Q Select any two of the following questions and create two critical, thoughtful responses. When crafting your responses, be sure to note the title of the pieces you’re discussing. Use in-text citations from the readings to support your point of view. 1. “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” presents a character portrait of Prufrock. Find and explicate parts or lines in the poem that you feel best illustrate Eliot’s characterization of Prufrock’s “problems.” 2. Explain how you see Eliot using Prufrock to express the ills of Modernism (such as emotional paralysis, fragmentation, loneliness, dislocation, degeneration, etc.). 3. Drawing on specific textual evidence from the relevant poems, how might Prufrock fare in a romantic relationship with the persona/speaker typically found in Dorothy Parker’s poems? 4. How successful would Dorothy Parker’s poems on the trials of romantic love be if they were written from the perspective of a different gender identity or sexual orientation? For example, if the title of “Men” were changed to “Women” and written from a lesbian or a heterosexual male point of view, would it still be a successful poem? 5. Explain how “The Journey of the Magi” chronicles the cultural disruption experienced by the speaker-king and his feelings of cultural displacement at the beginning of the Christian era. How might this cultural displacement reflect or be emblematic of the rapid changes in Eliot’s era or the relentless social and technological fluctuations we are now experiencing in contemporary society? 6. Identify the main theme in one or more of Dorothy Parker’s poems and explain how one or more of the following elements informs that theme: humor, irony, tone, style, or diction. 7. Through an analysis of two or more poems by Parker, discuss her speakers’ attitudes toward love and romantic relationships. 8. Identify the main theme in one or more of Langston Hughes’s poems and explain how one or more of the following elements informs that theme: humor, irony, tone, style, or diction. 9. Through an analysis of one or more poems by Hughes, discuss his views on racial identity. 10. Identify the main theme in one or more of William Carlos Williams’s poems and explain how one or more of the following elements informs that theme: humor, irony, tone, style, or diction. 11. Comment on Williams’s unique use of structure, form, or style in one or more of his poems and discuss how these elements help to reinforce the overall theme or meaning of the poem. 12. In “Chicago,” Sandburg catalogs the shortcomings of the city, but in the end, the poem seems to present an overall positive image of the city. In short, he could be saying, “love it, or leave it.” Does Sandburg’s view represent a more mainstream American view, one that tends to accentuate the positive? What are the merits of such a “love it or leave it” mentality? What are the dangers of such a view? Make your initial posts by 11:59 p.m. U.S. EST/EDT on Day 4 of Unit 6. Then, review your classmates’ posts and respond to at least three of them. Make your final posts by 11:59 p.m. U.S. EST/EDT on Day 7 of this unit.