Art in Poetry: "The Archaic Essay

The interpretation of the poem, like the speaker's interpretation of the statue, will likely depend on what he or she feels at the time about his or her own life.

The subjectivity of perception is also evident in the "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot. The speaker of this poem casts his decision to declare or not declare his love in heroic terms, even while he mourns the smallness of his existence, measured out in coffee spoons, in rooms where dull women come and go and talk about the great Leonardo in polite terms.The women, including his beloved, only see the speaker as a balding man, rather than the Hamlet he wishes to be, at the center of a great drama -- and because they see him as a fool, he feels like a fool. However, the contrast between inner and outer reality seen in Rilke is echoed in "Prufrock," as despite the placid way the speaker exists externally, internally he has a far different self-image and possesses a very turbulent inner life......