"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S Eliot (read by Tom Hiddleston) (12/11)

next is one of the 20th century's most noted poets TS Eliot born in Missouri USA who moved to England at the age of 25 many of TS Eliot's works contain historical literary reference and this is a poem that comes with an epigraph from Dante's Inferno they wrote this first paragraph in Italian hereby presented with an English translation if I thought that Myra I would be to someone who would ever return to Earth this flame would remain without further movement but as no one has ever returned alive from this gulf if what I hear is true I can answer you with no fear of infamy Dante writes about being trapped and a concern with self-image and reputation which TS Eliot channels as the theme of his own poem the love song of j alfred Prufrock by TS Elias 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 in the room the women come and go talking of Michelangelo the yellow fog that rubs its back upon the windowpanes the yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window panes licked its tongue into the corners of the evening lingered upon the pools that stand in drains let fall upon its back the soup that falls from chimneys slipped by the terrace made a sudden leap and seeing that it was a soft October night curled once about the house and fell asleep and indeed there will be time for the yellow smoke that slides along the street rubbing his back upon the windowpanes [Music] there will be time there will be time to prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet there will be time to murder and create and time for all the works and days of hands that lift and drop a question on your plate time for you and time for me and time yet through a hundred indecisions and for a hundred visions and revisions before the taking of a toast and tea in the room the women come and go talking of Michelangelo and indeed there will be time to wonder do I dare and do I dare time to turn back and descend the stair with a bald spot in the middle of my head it will say how his hair is growing thin my morning coat my collar mounting firmly to the chin my necktie rich and modest but asserted by a simple pin they will say but how his arms and legs are thin do I dare disturb the universe in a minute there is time for decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse for I have known them all already known the more I have known the evenings morning's afternoons I have measured out my life with coffee spoons I know the voice is dying with a dying fall beneath the music from a father room so how should I presume and I have known the eyes already known there more the eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase and when I am formulated sprawling on a pin when I am pinned and wriggling on the wall then how should I begin to spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways and how should I presume and I have known the arms already known they're more our method a bracelet it and white and bear but in the lamplight downed with light brown air is it perfume from a dress that makes me so digress arms that lie along a table or rap about ashore I should I then presume and how should I begin shall I say I have gone at dusk through narrow streets and watched the smoke that rises from the pipes of lonely men in shirtsleeves leaning out of windows I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floors of silent seas and the afternoon the evening sleeps so peacefully smoothed by long fingers asleep tired or atmalinga 'he's stretched on the floor here beside you and me should i after tea and cakes and ices have the strength to force the moment to its crisis but though i have wept and fasted wept and prayed though i have seen my head grown slightly bald brought in upon a platter i am no prophet and here's no great matter I've seen the moment of my greatness flicker and I've seen the eternal footman hold my coat and snicker and in short I was afraid and would it have been worth it after all after the cups the marmalade the tea among the porcelain among some talk of you and me would it have been worthwhile to have bitten off the matter with a smile to have squeezed the universe into a ball to roll it towards some overwhelming question to say I am a Lazarus come from the dead to come back to tell you all I shall tell you all if one settling a pillow by her head should say that is not what I meant at all that is not it at all and would it have been worth it after all [Music] would it have been worthwhile after the sunsets and the door yards and the sprinkled streets after the novels after the teacups after the skirts that trail along the floor and this and so much more it is impossible to say just what I mean but as if a magic lantern through the nerves in patterns on a screen would it have been worthwhile if one settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl and turning toward the window should say that is not it at all that is not what I meant at all no I am NOT Prince Hamlet nor was meant to be I'm an attendant Lord one that will do to swell a progress start a scene or to 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 I grow old I grow old I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled shall I part my hair behind do I dare to eat a peach I shall wear white flannel trousers and walk upon the beach I've heard the mermaid singing each to each I do not think that they will sing to me I have seen them riding seaward on the waves combing the white hair of the waves blown back when the wind blows the water white and black we have lingered in the chambers of the sea by see girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown till human voices wake us and we drown [Music]

Channel: Zsuzsanna Uhlik

Views: 49,987

Rating: 4.9585328 out of 5

Keywords: hiddleston interview, hiddleston shakespeare, hiddleston fans, hiddleston loki, tom hiddleston loki, tom hiddleston, tom hiddleston interview, tom hiddleston reading, hiddleston poetry, tom hiddleston poetry, tom hiddleston quoting shakespeare, hiddleston reading, tom hiddleston reading poetry, tom hiddleston reading shakespeare, hiddleston tom, tom hiddleston voice, tom hiddleston youtube channel, hiddleston 2020, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, T S Eliot, Eliot

Id: D9Rh0F-JuNI

Length: 9min 25sec (565 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 02 2019