The Hortatory Subjunctive (More Prufrock by T.S.Eliot)

The hortatory subjunctive is what makes a sentence a suggestion and an exhortation, but not a command. In English, we use "Let [subject] [verb]." That is a bizarre construction, but it works for us. One of my favorite poems in the universe starts out with this:

Let us go then, you and I,

When the evening is spread out against the sky

Like a patient etherized upon a table;

Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,

The muttering retreats

Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels

And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:

Streets that follow like a tedious argument

Of insidious intent

To lead you to an overwhelming question ...

Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”

Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go

Talking of Michelangelo. 

 

--T.S. Eliot

A Piece of Prufrock

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, "Do I Dare?" and, "Do I dare?"
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair--
...
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and metickous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse
At time indeed, almost ridiculous--
Almost, at time, the Fool.

T. S. Eliot

Today's Five Quotes

1. Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood. --T.S.Eliot
2. The last function of reason is to recognize that there are an infitnity of things which surpass it. --Blaine Pascal
3. It requires a very unusual mind to undertake analysis of the obvious. --Alfred North Whitehead
4. Those who hear not the music think the dancers mad. --Anonymous
5. Do not believe that he who seeks to comfort you lives untroubled among the simple and quiet words that sometimes do you good. His life has much difficulty and sadness...were it otherwise, he would never have been able to find those words. --Rainer Maria Rilke