Sons and Lovers is a novel by D. H. Lawrence centering on the tension and conflict between maternal and romantic love. Gertrude Coppard falls for a lower-class man named Walter, from whom she drifts apart after their marriage. Instead, she loves and coddles her sons: first William, who has a failed engagement and dies, and next Paul, who has a failed relationship with Miriam and then Clara. After Gertrude dies, Paul abandons Clara and is left with nothing, his mother's love having always overshadowed all other relationships.
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock is a poem dealing with the isolation and self-perceived impotence of a man living in a city just prior to the outbreak of World War I. The poem dwells on themes like unresolved carnal desire, loss of manhood, the inevitability of death, and embarrassment. The poem was T. S. Eliot's first foray into what would be a long and celebrated career in Modernist poetry.