffed men Leaning together Headpiece filled with straw. Alas! Our dried voices, when We whisper together Are quiet and meaningless As wind in dry grass Or rats' feet over broken glass In our dry cellar"
Title: The Hollow Men Author: Eliot Theme: Alienation/Disillusionment
"In this hollow valley This broken jar of our lost kingdoms In this last of meeting places We grope together And avoid speech"
Title: The Hollow Men Author: Eliot Theme: Alienation/Disillusionment
"This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper."
Title: The Hollow Men Author: Eliot Theme: Alienation/Disillusionment
"Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient etherized upon a table; Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, The muttering retreats Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: Streets that follow like a tedious argument Of insidious intent To lead you to an overwhelming question . .

. Oh, do not ask, "What is it?" Let us go and make our visit."

Title: The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock Author: Eliot Theme: Consciousness-Formation The theme Focused on in this passage is Consciousness - Formation or the interest in the formation of the personality that can be determined by circumstances based on other opinions, authoritative figures, and your own self-consciousness. They had fascinations with psychoanalysis and the subconscious, such as Sigmund Freud and his studies involving The Talking Cure and The Oedipus Compex.

In this passage, the author is the patient and he is speaking to the therapist, making a metaphor of the streets as a map for his mind that they have to get through to get to the underlying question.

"For I have known them all already, known them all; Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, [. . .] And I have known the eyes already, known them all— The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase, [. .

.] And I have known the arms already, known them all— Arms that are braceleted and white and bare (But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!) Is it perfume from a dress That makes me so digress? Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl."

Title: The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock Author: Eliot Theme: Consciousness-Formation
"No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be; Am an attendant lord, one that will do To swell a progress, start a scene or two Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool, Deferential, glad to be of use, Politic, cautious, and meticulous; Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse; At times, indeed, almost ridiculous— Almost, at times, the Fool."
Title: The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock Author: Eliot Theme: Consciousness-Formation
"we might remind ourselves that criticism is as inevitable as breathing, and that we should be none the worse for articulating what passes in our minds when we read a book and feel an emotion about it, for criticizing our own minds in their work of criticism."
Title: Tradition and the Individual Talent Author: Eliot Theme: Art for Art's Sake/Decadence
"what happens when a new work of art is created is something that happens simultaneously to all the works of art which preceded it.

The existing monuments form an ideal order among themselves, which is modified by the introduction of the new (the really new) work of art among them."

Title: Tradition and the Individual Talent Author: Eliot Theme: Art for Art's Sake/Decadence
"In a peculiar sense he will be aware also that he must inevitably judged by the standards of the past. I say judged, not amputated, by them; not judged to be as good as, or worse or better than, the dead; and certainly not judged by the canon of dead critics. It is a judgment, a comparison, in which two things are measured by each other."
Title: Tradition and the Individual Talent Author: Eliot Theme: Art for Art's Sake/Decadence
"my meaning is, that the poet has, not a 'personality' to express, but a particular medium, which is only a medium and not a personality, in which impressions and experiences combine in peculiar and unexpected ways. Impressions and experiences which are important for the man may take no place in the poetry, and those which become important in the poetry may play quite a negligible part in the man, the personality.

"

Title: Tradition and the Individual Talent Author: Eliot Theme: Art for Art's Sake/Decadence
"The analogy was that of the catalyst. When the two gases [oxygen and sulfur dioxide] previously mentioned are mixed in the presence of a filament of platinum, they form sulphurous acid. This combination takes place only if the platinum is present; nevertheless the newly formed acid contains no trace of platinum, and the platinum itself is apparently unaffected; has remained inert, neutral, and unchanged. The mind of the poet is the shred of platinum. .

. . the more perfect the artist . . . the more perfectly will the mind digest and transmute the passions which are its material."

Title: Tradition and the Individual Talent Author: Eliot Theme: Art for Art's Sake/Decadence