Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12431 in Books
• Published on: 2001-02-19
• Binding: Paperback
• 33 pages

Synopsis
In this series, a contemporary poet advocates a poet of the past or present whom they have particularly admired. By their selection of verses and by the personal and critical reactions they express, the selectors offer intriguing insight into their own work.

Customer Reviews

A thin collection of poems
If you must be a fan of this pretentious and shallow poet, you'd get far better value by buying his collected poems. Eliot was of course a master at making very little sound quite big and important, but with eight skinny poems and the longer ambitious poems of an experimenting adolescent here, even this famous word conjuror cannot make this thin book look like value for money.

Prufrock and other observations.
This collection is delightful to read, less obtuse than Eliot's later work but still packed with interesting ideas, both in terms of style and content. Unlike other pieces by Eliot such as The Wasteland or Four Quartets which focus more on philosophical and social concepts, these poems tend to focus more on the thoughts, feelings and actions of an individual.
Needless to say, the most famous (or infamous) poem here is the Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, which is much more accessible than you have probably been lead to believe, and I think that we can all relate to the eponymous characters plight. The less famous poems in this book are also real gems; Portrait of a Lady is charming, and so many others are worth reading but I do not have time to mention them here.
If you are already interested then this book will be a worthwhile purchase, especially as it is only £5; if not then look at other online reviews and commentaries and then decide. I enjoy reading my copy of this, and I cannot see why most people would not also appreciate this either as a gift or if they have purchased themselves.

Prufrock and Other Observations
First published in 1917, this collection of twelve poems by T.S. Eliot is a delightful read for all poetry lovers. The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock sees the hero pondering over the worth of pursuing the object of his affections. It is full of ordinary scenes viewed in extraordinary ways.
This little collection is well worth owning.