T.S. ELIOT AND EMILE DURKHEIM: SACRED AND PROFANE IN "THE LOVE SONG OF J. ALFRED PRUFROCK"

Abstract

Along history, sociology and literature have formed various associations with each other. From the sociology of literature that has considered literature as a social production to the usages of sociological perspectives as literary theories or the usage of literature as illustration of sociological abstract notions, literature and sociology have been constantly and interrelatedly studied. Nevertheless, this study aims at revealing another interrelation between literature and sociology by referring to the beginning of the twentieth century when the replacement of religious thinking with secular ideas was dominant in modern society. Sociologists like Emile Durkheim detected and studied this shift in modern society and later on literary authors of the time followed the promotion of secularism in their literary works. However, T.S. Eliot reacted to this replacement in his poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock". He wrote the poem while he was reviewing Durkheim’s The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life in the journal the Westminster Gazette. This paper argues that T.S. Eliot’s "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is written with a mindset loaded by Durkheim’s sociological perspectives such as the notions of the sacred and the profane to further conclude that T.S. Eliot’s creation of Prufrock is consistent with the view that the modern man is unable to establish himself in a society which is devoid of the notions of sacred and profane and that he may consider committing suicide to save himself as the final resort.