ladysavage
Redshirt
http://www.bartleby.com/198/1.html
I read this poem for class and identified with the speaker immediately (although most of my classmates thought that he should just grow a pair). I think that the speaker is an INTP and suffers from classic INTP problems--self-consciousness, social isolation, insecurity about oneself combined with delusions of grandeur, neuroticism over articulating verbally precise and accurate truths and statements, problems with relating and communicating with the opposite gender, over-thinking and over-analyzing, etc. etc. etc. The poem also contains images that were considered uniquely dark, desolate, and even offensive for literary sensibilities at the time. I've started to connect darkness with the general INTP aesthetic (not to say that this an exclusive connection).
I wonder if we can extrapolate this connection to T. S. Eliot (who wrote the poem) and his MBTI type. Although it is certainly important to separate the speaker and the poet, Eliot wrote the poem when he was 22 and probably based it on his experiences. From what I know of his biography, he strikes me as an INTx type. He did not concern himself with compromising with the public or with literary conventions; instead, he focused on using poetry as an expression of the complexity with living between the modern and the traditional.
Anyway, before I go off writing a spontaneous thesis paper about this--thoughts? Anyone know more about Eliot or this poem want to give another opinion?
I read this poem for class and identified with the speaker immediately (although most of my classmates thought that he should just grow a pair). I think that the speaker is an INTP and suffers from classic INTP problems--self-consciousness, social isolation, insecurity about oneself combined with delusions of grandeur, neuroticism over articulating verbally precise and accurate truths and statements, problems with relating and communicating with the opposite gender, over-thinking and over-analyzing, etc. etc. etc. The poem also contains images that were considered uniquely dark, desolate, and even offensive for literary sensibilities at the time. I've started to connect darkness with the general INTP aesthetic (not to say that this an exclusive connection).
I wonder if we can extrapolate this connection to T. S. Eliot (who wrote the poem) and his MBTI type. Although it is certainly important to separate the speaker and the poet, Eliot wrote the poem when he was 22 and probably based it on his experiences. From what I know of his biography, he strikes me as an INTx type. He did not concern himself with compromising with the public or with literary conventions; instead, he focused on using poetry as an expression of the complexity with living between the modern and the traditional.
Anyway, before I go off writing a spontaneous thesis paper about this--thoughts? Anyone know more about Eliot or this poem want to give another opinion?