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The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock in popular culture

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T. S. Eliot's 1915 poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is often referenced in popular culture.

Contents

Film and television

The poem is quoted several times, by various characters, in Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979).

The film I've Heard the Mermaids Singing (1987) directed by Patricia Rozema takes its title from a line in the poem; as does the film Eat the Peach (1986), directed by Peter Ormrod.

In the Woody Allen film Midnight in Paris (2011), Gil (Owen Wilson) mentions the poem to T.S. Eliot as they get into a taxi.

Music

  • James McMurtry sings "I measure out my life in coffee grounds" in his song "Charlemagne's Home Town" on the 2005 album Childish Things, a variation of the verse "I have measured out my life with coffee spoons".
  • Frank Turner also references Prufrock in the song title "I knew Prufrock before he got famous" on his 2008 album Love Ire & Song.
  • "Afternoons & Coffeespoons" (1993), a song by the Canadian pop rock group Crash Test Dummies, is built on references to the poem, and namedrops Eliot himself.
  • Sting sings in the song "Bring on the Night" on The Police 1979 album Reggatta de Blanc, "The afternoon has gently passed me by, the evening spreads itself against the sky" which evokes: "Let us go then, you and I, / When the evening is spread out against the sky".

    • Literature

    Novels that reference the poem include The Long Goodbye (1953) by Raymond Chandler, the young-adult novel The Chocolate War (1974) by Robert Cormier, The Eternal Footman (1999, the title of which also comes from the poem) by James K. Morrow, and When Beauty Tamed the Beast (2011) by Eloisa James. The August 1972 issue of National Lampoon featured an article by Sean Kelly entitled "The Love Song of J. Edgar Hoover" which began "We'd better go quietly, you and I." Humorist Kinky Friedman also wrote a novel entitled The Love Song of J. Edgar Hoover. The young-adult novelists John Green and Sarah Dessen make references to the poem in their respective novels The Fault in Our Stars and Dreamland. In The Austere Academy in A Series of Unfortunate Events, the Baudelaire orphans attend Prufrock Preparatory School.

    References

    The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock in popular culture Wikipedia
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