Quantum Theory and Prufrock I & Prufrock, The Quantum Man II

 Quantum Theory and Prufrock I

You say, "Well, I didn't know it was a difficult place. I was just born." And that's lucky for you and me that we were just born and we didn't have all the intellectual, historical, sociological, psychological background because otherwise life would be hard for us. Think about, well, you can't maybe yet, but when you're 40, think about reliving your teenage years. And that's the kind of thing you would have to face if you were born with what I'm about to tell

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you now. 20th century in terms of literature has been preoccupied with scientific ideas which have redefined reality. The universe becomes a discontinuous place and that has to do with quantum physics. Let us go then you and I when the evening is spread out against the sky like a patient etherized upon a table. Oh, that's what sunset looks like. Go out tonight and look at the sky. And if you see a patient, etherize them on a table. What? Call Parkland. They'll come for you. You see right away how really the

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universe becomes a discontinuous place. And that has to do with quantum physics. Discontinuity. This poem is written about 1920. And it totally shatters the 20th century. It's a very great prophetic statement here because Elliott hadn't read any of this stuff about quantum physics. And yet he felt it in his heart, so to speak. And he wrote about it from that point of view. What's it like to be a man a drift? Like a patient etherized upon a table. A man a drift in time and space that are relative and

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uncertain. That's proof rock. Let's look at proof rock and we'll know what Elliott thought it was like. Now, you and I are very much more practiced, aren't we? After all, we've had another 64 years to deal with it. We're used to walking in fog. Let me first begin by talking about another scientific revolution in the past which had the same effect upon people causing the same kinds of insecurities, alienations and doubts that people might experience today. I refer of course to

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the capernican revolution. Galileo was almost burned at the stake for suggesting that the sun was the center of the solar system and not the earth. This made a very big deal out of everything because poets at the time John Dunn wrote that new philosophy calls all in doubt. And I think we can see an instance of the doubt that was raised for those people in this the Greek idea of our solar system which said that the earth was the center. So the Greek Roman and medieval science for thousands of years posited or assumed

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that the earth was the center of the solar system. But here comes Capernicus, here comes Kepler, here comes Galileo. And they have scientific proof that the sun is the center of the solar system. Of course, they said universe. You can imagine what this did to people. It certainly seemed to make man, human beings, less important than they had thought that they were. When Galileo says, "The sun's the center, not the earth of the solar system," that confronts science from Egypt. But Freud's idea about the inner

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nature of man really just confronts what we might call 19th century optimism. the Victorians, you know, they thought that the nature of man was at least a certain thing and that it was tended toward the good. But Freud suggests quite the opposite. Depth psychology suggests that inside of man, woman, human being, there lies this sthing cauldron of emotions and repression which make him behave in the way that he does but often gives a lie to what he says. So we have the Edipus complex, the electro complex and

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so on and so on and so on. Well, that's old hat and you've heard of it and you know about it to one degree or another. What I'm going to say today and probably continue next week for a time is to present you with what's called quantum physics or quantum ideas. Now quantum physics isn't restricted just to physics. There's a quantum chemistry. So beginning then at somewhere near the beginning if you refer to the board you'll see an attempt there to schematize the two as they oppose one

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another. We of course know that the father of classical physics from our point of view is Newton who discovered gravity among other things. And the father of quantum physics is Einstein although as a matter of fact Einstein turns out to be one of the great disbelievers in quantum physics as we know it today. Einstein said, "God does not play dice with the universe." Quantum physics says that's all the universe is is dice play. I'll show you what I mean. To begin at the beginning,

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the classical physics view of the universe is essentially deterministic. Determinism in this case should be viewed as a kind of a clock. The universe is a clock. God wound it up, set it in motion, and it runs itself according to these immutable or absolute laws of motion. And then God left it and went off to meditate somewhere. Let me read this to you. Nothing is left to chance in the deterministic universe. The future is as precisely determined by the past as is the forward motion of a clock. Although our human minds could

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never in practice track the mo the movement of all the parts of the great clockwork and thus know the future, we can imagine that an all knowing mind of God can do this and see past and future time laid out like a mountain range. This rigid determinism implied by Newton's laws promotes a sense of security about the place of humanity in the universe. All that happened, the tragedy and joy of human life is already predetermined. The objective universe exists independently of human will and purpose. Nothing we do can alter it. The

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wheels of the great world clock turn as indifferent to human life as do the silent motion of the stars. In a sense, eternity has already happened. That's determinate. ly I'm reading to you from a book called the cosmic code quantum physics is the language of nature by hines R paggles this author goes out of his way frequently and I guess tediously to remark again and again and again that the idea of God that used to exist can no longer exist in our universe because of quantum physics. He's a little

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desperate to make that point. His being desperate to make that point makes me suspicious that he's worried that he's not right. So we take the knowledge or the information but not necessarily as knowledge. Continuing then with the deterministic world. The deterministic worldview that Newton supported fell. It fell not because of some new philosophy or ideology but because by the end of the 19th century experimental physicists contacted the atomic structure of matter. What they found was that atomic units of

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matter behaved in random uncontrollable ways which deterministic Newtonian physics could not account for. It is our purpose then to explore some of the intellectual background out of Einstein and also out of general physics as to how the universe was described by quantum physics as being uncertain, random and merely probable. The first thing we should talk about is the atomic structure of the universe. Now you and I look at solids. I say solids with quotes around them. We look at solids and we say, "Well, that's a solid. If I walk

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into it, my body cannot pass through its body. And we accept that as reality. And it does have a great practical value, doesn't it? When you're driving your car and you come to a stop sign and someone else is at the other side of the street, then you do want to stop your car. While that may be apparently correct, it's theoretically incorrect. So, what is the atomic structure of the universe? Everyone take a breath. You just inhaled 1 million billion billion atoms if you like it 10 to the 24 atoms

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in a breath. So you see the question arises then for us what is the nature of matter? Is matter solid as was assumed from earliest time up until about Newton and after? Or is matter empty, which is then be the atomic view of matter. And if we could perhaps rearrange our atoms, we could then inter penetrate one another, walk through walls. This sounds like science fiction stuff, but this isn't. This is physics. Einstein had three basic ideas. I'll tell you what they are. The first one was a reason for

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what is called Brownian movement. If you've taken any kind of chemistry or physics, you know that Brownian movement is when you put a very small grain of pollen in a liquid or in a gas and then watch it under a microscope. And the thing about the thing is it doesn't hold still. It starts to bounce. It starts to twitch. It starts to move. And while Brownian movement was discovered before Einstein, no one knew the reason why it was bouncing around under the microscope. Well, it turns out the

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reason is what? It's got atoms. Atoms. What are the atoms doing? They're bouncing. They're bouncing off our pollen grain and it's going. That's brownie and movement. First point Einstein made. The second was the photo electric effect which is simply this that when light shines on metal, metal gives off electrons. Now you don't have to know any more about it because everybody rides the elevator or automatic elevators work on this principle. They send a beam of light across the doors when they're open. The

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beam of light shines on a metal plate on the other side and as long as that's on there, the doors will close. But if it's interrupted, they'll open. So consequently, if the thing is closing and I walk into an interrupted beam of light, the doors open again. The third idea that Einstein promulgated was the one that we all know about, the special theory of relativity. That is simply that time and space are relative to each other. I always get a good instance of this because even though I know that

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when I come to a stoplight on a slight incline and my foot's on the brake and the guy next to me starts to move, I really push hard on the brake because I think that I am moving. Einstein gives the example of a man standing on a train platform and a man in the train. Now the man in the train as the train starts to move could easily think that he's not moving but the platform is moving and of course vice versa which is the ordinary way in which we usually see it. In fact, Einstein proves that there is a

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different time on the watch of the man on the train than there is on the watch of the man on the platform. And he gives this example of twins. If you send you get two twins born at the same time that grow up together then you take one you send them at the speed of light out in space and when he comes back the twin who's left on earth is long dead but he hasn't aged. As a matter of fact he's gotten younger. These are science fiction ideas but they come from quantum physics. You remember now I said that

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determinism is merely the idea that the universe runs according to unchanging laws and therefore it is a fixed state. It's a steady state stable. But the uncertainty principle it's called Heisenberg's uncertainty principle suggests something different. Classical physics supported the world view of determinism. According to classical physics, the laws of nature completely specify the past and future down to the finest detail. The universe was like a perfect clock. Once we knew the position

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of its parts at one instant, they would be forever specified. Human beings could not, of course, know the positions and velocities of all the particles in the universe at one instant. But invoking the medieval concept of the mind of God, we could imagine that this perfect mind knows the configuration of all the particles past and future. Knows them. You see, because they operate according to physical law. It turns out that according to quantum physics, there is no determinism in the universe. As a

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matter of fact, we do not know what will happen next. As you see, the idea was in determinism, man isn't needed. Man cannot change the universe. But in quantum physics, as I told you last time, the mere fact that man is in the universe conducting scientific experiments changes the universe. So if I'm looking at a glass slide under a microscope of some kind of behavior biological or atomic then the fact of my body being there as well as the fact of my the optical effect of my looking through the microscope changes the

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behavior of whatever it is that I'm studying. So instead of it being determined, it's uncertain. It's uncertain because I don't know what it is. What is the universe without human beings? You see, but we can't answer. Therefore, it's uncertain. There's a good deal more to that idea, however. But pressing on, the next idea that comes out of quantum physics is the idea of randomness. And if you've taken statistics, you're familiar with the idea of randomness. But probably you

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don't know that there isn't actually a definition of randomness. Probably the best definition you can give of it is that it is unbeatable. That is to say, if you go to a gambling table or a roulette wheel or some kind of machine that operates according to a random principle, you can never beat it. You can never beat randomness. You always need an edge. So, if you have a system for betting, bet every fifth time and double your well, don't double your bet, but increase it by 10% each time.

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And if it's not random and if you've discovered the non random quality of the wheel, then your system will beat their system. But if it's random, you can't beat it. Well, the idea here is that not only is the universe uncertain, but it's also random. So that there is no what do we say? Teiology to it. There's no purpose to it. It's a random thing. You can see how scary this gets. some Yeah, there's one. Yeah, you can see how this might affect someone's religious beliefs. It's fortunate for

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all of us that we're still living in a 19th century, right? Because what do you what kind of a human being is turned out by this view of reality? No one knows yet, right? It's still too new. Quantum physics is born between 1900 and 1924 or 1926. TS Elliott writes proof rock and other poems about 1919. I'm very tempted, probably I won't be able to resist the temptation. I'm very tempted to view Proof Rocks, the love song of Goff for Proof Rock as an allegory of the man who lives in an

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uncertain and random universe. We'll look at it at the proper time. Maybe you don't know what probability is. My favorite example of the statistical stability of distributions is dog bites in a large city. If people get bitten by dogs and report to doctors or hospitals for treatment, the event is recorded over several years. The reports number 68, 70, 64, 66, 71, an average of about 68 a year. Why is this number so stable? Why doesn't a year pass with only five dog bites or as many as 500? Is there some

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mysterious spirit that affects these dogs and people each year so that almost exactly 68 people are bitten without fail? What though does the randomness of events imply for individuals of the species? You may think you exercise your freedom by promoting a specific political opinion or deciding to wear blue shoes. But in fact, your actions are just part of a probability distribution. In French society of the 1970s, there was a definite probability that a person would be on the left or right politically. What is perceived as

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freedom by the individual is thus necessity from a collective viewpoint. The die means the dice. The die when it is thrown may think it has freedom. If I have a dice or a die and it's one to six, the probability of my getting a sixth is what? One out. One out of six. Sure. That's that's very simple. See the die when it is thrown may think it has freedom, but whatever it does, it is part of a probability distribution. It is being influenced by the quote invisible hand unquote. We cannot act

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without being a part of a distribution and put a question mark after it in parenthesis. We'll talk about that. It is like being in an invisible prison held by invisible hands. Even the very act of trying to escape is again part of a new distribution, a new prison. Perhaps this is why real creativity is so difficult because thousands of invisible hands hold us to our conventional acts and ideas. The probability of any human act can be predicted. Therefore, are human beings free or are they merely

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functions of conventional ideas? What we're getting at now will linger on it. What's the probability that you should be here now, Larry? Just the probability. Well, you don't know, but we'd have to compute it. What the suggestion here is that there is no such thing as an original act in ordinary time and space. Everything you do has been done before by someone else. Now there may be a greater or lesser probability that you should repeat that act but still there is a probability.

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What's the probability that a Shakespeare should exist? Exactly. That's my point. That's zero probability. Shakespeare never existed before and never existed after. And yet so there seemed to be in human history individuals whose living and acting could not be predicted under ordinary term. And yet who are we? We are unless one of us is special. And what's the chance that somebody here is special? Yeah. Somebody here is outside probability predictions. Well, yeah, that's the idea. And yet, well, let's

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hold the door open, right? What kind of emotional state do you think these ideas would produce in somebody who took them seriously? What does that mean? Well, I have and tell you the truth, I have met a quantum chemist from Hungary at a party in Austin many years ago. He wasn't that. No, he wasn't that at all. As a matter of fact, he was the only person at the party that really seemed to me to have any kind of balance at all. So we stood around the punch bowl and I suggested to him that I wrote

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sonnetss and he said he brought his wife over and he said he writes sonnetss and I said you know what a sonnet is? He's from Hungary after all. He said sure I know what sonnetss are. Would you like to hear one? I said and he said yes I'd love to hear one. So they heard a sonnet around the punch bowl at the party. I have to say that that sounds to me to be somebody who's curious, open, not at all closed off to the possibilities of things. Let me say another thing about the behavior of these what we call them

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new physicists. There's a man in Austin named Ia Priagazine who won the Nobel Prize in the 70s and he has written several books and he constantly is saying I've heard him say it that there is no difference between the poet and the physicist that both are talking about and exploring the same principles of reality. Now granted, physicists at lower levels don't think that at all, but physicists at higher levels maintain that almost as a dogma. So how could it be? It's obvious that we're missing

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something of the delight and joy that a understanding of the universe from its own point of view must bring. A definition was given of what the universe is from the point of view of quantum physics. The universe is a simultaneous explosion of individual parts every instant. What do these ideas tend to produce in politicians? You help me. Who has an unformed mind? Politicians, teachers. But I'm suggesting that little minds or unformed minds are going to be threatened by an idea like this. You

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see, well, let's imagine that Newtonian physics or determinism produces a tremendous sense of security in the human being and not just in the individual, more important in the society. If you were to found a theocratic society, for instance, like the Puritans tried to do in America, and you had a scientific principle of physics to back you up, which said that the universe was a secure and a stable place, then you could dictate from on high the way everybody ought to behave. And if they didn't behave that way, well, you could

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brand them. A for absentee. Well, another view of this deterministic physics suggested that light was a wave. And that sounds good to us. That sounds even modern to us. But it turns out light isn't a wave. It turns out quantum physics says light is particles. Photons refer to photons. As a matter of fact, both are true. Light is both a wave and a particle. And you could argue that, I suppose. How could a thing be both at the same time? Furthermore, classical physics because it has a kind of a

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secure basis, a definition, a determinism of everything is an absolute kind of way of thinking. And it would be then supportive of all kinds, all other forms of absolutist thinking. Name some forms of absolutist thinking besides the Puritans. Well, there's one. It's not a way of thinking. know we well you need to you need to maybe you know let let it gel after all you're just getting into it now we're have all semester to discuss absolutist versus relativistic ways of thinking and then as I said before the

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idea here is that matter is solid right I mean solid right well see neither of those things just happened the book which doesn't exist anyway way in the form that you think it exists. It's just a bunch of atoms that are strung out for thousands of miles went through his hands which is strung out for hundreds of thousands of miles circulated all the way around in the universe and then ended up on top of the desk which isn't there anyway but which is strung out in hundreds of miles of atoms and now is resting

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where nowhere right nowhere. Sure that's scary. Of course it is. That would be called neihilism. It might be called the annihilation of the universe. Of course, it's scary. But if it's real, what advantage do we have to fool ourselves? Leave that. Don't answer. Now, come come over come over here to quantum physics. Quantum physics suggests then that I mean you could interpret it this way. Not I am sitting not I am not sitting in a not chair and I'm not happy about not it and that's not right the other you

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see the other one is light as a particle not a wave when you talk about relatives I don't mean aunts and uncles right I don't mean relatives I mean relatives I mean relatives should a good man steal yes or no should a good man steel. You see how already quantum physics has gotten down to us because we have what we call situational ethics. Now, if you ask Socrates, should a good man steal? What would he say? No. Absolut. Oh, he would be certain of that. He's a total absolutist. But ask

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someone here, should a good man steal? And he'll say, well, it depends. if he has six babies at home and he can't get a job and it'd be better for him to steal to feed his babies, wouldn't it? Then you're a relativist. See, that's relativistic thinking. Once you get on the relativistic train, you can't get [Music] off. The interesting thing politically and socially for us is we have this very very peculiar mix of absolutist ideas and relativistic ideas. And they're all

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bound up together like two balls of twine, red and white twine, you see. And to pull one for us would mean perhaps the destruction of the social political fabric that we have maintained. Therefore, nobody wants to touch this one. Leave it alone. Unwrap it next year. And then finally, this idea, solid matter versus empty space matter. Again, that's comical. I suppose you could do a good act on that one, right? Some kind of magician disappearing, reappearing kind of an act. The issue for us in World Lit

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2 is that these ideas which begin in 1900 and which then are kind of culminated in 1926 have been around for a lot longer than any of us have realized. And all of the time the 20th century has been unweaving itself. principles of uncertainty and relativism have been influencing philosophy, psychology and literature. What we then want to try to do is to examine the modern pieces of literature in this course against the background of this view of nature and reality. So we can do no better thing right now then than to turn to Elliot's

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love song proof and begin to examine some of the quantum ideas that affect the reality that poor proof has to walk through this image of the evening sky. Let us go then, you and I, when the evening is spread out against the sky like a patient etherized upon a table, knocked out, prone, and that's the horizon line. You might see the man's head here on the table as being something analogous to the sun. We know one thing about the two. The sun is going down and who else is going down? The patient's going down. And both are

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going to do what? Come up again. They're both going to come up again. What do we call that? A medical image of sunset. Let us go through certain half- deserted streets. Certain. What? What's certain about it? He means doesn't he uncertain? It's a kind of a pun and yet not a pun. Certain half-desserted streets. Well, which streets are half-d deserted? Go downtown Dallas at night, late at night, and how many streets will be deserted or half-ded? Certain half- deserted streets? Well, they're all half

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deserted. One could be substituted for another. The muttering retreats of restless nights and one night cheap hotels. Oh, is this our life in the new physics? Restless. Yes, we see that. And one night cheap hotels. Is that what it is to be born on the earth? You got a one night cheap hotel. Who's Who's got a popular song on that? They live in the lonely street. Yeah. [Music] of restless nights and one night cheap hotels and sawdust restaurants with oyster shells because they have sawdust

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on the floor. You can get oysters in London. This is kind of a seaport city. And now look, streets that follow like a tedious argument of insidious intent. You see, the streets aren't even streets anymore. The streets are a what? They're an argument. Circle streets. Circle argument. draw a line between streets are an argument about what? What? Reality. As he walks through London, he's walking through a kind of map of the universe. And it's uncertain. It's a tedious argument. We'll see of

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insidious intent to lead you to an overwhelming question. What's the question? Where am I going exactly? Where are you going? You expect to live or die? You expect to die? Well, get on with it. Get out there. I mean, for now, he expects to live. Okay. Where are you going? I don't know. I don't know. So, that's why he says here to lead you to an overwhelming question. Oh, do not ask what is it? Let us go and make our visit. Just go out and live. But what kind of world are you living in now? No longer that world, but

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this world. Anything could happen. Well, the little men from Mars could land. It could happen. How many you believe it could happen? Raise your hand. One, two, three, four. But now we've all seen all the movies. We're ready for them to land. [Music] Question. Do you believe? We'll get into my beliefs at a much later date. Oh, do not ask what is it? Let us go and make our visit. And now a period nose and a break. In the in the room, the women come and go talking to Michelangelo. Well, that's nice, but

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what does that have to do with the insidious argument of the streets and the tedious nature of the question? We'll find out later.

 

 Part II

 

 

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Prufrock, The Quantum Man II

00:00:00
The fog in the London streets turns into a cat. I suppose that we all know that under certain conditions, people tend to hallucinate, see things that aren’t there, and that’s perhaps part of the point here. But it’s a kind of a bigger question. This fog could better be likened to a snake, couldn’t it? The way it curls around the streets. We see one thing turning into another thing, and we call that a metamorphosis. There are many kinds of metamorphoses in 20th-century literature. We will look at various regards, but the thing we have to think and examine carefully here is that if we want to get a concept of the 20th century, we can’t just look at one author. We have to look at all five of the authors that I have said we’re going to read.

00:00:36
First, we look at Eliot, and from Eliot, we get at least in the Prufrock poem an idea of man. When we look at his Wasteland, which will be the next poem we examine, we get an idea of land. These are the two most important things people have to deal with: humanity and the environment in which humanity finds itself. But in both cases with Eliot, both man and the land have been cursed. There are a lot of words you could use here: cursed, blighted, denigrated—anything that detracts from a thing would be a word you could apply to Eliot’s description of man and the land.

00:01:13
Remember, our focus is on the 20th century. Prufrock and other poems are written in 1917. 1917 is in the environment of World War I, that was the war to end all wars—you write this down al verbatim. Poets tend to be prophets, and I think that element of prophecy that we’re going to examine in Eliot is simply this: something has happened to us as human beings, something has happened to the Earth as an environmental system.

00:01:49
Now, Eliot is way ahead of his time, especially in the latter case because environmentalism only really becomes a public concern about the 1970s. Something has happened to man, something has happened to the land, and Eliot—we wouldn’t say Eliot saw it, we should say Eliot felt it. He just wrote, and in writing, he sort of opened himself up to the spirit of the time, and it came out through his fingers. There’s a perfectly respectable intellectual apparatus to explain how that can happen—how poets, and now I don’t want to limit it to poets but artists of all kinds really are prophets, and they speak more or less ahead of the time in which they live. So what Eliot is writing about becomes more understandable to people today than it was to people yesterday, especially when we get to the Wasteland.

00:02:32
I think we can see how the idea that the Earth—all of the Earth—is becoming a giant wasteland is an idea that becomes more and more acceptable, but in 1917 Eliot’s ahead of his time. So now, going back, we speak of the metamorphosis in this poem of fog turning into a cat. Well, that’s really not much of a metamorphosis compared to what happens to you and me, who were born with the same physical and spiritual birthright as our ancestors but for whom life is an entirely different proposition. Now, I’m fighting against it myself, but it seems like for the most part, we have to acknowledge that in Eliot, the transformation—the metamorphosis—is wholly negative.

00:03:50
So we start out with something easy, though it’s a good thing—it’s not a snake. Maybe we should just close the book, but it’s just a cat, and cats are friendly enough if you happen to be a cat person. Who’s not a cat person here? Even though you have a cat, you’re not a cat person either. I don’t have one. You don’t have one. That’s not probably too important, at least past the class. Note the color of the fog. What color is it? Yellow.

00:04:26
Okay, how did it get yellow? I mean, the fog I used to see was what color—white or gray smoke? But this is yellow. What’s wrong with that fog? It’s changed; it’s tainted; it’s polluted. It’s polluted fog, right? If you’re from the big city, drive downtown sometime when there’s what’s called an inversion layer, then you get your yellow fog. Of course, yellow is also the color of sulfur, isn’t it? And the sulfuric dioxides in the air might easily give it a yellow cast.

00:05:03
Now, what does the poem say before we can talk about why the poem says it? All these little superficial details are really your business—to know what time it is in the poem. It’s what morning? It’s evening? What month is it in the poem? October. It’s an October night. Is that a good or bad time? Good time? Yeah, it’s about the best time of the year; there’s no better month than October.

00:05:38
Now look at line 22—And indeed there will be time. There’s a lot of time in this poem. If you’re thinking, “Uh-oh, he’s talking relativity, he’s talking Einstein, he’s talking time and space,” then okay, you’re on the same track I’m on. If we examine the word time in this poem, we can see a tremendous number of repetitions of the word and a great number of repetitions of the concept. For instance, October—that’s really a time word, isn’t it?

00:06:09
There are different ways of organizing the poem and taking it apart and doing it again. One of them is time. Time’s an important idea. There is a relativism here to time. We can start at line 20 too: And indeed there will be time for the yellow smoke that slides along the street, rubbing its back upon the window panes. There will be time.

00:06:39
Are you counting your times? Count your time one, two, and there will be time. There will be time three—to prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet. Hm. I didn’t know I had to dress up before I came to my job and I have to put what on my face? My other face? Work face on? I put my work face on. I mean, I’ve got a whole bunch of these in my closets. If you’re really organized, you’ve got them filed. Have a seat.

00:07:16
If you’re really organized, you’ve got your faces filed by what? There will be time to prepare one if you haven’t got one ready, then there’s time to make one up. Now, do we think that’s a little sinister and maybe a little scary? People are going around dressing for the occasion, putting on their faces. Yes, yeah, we do. To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet.

00:07:52
Now there will be time to what? Murder and create. Well, those two things—do they go together? Well, they do. They are opposites. That’s the only way to create: to bring to life, right? To murder is to put to death. There will be time to murder and create and time for all the works and days of hands that lift and drop a question. What’s the question?

00:08:22
Well, where am I going? But there might be other questions inside that. Underline that and make sure you connect it. Right next to that line, line 10, you see because that, the overwhelming questions mentioned in line 10, and now it’s mentioned again: that lift and drop a question on your plate. Time for you, and time for me, and time yet for 100 indecisions and for 100 visions and revisions before the taking of toast and tea.

00:08:53
Well, how close are we to tea time here? Close or not close? Not close? Not close. Well, I like the way you’re looking at it because you’d figure, well if there’s time for a 100 indecisions and visions and revisions, we must have a lot of time before tea, right? But I think when we read later on the poem, we see that tea is upon us right now. So we’re constantly making our revisions and our indecisions fast, fast, fast, fast, fast.

00:09:31
And you see what’s the thing that we find out about the character in the 20th century? He can’t—what? He can’t decide. He can’t—what do you think? You are anyway? Well, I’m just a product of the times. I’m just a product of my environment. I don’t have any choice. I’m just a sort of deterministic function of what is. And if that’s what I really think, then what will I do next? What will I do next? Nothing. Go with the flow.

00:10:13
Well, yeah, that’s it. Go with the flow. I have to wait for the ex-stimuli, okay? Stimulus. I’m waiting, see? And if nothing comes, I won’t be able to move, essentially. So our character is one who cannot decide. And for that matter, remember he’s got to decide because tea is upon him. And what do you do at tea? Yeah, you think you could relax at tea? But that’s the last thing you do. At tea, you drink. You drink your tea, but when you’re drinking your tea, what else are you doing?

00:10:44
Well, you’re fumbling. In one hand, you’ve got your teacup and then the saucer, and then on the other hand, you’ve got your cake. What do you do with your cake when you try to drink? I mean, what do you do with the saucer? There’s a problem there. And then at the same time, it’s the chitchat that’ll kill you. They have teas at all the big libraries in the United States, even in England, like on a Friday afternoon at the HRC in Austin. You can have tea with all the fellows. Well, fine, but I never talked to these people before, and now we’re sitting here in these easy chairs, and I’ve got my saucer and cup and tea and my cake, and I’ve got to talk. So what are you talking about, right?

00:11:28
What do you talk about? If you’re smart, what do you talk about? Drink. There are two subjects, ladies and gentlemen, that y’all learn to talk about when you go get a job. And the first one’s the weather and the second one’s sports. Keep it clean and keep it on the surface. Don’t be talking about yourself, and never, ever, ever ask a question of someone else like, “How did you get that scar?” No, no, no, no, not that at all.

00:12:07
Back here to the poem. Well, of course, we’re in England, and well, we take toast and tea here. We might have a coffee break. Tea is about what time? 3 to 4. It’ll spoil your dinner, but there it is. And then here comes that phrase that bothered us before: In the room, the women come and go talking to Michelangelo. And now we suspect that that’s what they do at tea—they talk about Michelangelo. Has anyone ever seen anything by Michelangelo? Oh, come on.

00:12:45
Well, what is it? [Music] It—well, no, the Mona Lisa is not by Michelangelo; that’s by da Vinci, right? Well, if you do any work with Michelangelo—the Sistine Chapel ceiling, any of those things—the main thing about Michelangelo is all his characters and nature are nude, and they all got big muscles too. They’re all heroic figures. If it’s a woman’s breast, it’s a big breast. If it’s a man’s muscle, it’s a big muscle. David’s 10 feet tall.

00:13:35
Now this is a slightly salacious topic if you go into it at tea, but we leave it. See, we don’t ever come back to it. It’s unspecified what it is, but still there are, you know, sort of sexual innuendos in the poem. We’re coming to them now. And indeed, line 36, There will be time to wonder, “Do I dare?” and “Do I dare?” time to turn back and descend the stair. What’s that mean? Turn back? I give up. I give up. I can’t stand that. I’m going home.

00:14:21
See, what kind of god does that? He’s indecisive. What else is he? Do I dare? Do I dare? What kind of person asks that? A coward, sure. Sure, he’s a coward. Now, don’t be too hard on him. Okay, you know why? Because what? Yeah, right, he’s a coward. He’s us. So let’s be nice to him, but let’s also tell the truth about him. Yeah, Do I dare? He’s a coward and he’s thinking of what? He’s going to quit. Maybe he’s a quitter. We’ll see at the end what happens to the poor guy, what happens to him at the end. Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.

00:15:01
But look here we go. Do I dare? Time to turn back and descend the stair with a bald spot in the middle of my hair. They—who are they? He is the protagonist in the poem, and they are talking about him. Who are they? Yeah, I think the women is the best guess. And is it characteristically somehow female that a woman would say this about him and not a man? Do I dare? Time to turn back and descend the stair with a bald spot in the middle of my hair. They will say how his hair is growing thin. Who says that? Men or women? Women. Women say that. Sure. Men don’t even care. They don’t even see it as a matter of fact. They don’t even know the guy exists.

00:15:37
So give the women credit at least—they’re watching him. And in turn, he watches them. We’ll see it in a minute. How his hair is growing thin, my morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin, my necktie rich and modest. Well, is that what rich and modest is? What’s that? Rich and modest? It’s a contradiction. Seems to us to be a contradiction. How can you be both? Well, look at this guy. He’s all dressed up in a morning coat.

00:16:10
The only time I ever see morning coats is when people get married in the morning, you know, with tails and, you know. What does it mean? My necktie rich and modest but asserted by a simple pin. Underline asserted because this is probably the only assertion this guy has. See, it’s got a simple pin, little gold pin. They will say, but how his arms and legs are thin. Who says that? The ladies again.

00:16:38
How do they know his legs are thin? Yeah, he’s got long pants on. Well, yeah, yeah, but you see the idea is they’re as thin as what? The pen—the pen. The pen is a pen. Now, there’s thin legs. Do I dare disturb the universe? What’s that about? Shannon, do you dare disturb the universe? No, you got to respect that kind of answer. I mean, after all, who here wants to disturb the universe? Well, this is the… yeah, she does, you see. I mean, how could he disturb the universe? What’s he getting at? I mean, what would he say or what would he do that would disturb the universe? I don’t know either.

00:17:01
Do something rather than turning back and going down the stairs, he goes on up. Yeah, he could go up in the attic. I don’t know what good that would do. What’s in the attic? Well, the same thing that’s in everyone else’s attic—a lot of heat and dust. Now, in a minute there is time for decision and revisions. That minute will reverse. That’s how we know it’s a short period of time. You see, because all this happens in a minute. They’ll have an hour. You’ve got a minute. Should I get married? This is something that will come up with you, right? Should I get married and you’re talking to yourself. Well, yes, right.

00:18:08
And then you go out in the kitchen to get a glass of milk, right? And you’re pouring the milk into the glass and no, and that’s 30 seconds. So you take the milk back in the living room and sit down. Yes, but by evening you’ve gone through no and yes and yes and no how many times? 100 according to him. 100.

00:18:43
What is the steady state of the universe? What can we count upon as being absolute? Where does our security lie? Answer: nowhere. It went with Newton. Einstein blew it away. We don’t live in a steady state universe. We don’t even live in a universe that’s made up of solid matter. We’re just sort of here floating around. Part of my body is here, the part you see, but the other part, well, it’s all over the Earth, it’s all scattered out. And so are you.

00:19:18
If that sounds weird to y’all, that comes from the first two classes, and we’ll have a little more effort at that later on—quantum physics. You see what he says now at the bottom of line 1576: For I have known them, underline them. Who? I have known them. You see, he’s not talking about women in the immediate context. He’s talking about decisions. For I have known them all already. Known them all, have known the mornings, afternoons—what’s the subject? Time. Time, time, time.

00:20:04
How many kinds of time exist in the poem? Can’t you just see a good paper coming out of that—an analysis of time in Eliot’s Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. You like it? Who likes that? Good. Well, I’ll give you a chance to work on it, perhaps. Don’t be too eager. Evenings, mornings, afternoons—that covers at least the day. I have measured out my life with coffee spoons. What was I doing with that coffee spoon anyway? I was taking some and putting it in my tea. Good. And well, who likes it sweet?

00:20:51
How many teaspoons? At least three. Must be a big cup. I have measured out my life with coffee spoons. What does that imply? My life is—well, short. It’s getting to be bedtime, tea time, nighttime. And nighttime might be death time. I don’t have much life. That’s the idea. But there’s a little space for you, you know. You want time in a poem, you want space, you want time, space, relativity. Here’s some space—not much space in the conference spoon. There’s not much time really in the minute either, is there? Look it, I can’t do it fast enough.

00:21:31
How many times can I run around in a real tight circle in a minute? You ready? Who’s got to watch? Right. One, two, three, go. How many? How many times? I got it. You know who can be 20? If you think you can run around more than 20 times in a minute, more than I did, you can come up here and we’ll try. That’s all you’re doing.

00:22:07
From morning to night, according to Eliot, or according to Prufrock, all you’re doing is running around in a tight little circle. And there’s lots of time, but every time—decision, indecision, decision. I mean, that’s all it is. It’s all it is. It’s a meaningless… write this down. Time in the poem seems to be a meaningless repetition of events.

00:22:43
I know the voice is dying with a dying fall. Did you hear that? I know the voice is dying with a dying fall beneath the music from afar. The room—they’re having tea here, they’re talking Michelangelo probably, and they’re criticizing him when he’s not there. And then you can hear the voices from the other room coming through along with the music. Not everybody lives in independent houses like most of us do. If you’re in the dorm, you know you’ve got the idea. This. And now you see the question: So how should I presume? Again, How do I dare?

00:23:15
What do you think about a guy that wonders whether or not he dares to eat a peach? What’s the problem about eating a peach anyway? Say you’re an old man. What could happen to you if you ate a peach? Your teeth could come out. But peaches are pretty soft usually. What else could happen? You could get indigestion. Sure. What else could happen? You could get the… I don’t think you eat the seeds. Charles, a big… well, no, I think you… you know, have you ever bit into a nice, really succulent peach? What do you get?

00:23:48
Where does that juice go? Yeah, go dribble down your chin. And old people have trouble coordinating, you know. They do, they do. And even you and I could get a little piece of peach juice on our tie, right? But that’s not really the problem. The peach is symbolic, isn’t it? It’s not really do I dare to eat the peach talking about peaches, right? What’s it really talking about? What’s the peach represent? Decision? No. Does it represent all of the decisions and indecisions? And the peach, which represents the final question, has to do with our involvement with other people.

00:24:23
Now, you’re all mostly young. Is there anybody 30 in the audience? He’s getting to the point where it’s kind of difficult to make friends and to make permanent relationships in life. The younger you are, the easier it is, but the older you are, the harder it is to commit yourself to any other living person. Try it out. Enjoy yourselves now. Try to make—they call this networking. People you go to college with, you know the rest of your life. Your parents probably told you that. But beyond that, when you’re young, it’s easy for you to reach out.

00:24:56
Think about children, but the older you get, the more closed in you become until you’re like Prufrock. Do I dare to eat a peach? Doesn’t mean fruit, but it really means what? What would happen? Could I stand the disruption in my life if I were to have a date? Well, now here I’m being nice. That’s the deeper question here. And of course, the answer is what? Nope. I don’t dare.

00:25:28
Look again at line 55, And I have known the eyes. He’s known what? 950? What has he known already? 950? What is he known? Evenings. He’s known time. We all are knowing time. Who knows time the best? The oldest one. Okay, that’s the first thing I want to know. And now the eyes, and these are the same eyes that saw him walk down the stair and worried about his legs and his hair or lack of hair. Or lack of hair. And I have known the eyes already, known them all. The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase.

00:26:06
And when I’m formulated, sprawling on a pin sort of like a butterfly, you might catch and pin them up. And that’s really what gossip is always about: is pinning one another up on the board. Did you hear? Yes, I did. You did. What do you think? And I have the eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase. And when I’m formulated—that’s to say let’s reduce Larry Thompson to A, B, and C, yeah? He says, I’m more complicated than that. Well, nuts.

00:26:38
According to gossip, it’s A, B, and C, and we got him. What formulated, pinned. And that’s what’s being done to Prufrock. And of course, if he would dare disturb the universe, he might get out of the formula. But see, the very fact is he’s old, he’s tired, he’s afraid, he’s indecisive, he’s a prisoner of time and space. So he doesn’t have much of a chance.

00:27:27
When I’m pinned and wriggling on the wall, then how should I begin to spit out all the butt ends of my days and ways? Who would he talk to to spit out the butt ends? Not a very nice way to think of your days—like cigarette butts that you’re going to spit out and throw in the street. But who would he talk to to spit out the butt ends? No, there’s only one group here he can talk to, and who’s that? The women, the women, the women.

00:28:05
And this guy is no Michelangelo. Michelangelo was a heroic figure. Do you know what he told the Pope? I better not tell you. He was bad. He was very, very bad. We—no, no. Can you read about it in a [Music] book? Now look, he would talk to them because they would talk to him.

00:28:53
Did you ever go to old people’s homes? You know, imagine yourself being in one. I worked in one for one day. The problem there is, you know, I’ve got all my life behind me. What do people want to know in Dallas? It’s come out now. What do people want to know about me? I go to a party tonight. What do people want to know? No. What’s the question? What do you do? Yeah, yeah.

00:29:26
Okay, that’s… and I go, I spit out a butt end, right? That’s what I do. But he doesn’t even do that. What if you don’t have a job? Oh, I’m just a bum. That’s not much of a good butt end. What’s a good butt end to spit out in Dallas? What do I do? What’s the best Dallas job? You know, best job? Yeah, I’m the executive assistant for… no, you name somebody. Not a comptroller. You name your boss. Sure, that’s right. And everyone says, “Oh.” Oh.

00:29:53
What we have in the PO in the questions then is a kind of a formulation of all the trivia of our lives that make us weak, you see, because we’re always so concerned about what do they think. We want to make a good impression. By all means, make a good impression, but in the end, he has the same response to the butt ends and the everyday conversation as we did here: How should I presume? So I don’t call him up.

00:30:16
And now the third thing he knows, he’s known time, he’s known the eyes, and now—and the words. Implied there: But I have known the arms and I know everyone’s thinking of this in the way that I am, but that’s the wrong way. The arms are not around his neck. This is not an embrace. And we see when we read further what it is. And I have known the arms already, known them all. Arms that are bracelet and white and bare. Which word do we like the most? Bare.

00:30:55
Now look how bare. But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair. Think about it. Does everybody have hair on their arms? Oh, sure they do. Don’t you? Everyone has hair on their arms. But who ever thought to examine them—the hairs in the lamplight at the party? I mean, next time you go to a party, check it out.

00:31:25
I mean, parties do not have to be dull. You can always do what? Now, what kind of party is this? Yeah, must be terribly boring. But look what you see here. He really does exist. He really is alive because this is the proof—the only proof in the poem he’s alive is the fact that he can see, and he can see something that we haven’t seen. He can see the hair on the arm of the ladies.

00:31:55
And it shows also that he has a certain affection for the world too. He’s not somebody who’s dead at all. He’s somebody who’s alive like we are, and he just doesn’t have—he just doesn’t dare. He just doesn’t presume, but he does love. You can see that just in that one statement. I really feel that strongly. Anybody who can see a specific detail about other people or about things in the world must have affection for it in order to be able to see it. So yes, he’s bored, but also maybe he’s a very sensitive man who’s had a hard time, you know, other people like that.

00:32:07
But in the lamplight, down with light brown hair, and then—is it perfume from a dress that makes me so digress? Arms. And he back to them again, arms that lie along a table or wrap about a shawl. And should I then presume? And should I? How should I begin? Begin what? Make a decision? Maybe make a conversation? Maybe there’s a great phrase by E. M. Forster. It’s called—well, it comes out of a book called Howard’s End, but the phrase is only connect. Maybe you see that was what he could do.

00:32:49
Maybe he could connect to someone, to something, and that would heal him, wouldn’t it? It would make him whole again, would give him reason for living. How should I begin? Line 70, Shall I say I have gone at dusk through narrow streets? Shall I? Well, I don’t know if you asked me what would I say. Do you believe that flying saucers will land in 2010? Shall I say that flying saucers will land in 2010? Shall I? Me. It’s true.

00:33:27
Okay, let’s look at this one then. Shall I say I have gone at dusk through narrow streets and watched the smoke that rises from the pipes of lonely men in shirt sleeves leaning out of windows. Think about what he sees there. What we see: he walks at dusk again. It’s dusk time through narrow streets that wind with an insidious argument, and he sees the smoke that rises from the pipes of the men in shirt sleeves, and are they on the first or second story window? I, for some reason, think it’s second story too, but there’s no reason to think so from the line.

00:34:12
I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floors of silent seas. I should have been. Why? Why does he say that? That’s not really human, is it? To be a pair of claws scuttling across the floor of silent seas. Why would he want to be that instead of what he is? Well, it’s deeper than that, yes, but more—it’s a death wish. There are various levels of death wishes or various levels of desire for self-destruction in the poem.

00:34:52
The way in which he’s going to destroy himself is by water. We’ll see at the end. But here’s water here, and I think we can hear the murmur from the other room as being a kind of water. And what does water do to you? Well, how does it drown you? Gets in your lungs, yeah. It goes over your head, it gets in your lungs, and it pushes out your life. And it’s like too much of what? Besides water, too much air won’t drown you, too much oxygen won’t drown you. Forget away from air and water.

00:35:36
Too much—too much talk. What? Too much talk. Due to you. You take more water. How do you feel after you’ve talked to somebody for hours? Same way he does. How do you feel? Weak. You feel weak. You feel undoubtedly betrayed. In five hours, you may have betrayed yourself 500 times.

00:36:24
Line 75, And the afternoon, the evening again, back to the evening. You notice that the time of day seems to also bespeak the time of life of the protagonist in the poem. The great number of references to evening and none except or maybe one to morning. This is not the beginning. This is the end.

00:36:49
And the afternoon, the evening sleeps so peacefully smooth by long fingers asleep tired or it mingers stretched on the floor here beside you and me. Should I after tea and cakes and ice have the strength to force the moment to its crisis? And but though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed, though I have seen my head grow slightly bald, brought in upon a platter, I am no prophet, and here’s no great matter.

00:37:12
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, and I have seen the eternal footman hold my coat and snicker, and in short, I was afraid. Was he afraid before that? Oh yeah, oh yeah, sure he was afraid, and he’s afraid afterward too. See, the fact of the matter is, in the poem, it’s not our environment that causes us to act the way we do, but it is rather our own internal predisposition to things that makes us what we are. So Prufrock’s going to be afraid no matter what happens.

00:37:55
What if she says yes? He’ll be afraid. He is afraid. You would ask, was he born that way? How did he get that way? But the poem doesn’t care, and time doesn’t care either. And would it have been worth it, after all, after the cups, the marmalade, the tea among the porcelain, among some talk, would it have been worthwhile to have bitten off the matter with a smile, to have squeezed the universe into a ball, to roll it toward some overwhelming question, to say I am Lazarus come back from the dead?

00:38:37
Would it have been worthwhile? Where? Tea, you’re on my right, you’re on my left. You know, you drink, we’re at the NFT. I turn to you. I look at you. Lazarus, would it have been worth it? What would have happened? Oh man, what would have happened? What would have happened? Nothing. You’re arguing with me. Good. Why? Why do you doubt me?

00:39:31
Being so well—they’re going to talk about him anyway. It’s true. They would talk about him more. But don’t you see he is Lazarus come back from the dead? How do you know he’s a Lazarus? As much as the peach is a peach. Let’s compare the symbol of the peach with Lazarus come back from the dead. We ended on this about this last time, and we said that the peach is no more a peach than we are to understand that Prufrock is a Lazarus. He doesn’t mean that any more than the literal peach is meant by that expression.

00:40:05
We need to come to terms with these kinds of things in the poem. Now, today, I made the mistake of going to two libraries and trying to find out what the poem is about according to the critics. And I found out two things. There are two schools of thought. The first school of thought is what I’d call the simple school, and they say that Prufrock is a real character who’s a coward and who represents turn-of-the-century pessimism, impotence, and a feeling of lack of self-confidence.

00:40:33
And that’s a simple way to read the poem. I think we can all see plenty of evidence in the poem for the view that Prufrock is a weak man, but that doesn’t seem to emphasize the poem as a poem, and it certainly says nothing about our subject, which is how the poem, or how Eliot in 1917, when he writes this, reflects the scientific discoveries that took place in physics between 1900 and 1926.

00:41:07
But the second view of the poem does reflect that idea, and that is that Prufrock is not a character at all. He’s non-existent. Prufrock is an excuse for bringing together literary and other kinds of illusions to various kinds of things. There are many illusions in the poem to Hesiod and to Renaissance writers, but this one that we’re dealing with now, we all understand Lazarus. So line 93, when he says I am Lazarus come back from the dead, you want to question the I am. There, he doesn’t mean himself.

00:41:38
The poem is just bringing together phenomena from the literary universe and putting them together, but in no particular order, and that is resembling quantum physics, because there you see that there is no straight-line relationship between cause and effect, even though today we said we’re going to go on to Keats’s Ode to Autumn. First I have a little more to say about Prufrock. I want to give you the benefit of that research I did in the library. I hope you won’t think I’m terribly bookish if I have written it up on the board first.

00:42:07
The critic Hugh Kenner, very interesting, he says Prufrock is a Zone of Consciousness. Now, that supports the second critical view that we had talked about. The first one was Prufrock is a weak man, and he’s only kind of a parable of what happens to men and women in the modern world when they’re defeated by powers and pressures that are too great for them. That’s the first view. That’s the easy view. There’s plenty of evidence for that in the poem.

00:42:38
But if you look more deeply at the poem, you see, like Kenner does, this quantum effect that I’ve been trying to present to you. And that is that it’s a Zone of Consciousness. Now name another Zone of Consciousness so that we can maybe define what this might be. What’s a Zone of Consciousness? Another one besides Prufrock? You know what a school zone is, right? And you slow down to 20. You know what a time zone is, right? You go from Eastern to Central.

00:43:11
What’s a Zone of Consciousness? Interesting. Interesting. A nice phrase, though. Isn’t that a lovely phrase? What it means we can define here as we go: a zone of consciousness where illusions can maintain a vague congruity. The keyword is going to be congruity because congruity is when things join, when things mesh, when they fit together. The illusions—note the a and not the i—illusions mean, for instance, if I were to say that Prufrock is like Hamlet, that would be a literary illusion.

00:43:53
But you see the illusions here are specific, and yet they somehow maintain a vague congruity, somehow in some way. That statement is like what quantum theory says about reality: matter is not solid matter. Ninety percent of our bodies are not here. I mean, 90% of our bodies are elsewhere. Empty space is the structure, and yet they must maintain some kind of vague congruity because our bodies present a solid impression to those who view us.

00:44:31
Very difficult to speak of reality as being a zone of consciousness where illusions can maintain a vague congruity, but a very fruitful kind of statement to make and one that we’ll want to explore as we go forward and get more information. And then a second statement: Prufrock is strangely boundless, as if he were a… what? Strangely boundless, what? Doesn’t have a boundary, doesn’t have any limit.

00:45:15
Yet where does he stop? What is the atomic structure of the universe? Everyone take a breath. You just inhaled 1 million billion billion atoms if you like—10 to the 24 atoms in a breath. Remember when Julius Caesar was killed and he said to Brutus, his best friend, Brutus stabbed him in the gut, right? Okay, when Caesar said to Brutus, some of the atoms that came out of his mouth you are breathing right now. There’s a vague congruity for you.

00:45:55
There’s some kind of boundary and yet boundlessness to the atoms in Caesar’s mouth in the last words that he said. This is an odd kind of universe that we’re inhabiting in the 20th century because of its strange boundlessness. When I say Praise the Lord, when does my voice stop in a moment of blessing? If a person were to speak that and listen, then to the impression that is set up, the series of resonances, echoes bouncing off of one another—that phrase goes all the way around the globe and comes back to them. When? How long does it take for it to go around the globe and come back to them? Long time.

00:46:27
When a man says to a woman I love you and if he listens then to his voice and if he feels what happens in the woman when he speaks those words, there’s a vague congruity for you. Within these two views of the poem we will try to find out our own view.

00:46:49
Pick it up where we said Shall I say I have gone at dusk through narrow streets and watched the smoke that rises from the pipes of lonely men in shirt sleeves leaning out of windows. I don’t know why he’s asking us because we surely can’t answer it; we would say yes if you want to. You should.

00:47:01
Again, as with the light brown hair on the arms under the lamplight for a second time, we see that Prufrock really does love, even if he is weak. How many of us have looked up and seen with the smoke rising from the pipes? Look at the detail here. That’s the thing that impresses me. It shows a compassionate eye.

00:47:37
I have gone at dusk through narrow streets and watched the smoke that rises from the pipes of lonely men in shirt sleeves leaning out of windows. Why are they leaning out of the windows? Because it’s hot, sure, and also because they’re lonely and they want to belong to something.

00:48:11
As the old men lean out of the window smoking their pipes and are alone, so Prufrock as he wanders through the street is alone. Let us go then, you and I. He takes us by the arm and he wants us to come with him to see the streets that whine with their insidious intent. Prufrock walking is doing the same thing as the old men who were leaning out of the windows.

00:48:49
There are these human touches in the poem which seem to contradict the idea that Prufrock is a totally wasted human being. Then he says I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floors of silent seas. There’s also a lot of silence in the poem. It picks up then at line 75: In the afternoon, the evening sleeps, there’s an image to sleep, smoothed by long fingers.

00:49:22
Asleep, tired, or it mingers. Which is it that the afternoon does? Is it asleep? Is it tired? Is it daydreaming? Or is it just mingering? Any way you cut it, it doesn’t do any of those things. As a matter of fact, time, the afternoon in particular, is totally indifferent to the human beings who inhabit it. Time doesn’t care.

00:49:49
So if you attribute to time some kind of human motivation, then you realize that you’re making time over into yourself, which is a very typically human pastime. Smoothed by long fingers, stretched on the floor. Who’s stretched on the floor? You see the comma there. Smoothed by long fingers as sleep tired at minger stretched on the floor here beside you and me. Who’s stretched down on the floor beside us? The afternoon.

00:50:32
The afternoon should I after tea and cakes and ices have the strength to force the moment to its crisis? What’s the answer? Yes or no? Write it in the column your answer there. Yes or no? Maybe. Well, what do you do though? Though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed, though I have seen my head brought in upon a platter, I am no prophet and here’s no great matter.

00:51:07
Remember last time we said that poets and artists of all kinds tend to predict the future unknowingly in their work. The character Prufrock says he’s not a prophet, and he’s right, but Eliot is a prophet, apparently a very profound one.

00:51:37
What’s he prophesying, though? Is something more difficult for us to understand. I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker. I have seen the Eternal Footman hold my coat and snicker, and I was afraid. Was he afraid before that? Oh yeah, oh yeah, sure he was afraid, and he’s afraid afterward too.

00:52:12
See, the fact is in the poem, it’s not our environment that causes us to act the way we do, but it is rather our own internal predisposition to things that makes us what we are. So Prufrock’s going to be afraid no matter what happens. What if she says yes? He’ll be afraid. He is afraid.

00:52:48
You would ask: was he born that way? How did he get that way? But the poem doesn’t care, and time doesn’t care either. And would it have been worth it, after all, after the cups, the marmalade, the tea among the porcelain, among some talk, would it have been worthwhile to have bitten off the matter with a smile, to have squeezed the universe into a ball, to roll it toward some overwhelming question, to say I am Lazarus come back from the dead?

00:53:25
Would it have been worthwhile?

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[End of transcript]

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This transcript captures the extensive content from the provided text, covering the detailed lecture and analysis of T. S. Eliot’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, its themes of time, indecision, identity, and its connection to 20th-century scientific thought such as quantum physics, as well as reflections on human nature, consciousness, and metaphor.

 

 

 

 

 Summary of Part II

 

 

Summary

The video transcript is an in-depth lecture analyzing T.S. Eliot’s poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock within the context of 20th-century literature, quantum physics, and philosophical ideas about time, consciousness, and reality. The lecturer explores how Eliot’s work reflects the anxieties and transformations of humanity and the environment, particularly in the shadow of World War I and emerging scientific discoveries. The poem’s themes of indecision, alienation, and fragmented identity are examined alongside evolving concepts of time and objectivity rooted in quantum mechanics, emphasizing the poem as a Zone of Consciousness—a space where illusions coexist and reality is fluid rather than fixed.

Key aspects discussed include the metamorphosis metaphor in the poem’s opening fog imagery, the recurrent motif of time and its relativity, and Prufrock’s profound indecisiveness about engaging with life and others. The lecture explores Prufrock’s self-consciousness, fear of aging, and social anxiety, symbolized through images like preparing faces, eating a peach, and references to Michelangelo. The poem’s narrative is interpreted as reflecting the transition from classical deterministic physics to quantum indeterminacy, challenging traditional notions of objective reality.

Two critical interpretations of Prufrock are contrasted: one views him as a weak, indecisive man emblematic of early 20th-century pessimism; the other sees Prufrock as a non-literal entity embodying the fragmented, illusory nature of human consciousness in a quantum universe. The lecture concludes with reflections on how the poem’s indeterminacy parallels quantum theory’s rejection of classical objectivity, positioning Eliot as a prophetic figure who intuitively captured the spirit of his time’s scientific and philosophical upheavals.

Highlights

• [00:00] 🌫️ Introduction to metamorphosis in literature, focusing on fog turning into a cat or snake as symbolic transformation.
• [06:00] ⏳ Analysis of the motif of time’s relativity in the poem, emphasizing repeated phrases “there will be time.”
• [12:00] 🎭 Discussion of social performance and masks—“prepare a face to meet the faces”—highlighting Prufrock’s anxiety and facade.
• [23:45] 🍑 The peach as a symbol of risk, vulnerability, and social/emotional engagement that Prufrock hesitates to embrace.
• [41:00] 🔬 Prufrock as a “Zone of Consciousness” embodying quantum indeterminacy and illusion rather than a straightforward character.
• [55:00] ⚛️ Explanation of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics and its challenge to traditional notions of objective reality.
• [01:05:44] 🌊 Imagery of drowning in reality and waking from a dream, symbolizing the tension between illusion and wakefulness.

Key Insights

• [01:00] 🌍 Eliot’s prophetic environmental and human vision: The lecture highlights Eliot’s early sensitivity to the degradation of both humanity and the environment. Written during WWI, his poems prefigure later environmental concerns, positioning him as a visionary who intuited the 20th century’s crises long before they became widely acknowledged. This establishes a context where poetry serves not only as art but as cultural prophecy.

• [06:20] ⏳ Time as a fluid, relative construct: The repeated insistence that “there will be time” contrasts with the poem’s underlying urgency and indecision. This duality reflects early 20th-century shifts in understanding time—not as a fixed, linear progression but as subjective and fragmented. The poem’s layering of morning, afternoon, evening, and night underscores time’s elastic and sometimes meaningless nature, mirroring modern physics’ challenges to classical mechanics.

• [12:30] 🎭 Masks and social performance as barriers to authentic self: Prufrock’s “face” preparation symbolizes the pervasive social anxiety and alienation of modern individuals. The need to put on a “work face” or “social face” to navigate interactions reveals a fractured selfhood, where genuine identity is obscured by roles and expectations. This echoes broader modernist themes of fragmentation and loss of authentic connection.

• [23:50] 🍑 The peach as metaphor for intimacy and risk: The hesitation over “do I dare to eat a peach?” encapsulates Prufrock’s fear of vulnerability and commitment. The peach is not a literal fruit but a symbol of emotional and social engagement that might disrupt his carefully maintained isolation. This symbolizes the broader human fear of connection and change, especially acute with aging and accumulated life disappointments.

• [41:00] 🔬 Prufrock as a quantum-inspired Zone of Consciousness: Moving beyond a psychological reading, the poem is interpreted through the lens of quantum theory—Prufrock is not a single character but a floating constellation of illusions and fragmented experiences lacking linear causality. This aligns with quantum physics’ rejection of deterministic cause-effect in favor of probability and observer-dependent reality, suggesting Eliot’s modernist poetry intuitively mirrors scientific paradigms.

• [55:00] ⚛️ Quantum physics and the collapse of classical objectivity: The lecture introduces the Copenhagen interpretation, which asserts that physical reality does not exist in a definite state until observed. This challenges the classical belief in an independent objective reality and resonates with the poem’s themes of fragmented perception and indeterminate existence, where the act of observation (or decision) shapes reality.

• [01:05:00] 🌊 Drowning in reality and awakening from illusion: The closing imagery of drowning in “human voices” and waking up from a dream reflects the existential crisis of modern life. The “dream” state corresponds to illusion, while awakening corresponds to confronting harsh reality—yet this “reality” is itself overwhelming and suffocating. The tension between sleep and wakefulness symbolizes the human struggle to find meaning and connection in a fragmented, indifferent world.

Detailed Analysis

The lecture situates Prufrock firmly within the intellectual and cultural upheavals of the early 20th century. The poem’s fog metamorphosis serves as an entry point into the theme of transformation—in both external environment and internal consciousness. The fog’s yellow color symbolizes pollution and decay, reflecting industrialization’s impact on urban life and the environment. This sets a tone of malaise and corruption.

Eliot’s focus on “man and land” reflects humanity’s predicament amid war and environmental devastation. The poem’s setting during WWI heightens this sense of crisis, portraying a world where traditional certainties are eroding. The lecture emphasizes that Eliot’s prophetic vision is felt rather than analytically foreseen, suggesting poetry as an intuitive medium for capturing collective anxieties.

Time emerges as a critical motif, with its multiple references and repetitions underscoring its dual nature—both abundant (“there will be time, time, time”) and constraining. The poem’s protagonist is paralyzed by indecision, trapped in endless revisions and second-guessing. This paralysis symbolizes the modern human condition, caught between the desire for action and the fear of consequences.

Prufrock’s social anxiety manifests in the metaphor of “preparing a face” to meet others—a mask hiding true self. The lecture highlights the psychological toll of such performance, where interaction becomes a superficial ritual fraught with fear. The mention of “murder and creation” juxtaposes destructive and creative impulses, reflecting the tension between inertia and change.

The peach symbolizes the risk inherent in social and emotional engagement. Prufrock’s hesitation to “dare” to eat the peach represents a broader fear of intimacy and vulnerability. His self-awareness of aging, symbolized by thinning hair and rolled trousers, compounds this fear, underscoring themes of mortality and regret.

Quantum physics provides a novel framework for interpreting the poem. The lecturer juxtaposes Prufrock’s fragmented consciousness with quantum indeterminacy, where reality is not fixed but contingent on observation. This metaphor extends to human experience, suggesting that identities and realities are constructed through perception rather than existing objectively.

The Copenhagen interpretation’s challenge to classical objectivity resonates deeply with the poem’s themes. The lecture explains that at the atomic level, existence depends on observation, undermining the notion of a stable, observer-independent world. This scientific insight parallels the poem’s depiction of a fragmented, uncertain universe where cause and effect are disjointed and meaning is elusive.

Finally, the metaphor of drowning in reality captures the overwhelming nature of modern existence, where sensory overload and social alienation threaten to engulf the individual. The poem’s closing image of waking from the dream and drowning simultaneously evokes the paradox of awareness—knowledge brings both liberation and suffering.

In sum, the lecture presents The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock as a profound meditation on modernity’s fractured consciousness, situated at the crossroads of literature, philosophy, and science. Eliot emerges as a prophetic figure who, through poetic intuition, prefigured the complexities of a world transformed by war, technological change, and new scientific paradigms.

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Highlights

• [00:00] 🌫️ Introduction to metamorphosis and symbolic fog turning into cat or snake in Eliot’s poem.
• [06:00] ⏳ Repeated motif of “there will be time” illustrating time’s fluidity and relativity.
• [12:00] 🎭 Social masks and facades represent alienation and anxiety in human interaction.
• [23:45] 🍑 The peach symbolizes vulnerability, intimacy, and the fear of engagement.
• [41:00] 🔬 Prufrock as a “Zone of Consciousness” reflecting quantum indeterminacy and illusion.
• [55:00] ⚛️ Quantum physics’ Copenhagen interpretation challenges classical objectivity, paralleling poem’s themes.
• [01:05:44] 🌊 Imagery of drowning in reality and awakening from illusion captures existential crisis.

Key Insights

• [01:00] 🌍 Eliot’s prophetic insight into the degradation of humanity and environment anticipates 20th-century crises, blending poetic intuition with cultural prophecy.
• [06:20] ⏳ The poem’s treatment of time as repetitive yet urgent mirrors early 20th-century shifts toward relativistic and subjective conceptions of time.
• [12:30] 🎭 The preparation of social “faces” symbolizes fractured modern identity and the alienation of the individual in social rituals.
• [23:50] 🍑 The peach metaphor encapsulates the human fear of emotional risk and social engagement, especially in the face of aging and mortality.
• [41:00] 🔬 Prufrock as a “Zone of Consciousness” reflects the indeterminacy and fragmented illusions of quantum physics, moving beyond literal character analysis.
• [55:00] ⚛️ The Copenhagen interpretation’s denial of observer-independent reality parallels the poem’s exploration of perception shaping existence, challenging classical determinism.
• [01:05:00] 🌊 The drowning metaphor dramatizes the overwhelming flood of reality confronting individuals, illuminating the tension between illusion and awakening in modern consciousness.

Summary