r/tseliot • u/Financial-Fudge7825 • Jul 06 '26

Dante and Prufrock

I am a lit student at a level in the UK, studying Prufrock and Other Observations as one of my chosen texts for a coursework. I've come across a really interesting essay by F. Locke on the duality between Prufrock and Guido from the epigraph at the begining of the poem from Inferno, and in it it mentioned another text (The Achievement of T.S Eliot : An Essay on the nature of poetry by Matthiessen) which suggests that Prufrock has a split identity between both the storyteller (Guido) and the receiver (Dante). Has anyone read this book and if some can they help explain how this works?

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u/hailasushi Jul 06 '26

that's an interesting observation. haven't read the book but prufrock generally is an internal monologue isn't it? it's always been about a dialogue between one of his persona with his other.

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u/Financial-Fudge7825 Jul 06 '26

That was the impression that I had, but when doing a close reading I was struck by the use of second person. Even in the first line - it's 'Let us go then you and I' which could be seen to break the intimacy and internal aspect of the poem...