Which two sections of this excerpt from T. S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" contain a biblical allusion? I should have been a pair of ragged claws Scuttling across the floors of silent seas. And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully! Smoothed by long fingers, Asleep … tired … or it malingers, Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me. Should I, after tea and cakes and ices, Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis? But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed, Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter, I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter; I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, And would it have been worth it, after all, After the cups, the marmalade, the tea, Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me, Would it have been worth while, To have bitten off the matter with a smile, To have squeezed the universe into a ball To roll it toward some overwhelming question, To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead, Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”— If one, settling a pillow by her head, Should say: “That is not what I meant at all; That is not it, at all.”

Respuesta :

The answer is:

  • But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed, Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter, I am no prophet
  • To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead, Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”

In the excerpt from the modernist poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," by T. S. Eliot, the speaker makes a biblical allusion when he mentions a prophet and then Lazarus.

First, he does not want readers to mistake him for a prophet, although he has cried, fastened and prayed. Besides, he suggests he has not been beheaded and had his bald head on a platter, referring to prophet John the Baptist's death.

Finally, he alludes to poor Lazarus, who died and went to heaven. Thus, he compares Dives' request to Abraham to resurrect Lazarus to the speaker's question or matter he is afraid to risk.