Notes of T.S. Eliot’s “Portrait of a Lady.”
Portrait of a Lady: The title of Eliot’s poem was taken from Henry James’s novel The Portrait of a Lady, written in 1881. James was highly regarded by the modernists and is considered one of their precursors. William Carlos Williams also wrote a poem with the same title and Ezra Pound wrote one but with the title in French: “Portrait d’une Femme.”
The Jew of Malta: A play written by Christopher Marlowe, first performed in 1592, about a Jew named Barabas who seeks revenge on the governor of Malta for seizing all his wealth. The cynical quotation suggests that there are limitations to sin; if a crime was committed in another country and with someone who’s now dead, the criminal is exculpated. At the end of “Portrait of a Lady,” the narrator is similarly planning to leave the country and also recognizing that the lady will soon die. The epigraph may also imply that the two characters were in a sexual relationship.
Transmit the Preludes: Frederic Chopin, Polish composer and pianist of the Romantic period, was known for his many piano pieces, of which his 24 Preludes Op. 28 is most famous. The music motif in the poem, especially in part one, creates a contrast between the lady’s opinion of intimacy “among friends” (l. 11) and the “dull tom-tom” (l. 33) beating in the head of the narrator, who doesn’t share her sentimentality.
Velleities: “The fact or quality of merely willing, wishing, or desiring, without any effort of advance towards action or realization” (OED sig. 1).
Cauchemar: French for “nightmare.” The use of French reflects the internationality and pretension of the society Eliot is depicting. Eliot himself was strongly rooted in French culture. He was heavily influenced by the French Symbolist movement, and after graduating from Harvard, he spent some time in Paris and even considered moving there permanently.
Ariettes: an arietta is a brief, cheerful musical composition. A contrast to the “dull tom-tom” (l. 33) brought about by the lady’s conversation.
Let us take the air, in a tobacco trance–: Cf. “Prufrock” ll. 1-3: “Let us go then, you and I,/ When the evening is spread out against the sky/ Like a patient etherized upon a table.”
Bocks: A strong dark-coloured variety of German beer. Also, a glass of this or any other beer (OED).
Lilacs: Cf. The Waste Land ll. 1-2: “April is the cruelest month, breeding/ Lilacs out of the dead land.” The lilac is a symbol of youth. During this section, the lady, who is now aging, laments that the narrator doesn’t realize how fortunate he is to be young.
Drinking tea: Cf. “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” l. 34: “Before the taking of a toast and tea,” and l. 51: “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.” Drinks like coffee and tea that would be imbibed at social gatherings evoke the banal, perfunctory life of someone like Prufrock or the Lady.
My buried life: Cf. “The Buried Life” (1852) by Matthew Arnold. The poem is about the inability to uncover or discuss our true thoughts and desires. Only in the company of a loved one can this feelings emerge. As in the Arnold poem, the lady is trying to tell the narrator how she truly feels, her “buried life,” but the two fail to communicate as she wishes they could.
October: The poem, which starts on a “December afternoon,” ends in October. Nearly a year has crept by, over which time the relationship has deteriorated.
“Dying Fall”: Cf. “Prufrock” l. 52: “I know the voices dying with a dying fall.” The phrase is taken from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night 1.1.4: “That strain again, it had a dying fall.” Spoken by the doleful Duke Orsino as he listens to music and broods over his love-sickness.