In the open stanza of Eliot’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, the narrator says,
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.
To this sterile and vulgar scene, C. S. Lewis humbly confessed:
I am so coarse, the things the poets see
Are obstinately invisible to me.
For twenty years I’ve stared my level best
To see if evening—any evening—would suggest
A patient etherized upon a table;
In vain. I simply wasn’t able.
To me each evening looked far more
Like the departure from a silent, yet crowded, shore
Of a ship whose freight was everything, leaving behind
Gracefully, finally, without farewells, marooned mankind.((C. S. Lewis, Poems, “A Confession, Harvest Book: Ny, 1963))
Both are remarkable poets, as remarkable as they are different. They are equally worthy of study by both poets and prose writers.
Agreed. Although, for what it’s worth, I prefer Eliot’s poetry to Lewis’s and Lewis’s prose to Eliot’s.
A observation: Lewis’ works begin with intellect. Ideas processed through precise language that lead him to the emotion or feeling that often is as precisely defined as the structure of the verse. Elliot’s begins in depths or waves of emotion and angst that he casts onto the observed scenes in word pictures that give clues to his intention. He interjects snippets of dialogue; but the feelings are contained mainly in the observations, remaining a bit obtuse or imprecise. One style makes for better prose and one makes better poetry. Thank God for both kinds of writers.
Well said, Laura!