The Cloud Of Unknowing By J. Alfred Prufrock Essay

A parallel novel, The Cloud of Unknowing, was anonymously written in the fourteenth-century about the journey of transitioning from a secular life to a God centered life. It begins with the writer addressing the reader in a fatherly manner- this way, the reader is able to connect with the writer even when the journey gets rough. The author states the journey to know God is contemplative, through giving up all previous understandings of God and traveling through a â€Å"cloud of unknowing† to obtain a oneness with God. The author also notes that the journey will not be easy and that frustration can happen, but that frustration should be channeled into focus as greater understanding will come as the frustration ends. The hard part of this journey, according to the author, is in having a desire or willingness to work over time to come to oneness with God. In â€Å"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock† the main character of the poem, Prufrock, expresses the theme of isolation and introduces the reader to his sense of feeling isolated because of how he thinks he is perceived by others. Prufrock’s search to end his isolation is shown by the conversational monologue that he carries out as he searches for a way to connect with other people. Prufrock’s isolation is shown through both an epigraph from Dante and multiple types of imagery spread throughout the poem such as music, sex, and nature. The epigraph used for the poem is from Dante’s Inferno canto XXVII. These short few lines