“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T. S. Eliot (post 3): How does this poem differ from the incoherent rambling of someone with blatant psychosis?

If I had been shown this poem as an example of the writing of a prospective patient, my first impression would have been that the person was psychotic, because the poem makes no sense.

However, if I were then told that the author was a normally functioning person, I would have revised my opinion, because, after all, if I ignore the poem’s incoherence, I must admit that its use of language is sophisticated and appealing.

But if I were then told that this was the first major poem of a Nobel Prize winner, I would have had to look for something more than an appealing way with words.

I’m sorry if I seem to have the same answer for everything—I really don’t, when not discussing the issues of this blog—but I think that what gives this poem its psychological depth and intrigue is its unacknowledged multiple personality.

To readers of this poem who, knowingly or unknowingly, have multiple personality themselves, the poem will seem, somehow, deeply true. And to those readers who do not have multiple personality, the poem may seem to have a hidden, intriguing, complex intelligence.