{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1400",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 1400,
    "subject": "Off Topic: Prufrock",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1999-03-01T14:53:50+00:00",
    "last": "1999-03-01T14:53:50+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0024-0026@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Tony Ellis",
        "address": "tony.ellis at futurenet.co.uk"
      },
      "date": "1999-03-01T14:53:50+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Off Topic: Prufrock",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Christopher R. Culver wrote:\nI disagree. My English teacher and most of the literary criticsm about the\npoem think that \"Prufrock\" is about the an \"embittered and horny old man\" (I\ncan provide the source for this tomorrow once I get to the library) who cannot\naccept his lack of power when it comes to seducing women. And so, without the\nability to propogate, his life begins to be without attraction."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I can just about see why you might want to say that Prufrock the\ncharacter was an \"embittered and horny old man\", but Prufrock the poem\nis something much bigger, and I really think you'll find the lit. crit.\nbacks me up on this one."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "And Alex David Groce wrote:\n        Well, I don't really think that Prufrock is about anything so Freudian\nas inability to procreate or seduce--Prufrock's failure to declare his love for\nthe \"That is not what I meant at all\" woman is merely symptomatic.  I think the\nepigraph from the Inferno is telling--this is a vision of Hell in life.\nPrufrock is incapable of \"disturbing the universe,\" of offering love, in\ngeneral of facing the transcendent--\"I have seen the moment of my greatness\nflicker,/ And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,/And in\nshort I was afraid.\""
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Absolutely.\nThe quote from the Inferno - which can be roughly translated as \"If I\nthought you could return to the world with what I am about to tell you,\nI would hold my tongue\" - is also significant for the way it reflects\nPrufrock's own passive approach to life. He's only speaking out (or\nthinking aloud) because he has already decided that nothing can be\nachieved by doing so."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}