Poetry should not be confined to one interpretation.
In conjunction with the immortal words, “Life imitates Art” -
an enormous part of real life itself is that it cannot be pinned down to a singular meaning, there are too many different views, different perceptions.
A particular poem that supports this statement is “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S Eliot. To me it embodies the epitome of double-entendre, and the most fascinating aspect of it is that despite the poem being an enigma, it is impossible to decode it in an ordinary sense; it eludes any singular consequence, thus is open to any perspective but will not yield completely to any either.
Throughout, Eliot mixes the life-changing with the trivial, peppering Prufrock’s chunks of profound philosophical monologue with occasional references to “the cups, the marmalade, the tea” – essentially, highlighting the futility of his procrastination. The Prufrockian paralysis to act (to say what he wants to say) is one of the main themes in the poem. Constantly, Prufrock is paranoid and weary his old age and it is clear how it affects his neurosis. His anxiety stretches from the petty physical signs of age – “With a bald spot in the middle of my hair”- to his apparent belief that all women have conspired against him. Towards the end when his imagination runs riot with images of the sea, the mermaids of his fantasy represent women’s mistreatment of him (he sadly reflects “I do not think they will sing to me.)
He also feels sexual inadequacy, which is manifested in the line “Do I dare to eat a peach?” This line could state the obvious – that he fears doing something as petty as eating a piece of fruit, but a peach has long been a symbol for female genitalia, and is also a Chinese symbol for immortality and marriage (two things Prufrock desires). Another reference to his psychosexual anxiety is when the mermaids cruelly comb the “white hair of the waves” back. Prufrock’s thinning, salt-and-pepper hair mocks him here amongst the females, as hair has long been a symbol of virility and youth.
Moreover, the poet enjoys personifying Prufrock and his visions as different animals, perhaps emphasizing a somewhat subconscious affinity and empathy with
nature, and the vulnerability they (Prufrock included) have towards humanity - humans always seeming to reject him (“And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker”). After languishing over ways to profess his paranoia, he compares himself to an insect - “pinned and wriggling on the wall” – constantly scrutinized by the probing eyes that “fix you in a formulated phrase”.
Another poem that defies to be detained to a single meaning is “Kubla Khan” by Coleridge. From the first stanza, the poem has a feel of great mystery to it; being set in Eastern lands it appealed to Europeans at the time it was written, as the East represented exoticness, knowledge and chaos, in comparison to the assumption of order and the reason in the West.
The
pleasure dome itself created by Kubla Khan could represent many things; an accumulation of human hedonistic pleasures, or it could be the Garden of Eden, which it physically resembles. I personally feel the pleasure dome is a warning to man not to try to tame something as primal as nature for earthly, selfish pleasures. The notion that walls and towers surround the dome is instantly ominous – are they there to protect the dome from others or to prevent escape?
The next stanza is even more ambiguous and rich with symbolism. In this part the Freudian perspective is at its most prevalent; the “mighty fountain” and images of it bursting have consciously phallic connotations, and the “ancestral voices prophesying war!” could hint at pregnancy after this ejaculation. Yet I feel the imagery is more a metaphor for nature punishing man (in the form of Kubla Khan) for trying to pervert it – essentially, Promethean desires to coerce something so potentially catastrophic will be punished in the most devastating of ways.
The outcome is almost post-apocalyptic; only a “shadow of the dome of pleasure” remains on a lifeless sea. Again, it appears the shadow is just a metaphor for what the pleasure dome used to be, and what it represented. This seems a likely interpretation when considering the last line of the stanza, which is the largest paradox of the poem – “A sunny pleasure dome with caves of ice!” This paradox could simply be a perversion of nature, but I feel it suggests that the “sunny pleasure dome” is not physically present, but is replaced by a shadow, a mere memory. The ice caves remain to remind man of the bleakness brought upon himself for tampering with God’s creation - all the more grotesque as they resemble the lowest legion of Dante’s Inferno, in which Satan is entrapped.
Thus, to conclude, although I feel poems do not need to be overwhelmed with the most esoteric symbolism to be regarded as competent, ultimately it is the mystery of the poet’s language that captivates us as readers throughout the years. In a society where we understand that we actually have incredibly little knowledge when it comes to decoding life, it remains that the most elusive poems have exerted the most fascination over the generations.