Not again!

One of my favorite poems is "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock".* One of my favorites despite having studied it in English Comp 2, American Lit (because Eliot was born in the US), and World Lit (because Eliot spent his later years in England and even gave up American citizenship to become a British subject). So even after hearing it picked apart and analyzed several times, I still like it.

Poetry analysis was my least favorite part of literature classes. I just like what I like and hate picking a poem apart until there's nothing left, no meaning. I particularly hated it in high school, college wasn't as bad.** None of my college professors made us pick a poem apart line by line like my 11th grade teacher did.

Another poet I studied in multiple classes (high school, brit lit, and world lit) was William Blake. His stuff's pretty good, too.


*There IS a wiki for everything.
**We were never expected to discuss other possibilities for the what the mushrooms symbolized in college. One kid did suggest communism. Maybe she was writing in support of the Truman Doctrine but based on our slight knowledge of Sylvia Plath what, other than depression, were we, snot nosed 16/17 yr. olds, going to think?