[Allen Tice]

P S. Since I posted this thread, I have acquired "Inventions of the March Hare", edited by Christopher Ricks, which establishes in Eliot's own words that "Prufrock" was essentially complete in July 1911, and composed in Munich and Paris. This might invalidate parts of what lies below, but there is no reason to cast aside the thread. Let it stand as food for thought in its original form.

Did Constantine "part his hair behind" ??!

The Emperor Constantine combed his hair forward to disguise his receding hairline.

Comb over of Swedish King Karl IX was arranged to resemble a cross. [pictured in Wikipedia article of 26may14].

Gen. Douglas MacArthur wore a comb-over. His G.I. Joe action figure also has a comb-over.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comb-overs

= = = = = =

Re-reading Eliot's "Prufrock," I was struck once more by his narrator's question about potential hair combing. It's so simple. He was speculating on the advisability of adopting a "comb over". Nothing more, nothing less.

Much of the obscurity of Prufrock (and more) can be eliminated by acknowledging a simple assumption and a fact :

(1) Eliot experienced (or thought he experienced) a supernatural visitation by the ghost of a dead French soldier who had been his friend, Jean Verdenal. (Robert Graves reports a similar event.) And Eliot was trying to reconcile this experience with an awareness of terrestrial evolution and our material nature. While musing on all this, Eliot invites the momentary revenant Verdenal to experience an evening (and more) with him as he visits and revisits friends and acquaintances.

(2) Eliot suffered a double inguinal hernia as a child, and surgery was likely necessary. Recovery and possible scar stretching as he grew was probably unpleasant. Do the math.

[ross hamilton hill]

I don't find Prufrock at all obscure, it requires study but once you take in to account the cultural and historical references it seems to me a marvellous poem, better than the Wasteland where the verse is not successfully intergrated and better than his other works which became too liturgical. The person who is invited to walk with him is the reader, it helps to know all you can about Eliot but i don't think any one incident is the 'key' and certainly not a visitation from a dead friend. Eliot by the way didn't go bald at all and certainly did not need a comb over. Scars don't stretch they shrink, my daughter had open heart surgery when she was two her whole chest was opened up, now at 28 the scar is about 2 inchs long and barely noticeable.

[Allen Tice]

Thank you, Ross.

My initial response was much too curt, and I apologize. I accept the blame for being insufficiently awake after rising late. Both of us are among the many who find Prufrock to be Eliot's best. I think that is due to his art in this poem, which, below the dedication, has a clear statement of a goal to be reached, and that goal is allusively reinforced later. How Eliot can succeed here on so many levels of interpretation for loads of different people with different sensitivities is a demonstration of tbe importance of "charm", that is, sheer attractiveness in rhythm and rhyme, as well as interesting human subject matter.

Best.