This thesis examines the dissemination of T.S. Eliot's poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" through the twentieth century. While scholars seem interested in "Prufrock" as an influential poem, it seems there is limited scholarship on how its influence was propagated. This thesis posits that Bohemianism was the cultural milieu by which "Prufrock" gained popularity and was subsequently appropriated. This thesis looks to Virginia Woolf's The Waves (1931), Julio Cortázar's Hopscotch (1963; English translation 1966), and Jack Kerouac's Big Sur (1962) as hypertexts of "Prufrock" and as examples of how Bohemianism acted as a factor in its appropriation. This thesis finds that Bohemianism, as a culture of collaboration built on its own myth, is a powerful source of intertextuality that likely could have subsumed "Prufrock" as part of that myth. / Master of Arts / This thesis is interested in the influence of "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" on later novels of the twentieth century, focusing on Virginia Woolf's The Waves (1931), Julio Cortázar's Hopscotch (1963; English translation 1966), and Jack Kerouac's Big Sur (1962). "Prufrock" is a canonical text by T.S. Eliot and its contents (imagery, language, themes, etc.) were borrowed in later texts in a process known as appropriation. This thesis is specifically interested in why "Prufrock" was influential enough to be appropriated throughout the twentieth century and finds that the culture of Bohemianism is a possible explanation for that influence. Bohemianism describes an urban phenomenon of artists, writers, and intellectuals forming groups to discuss intellectual matters and collaborate on literary and artistic projects. This thesis finds that "Prufrock" contains qualities which appeal to Bohemian participants and as such it was taken up and appropriated as a poem by various Bohemian writers.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/115100 |
| Date | 18 May 2023 |
| Creators | Jorgensen, Alyssa Catherine |
| Contributors | English, Reed, Ashley, Wiscomb, Avery, Knapp, Shoshana Milgram |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | ETD, application/pdf |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
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