Michael+M

Modernism is about now. It’s about abandoning traditional ways of thought. It’s about rejecting old ideas and questioning everything. It applies to philosophy, architecture, literature, art, and religion. It’s also about destroying values of old and of the current. That’s the idea; that everything you believe is wrong. Modernists believe they could create a better society. Religious modernists were people who thought that the sacraments of Catholicism are symbols, and so they broke away from the church. - Michael McDonough

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock is a modernist poem, because its entirety is a train of thought: A stream of consciousness of a man who is isolated from society by women. Women make him feel inadequate and have driven him into despair. "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" (Elliot). With this quote, Prufrock thinks of himself as a supporting character in his own life. Prince Hamlet was the lead character in the play, Hamlet. Prufrock thinks he is the servant of Hamlet, "glad to be of use" (Elliot). This is a modernist thought, because he is creating this world in his head in which all women despise him. He makes that world a reality. Like all modernists, he is unhappy. He has been cast out by society for being old, balding, thin, and awkward.