Title
In the drafts, the poem had the subtitle "Prufrock among the Women." Eliot said "The Love Song of" portion of the title came from "The Love Song of Har Dyal," a poem by Rudyard Kipling, published in the 1888 collection Plain Tales from the Hills. The form of Prufrock's name is like the name that Eliot was using at the time: T. Stearns Eliot.
On the origin of the name "Prufrock", there was a Prufrock-Litton Company, a furniture store, in St. Louis at the time Eliot lived there.
In a 1950 letter, Eliot said, "I did not have, at the time of writing the poem, and have not yet recovered, any recollection of having acquired this name in any way, but I think that it must be assumed that I did, and that the memory has been obliterated."
Read more about this topic: The Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock
Famous quotes containing the word title:
“It was his title that killed me. I had never spoken to a lord before. Oh, me! what a fool, what a beast I have been!”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)
“Et in Arcadia ego.
[I too am in Arcadia.]”
—Anonymous, Anonymous.
Tomb inscription, appearing in classical paintings by Guercino and Poussin, among others. The words probably mean that even the most ideal earthly lives are mortal. Arcadia, a mountainous region in the central Peloponnese, Greece, was the rustic abode of Pan, depicted in literature and art as a land of innocence and ease, and was the title of Sir Philip Sidney’s pastoral romance (1590)
“To revolutionize, at one effort, the universal world of human thought, human opinion, and human sentiment.... All that he has to do is to write and publish a very little book. Its title should be simple—a few plain words—”My Heart Laid Bare.” But—this little book must be true to its title.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)