An analysis of TS Eliot’s ‘Rhapsody on a Windy Night’ by Prufrock and other observations

TS Eliot is considered an extremely important modernist writer. He inaugurated a range of narrative and stylistic techniques that exerted a considerable influence on modernism in literature. This article explores the poem ‘Rhapsody on a Windy Night’, from Eliot’s poem. Prufrock and other observationsconcentrating mainly on the concept of time and how it appears in the poem.

Time is undoubtedly associated with the notions of present and past, and plays an important role in ‘Rhapsody on a Windy Night’, hereinafter referred to as ‘Rhapsody’ in this article. It could be argued that modernist interest in time is partly determined by earlier scientific discoveries. The very concept of time had been on the threshold of change since the sixteenth century. However, the plethora of scientific explorations and discoveries in the 19th century seemed to herald a new era in science. While Eliot was writing Prufrock’s poems, advances in theoretical physics, such as the formulation of Einstein’s special theory of relativity, were transforming the understanding of time as a physical measure. However, as far as Eliot’s own interests were concerned at the time, it was the French philosopher Henri Bergson who exerted the most immediate influence.

While still residing in the United States, a young Eliot made extensive visits to Europe, where he attended lectures given by Bergson. The philosopher’s theories about time and his attempts to define the nature of the past, present and future are manifest in several of Prufrock’s poems, especially in ‘Rhapsody’, which is generally seen as a reworking of some of the ideas from Bergson; therefore an understanding of them is useful in assessing Eliot’s own attitudes towards the present. Most of Bergson’s is extremely difficult to understand, so it is beneficial to attempt a summary of his ideas before looking at how they are represented in Eliot’s poetry. In its creative evolution (1907) and Matter and Memory (1896), two works with which Eliot was familiar while composing Prufrock’s poems, Bergson set out to define the nature of time and consciousness as experienced by human beings. He came up with an idea that he called ‘le durée’, which means ‘duration’, a metaphysical construct that sees evolution and consciousness as underpinned by a constant stream of moments that cannot be measured by clock time. In creative evolutionBergson proposed the notion that the natural state of an individual is change, stating that all feelings and ideas are in constant flux.

Bergson thought that an individual’s memory forms a large part of this process, with memories of the past constantly resurfacing into a person’s consciousness. It is this perpetual revival of the past that plays a central role in ‘Rhapsody’, where, while wandering through a desolate environment, the protagonist experiences a variety of seemingly fragmented memories. In Matter and Memory Bergson strove to assess the nature of consciousness and its inextricable association with time. This was achieved by trying to define the relationship between past, present and future. Bergson considered that the true essence of time is its transitory nature. This presents a problem in identifying the exact point that could be considered ‘the present’. Bergson admits that what we identify as the present is made up of sensations derived from the past and actions directed towards the future, and it is this inherent duality that informs much of the content of ‘Rhapsody’.

The poem is set in an urban setting, a characteristic setting for much of modernist poetry. As with Prufrock’s other poems, a defining characteristic of ‘Rhapsody’ is Eliot’s perfection of a highly original and distinctly modern poetic voice. It is important to recognize that this poet character is not intended to represent TS Eliot himself, but rather is a fictitious construction that brings together the formal and thematic qualities of the poem. This particular poetic consciousness belongs to an alienated individual who recounts his experiences while wandering through a desolate city after midnight. The use of the word ‘rhapsody’ in the title of the poem is somewhat ironic, as we normally associate this word with ‘enthusiasm’ or ‘extravagance’; the observations and memories experienced by the person of the poet seem more demeaning and futile, and the prevailing tone is generally gloomy and depressing.

The poet’s personality in ‘Rhapsody’ is characterized by a lack of control, efficiently illustrated by the seemingly random appearance of memories. This pervasive sense of involuntariness acts in part as a poetic expression of Bergson’s theories. Bergson’s notion that the body acts as a conduit for a range of sensations derived from a person’s past experience is dislodged in the lines ‘Memory throws up high and dry / A multitude of twisted things’. By choosing to say ‘the memory’ instead of ‘my memory’, he adds to the divided quality of the protagonist, as if he were made up of separate parts rather than a whole.

The reader realizes that the protagonist of ‘Rhapsody’ has little or no control over this incessant stream of resurfacing memories. Eliot illustrates this unpredictability of memory in several lines, but perhaps most notably in the bizarre image of “a madman shaking a dead geranium.” Geraniums become a symbol of the involuntary memory of the poet’s character in the last lines ‘Reminiscence comes / From sunless dry geraniums’.

The street lamps that the poet’s character encounters play a key role in the poem. They are personified – a device that contributes to the fragmented and dissociated nature of the protagonist – in the second stanza, with the lines ‘The lamppost sizzled / The lamppost murmured / The lamppost said’. Eliot achieves this disjointed effect by having the poet’s character’s perceptions acted out as observations of streetlights. For example, in the second stanza, the street lamp tells the protagonist to look at a woman, while in the fourth and fifth stanzas he is told to look at a cat and then at the moon, respectively. These urban sightings are deliberately seedy and depressing: the woman is clearly a prostitute; she describes the cat sticking out its tongue to devour “a mouthful of rancid butter”, an act that the reader assumes as a subtle reflection of the protagonist’s futile existence; while the moon is outlined in the most unflattering and unromantic tone: ‘A smallpox washed cracks her face.’ These images and those from the protagonist’s memory are juxtaposed with the inexorable march of time on the clock, illustrated by the stark fact that most of the stanzas begin by informing the reader of the actual time.

The concept of time plays an important role in ‘Rhapsody on a Windy Night’. As this article has illustrated, the notion of present is multifaceted, when one takes into account Eliot’s interpretation of Henri Bergson’s theories.