Uploaded February 2014 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Here's a virtual movie of the Late celebrated Australian Irish actor Peter O'shaughnessy reciting beautifully one of the greatest poems of the 20th century The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock By T.S. Eliot.
I briefly got to know Peter O'shaughnessy in May of 2013 just 2 months before his death, having known his name from my collection of poetry records. I had several chats with him on the phone and he was very enthusiastic about my virtual movies of great poets and literary figures. I sent him copies of several of his records he had lost copies of years ago. He sent me loads of amazing recordings of him reading poetry,literature,Irish folklore etc and asked me to animate what I could of his stuff.I managed to do a few,but with so much material and quite a bit of it out my comfort zone knowledgewise I must admit I was a bit overwhelmed having lost touch with him I was really saddened to read of his passing in July last year he was such a great character,and even at the great age of 89 full of enthusiasm for the spoken word and life.
Peter O'shaughnessy OAM (1923-2013 ), actor and producer, has produced numerous Australian plays, including John Courtney's 'Off to the Diggings' and James Tucker's Jemmy Green in Australia at the Adelaide Festival in 1966. He has played the major Shakespearean tragic roles both in Australia and overseas and is well known for his one-act show 'Diary of a Madman', an adaptation of Gogol's short story. In 1968 he collaborated with Graeme Inson and Russel Ward in The Restless Years; a lavishly illustrated anthology of documents, ballads, poems, letters, extracts from journals, newspaper reports and advertisements, The Restless Years ranges from 1770 to 1901 and is based on an award-winning television programme, produced by O'Shaughnessy. In the 1950s he also wrote and produced with Jeff Underhill a popular children's play, 'The Bunyip and the Satellite'. He edited the memoirs of Joseph Holt, published under the title A Rum Story (1988), and the journal of John Mitchel, titled The Gardens of Hell: John Mitchel in Van Diemen's Land, 1850-1853 (1988).
"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", commonly known as "Prufrock", is a poem by American-British poet T. S. Eliot (1888--1965). Eliot began writing "Prufrock" in February 1910 and it was first published in the June 1915 issue of Poetry: A Magazine of Verse[2] at the instigation of Ezra Pound (1885--1972). It was later printed as part of a twelve-poem pamphlet (or chapbook) titled Prufrock and Other Observations in 1917.[1] At the time of its publication, Prufrock was considered shocking and offensive, but is now seen as heralding a paradigmatic cultural shift from late 19th century Romantic verse and Georgian lyrics to Modernism. The poem is regarded[by whom?] as the beginning of Eliot's career as an influential poet.
Thomas Stearns Eliot OM (26 September 1888 -- 4 January 1965) was an essayist, publisher, playwright, literary and social critic and "one of the twentieth century's major poets."[1] Born in St. Louis, Missouri in the United States, he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 (at age 25) and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.
Eliot attracted widespread attention for his poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915), which is seen as a masterpiece of the Modernist movement. It was followed by some of the best-known poems in the English language, including The Waste Land (1922), The Hollow Men (1925), Ash Wednesday (1930) and Four Quartets (1945).[2] He is also known for his seven plays, particularly Murder in the Cathedral (1935). He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948, "for his outstanding, pioneer contribution to present-day poetry.
Kind Regards
Jim Clark
All rights are reserved on this video recording copyright Jim Clark 2013
Here's a virtual movie of the Late celebrated Australian Irish actor Peter O'shaughnessy reciting beautifully one of the greatest poems of the 20th century The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock By T.S. Eliot.
I briefly got to know Peter O'shaughnessy in May of 2013 just 2 months before his death, having known his name from my collection of poetry records. I had several chats with him on the phone and he was very enthusiastic about my virtual movies of great poets and literary figures. I sent him copies of several of his records he had lost copies of years ago. He sent me loads of amazing recordings of him reading poetry,literature,Irish folklore etc and asked me to animate what I could of his stuff.I managed to do a few,but with so much material and quite a bit of it out my comfort zone knowledgewise I must admit I was a bit overwhelmed having lost touch with him I was really saddened to read of his passing in July last year he was such a great character,and even at the great age of 89 full of enthusiasm for the spoken word and life.
Peter O'shaughnessy OAM (1923-2013 ), actor and producer, has produced numerous Australian plays, including John Courtney's 'Off to the Diggings' and James Tucker's Jemmy Green in Australia at the Adelaide Festival in 1966. He has played the major Shakespearean tragic roles both in Australia and overseas and is well known for his one-act show 'Diary of a Madman', an adaptation of Gogol's short story. In 1968 he collaborated with Graeme Inson and Russel Ward in The Restless Years; a lavishly illustrated anthology of documents, ballads, poems, letters, extracts from journals, newspaper reports and advertisements, The Restless Years ranges from 1770 to 1901 and is based on an award-winning television programme, produced by O'Shaughnessy. In the 1950s he also wrote and produced with Jeff Underhill a popular children's play, 'The Bunyip and the Satellite'. He edited the memoirs of Joseph Holt, published under the title A Rum Story (1988), and the journal of John Mitchel, titled The Gardens of Hell: John Mitchel in Van Diemen's Land, 1850-1853 (1988).
"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", commonly known as "Prufrock", is a poem by American-British poet T. S. Eliot (1888--1965). Eliot began writing "Prufrock" in February 1910 and it was first published in the June 1915 issue of Poetry: A Magazine of Verse[2] at the instigation of Ezra Pound (1885--1972). It was later printed as part of a twelve-poem pamphlet (or chapbook) titled Prufrock and Other Observations in 1917.[1] At the time of its publication, Prufrock was considered shocking and offensive, but is now seen as heralding a paradigmatic cultural shift from late 19th century Romantic verse and Georgian lyrics to Modernism. The poem is regarded[by whom?] as the beginning of Eliot's career as an influential poet.
Thomas Stearns Eliot OM (26 September 1888 -- 4 January 1965) was an essayist, publisher, playwright, literary and social critic and "one of the twentieth century's major poets."[1] Born in St. Louis, Missouri in the United States, he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 (at age 25) and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.
Eliot attracted widespread attention for his poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915), which is seen as a masterpiece of the Modernist movement. It was followed by some of the best-known poems in the English language, including The Waste Land (1922), The Hollow Men (1925), Ash Wednesday (1930) and Four Quartets (1945).[2] He is also known for his seven plays, particularly Murder in the Cathedral (1935). He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948, "for his outstanding, pioneer contribution to present-day poetry.
Kind Regards
Jim Clark
All rights are reserved on this video recording copyright Jim Clark 2013
