Which poet wrote "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," though born in America, became a British citizen?

Question

Accepted Answer

T.S. Eliot. The correct answer is T.S. Eliot. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Eliot settled in England in 1914 and became a British citizen in 1927. "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (1915) introduced a new kind of poetry: ironic, fragmented, and deeply anxious. Prufrock's inability to act, his self-consciousness, and his sense of cultural decline made him an emblematic figure of modernist alienation.

Ezra Pound was also an American expatriate who championed modernist poetry, but he did not write "Prufrock" (though he helped get it published). W.H. Auden made the opposite journey, born in England and becoming an American citizen. Robert Frost lived briefly in England but returned to America and never became a British citizen.

Eliot appears on both American and English literature CLEP exams due to his dual nationality. Students should know "Prufrock," "The Waste Land," "The Hollow Men," and "Four Quartets." His concept of the "objective correlative" (expressing emotion through objects and situations rather than direct statement) and his essay "Tradition and the Individual Talent" are essential critical concepts.

CLEP English Literature: Question of the Day

Get a free CLEP English Literature question every day

Ready for the full CLEP English Literature? Earn 6 college credits.