by Eliot · Cluster: Mortality · Grave · Memento Mori

Abstract

Title/dedication page of Eliot’s collected verse, opening with the Prufrock dedication to Jean Verdenal (mort aux Dardanelles) and a Dante epigraph; frames the volume’s preoccupation with mortality, memory and the elegiac.

Connections

Themes & Concepts: Mortality, Grief and Loss Forms & Genres: Elegy, Lyric Historical References: First World War, Dante

Testo integrale / Full text

COLLECTED POEMS 1909–1962

PRUFROCK
and Other Observations
1917

For Jean Verdenal, 1889–1915
mort aux Dardanelles

Or puoi la quantitate
comprender dell’amor ch’a te mi scalda,
quando dismento nostra vanitate,
trattando l’ombre come cosa salda.