Question

If music be the food of love, play on; Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, The appetite may sicken, and so die. That strain again! it had a dying fall: O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound, That breathes upon a bank of violets, Stealing and giving odour! Now read the excerpt from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." For I have known them all already, known them all: Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons; I know the voices dying with a dying fall Beneath the music from a farther room. What does the phrase “dying fall” most likely mean in both excerpts? The noise is jarring. The noise is soothing. The sounds are fading. The sounds are too loud.

Answer 1

The sounds are fading

"breathes upon a bank of violets" suggests that the "dying fall" is soft and almost unheard. Then "voices dying" and "farther room" suggest these noises have or are fading since they can barely be heard

Answer 2

In both excerpts, "dying fall" means that the sounds are fading.

Step-by-step explanation:

The first excerpt was taken from Shakespeare's play "The Twelfth Night". While it talks of music, the excerpt from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" talks of voices. Yet, in both excerpts the phrase "dying fall" refers to the sounds, to the fact they are fading, be it sweetly or drowned by other noises.

It is interesting to note that the second excerpt is actually alluding to the first one. "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is a poem by T. S. Elliot; it has allusions to Shakespeare's works such as mentioning Hamlet or even by employing that simple phrase - dying fall - that appears in "The Twelfth Night". Prufrock, the speaker of the poem, mentions it while describing the voices he can hear coming from a different room. Prufrock is anxious, picturing scenarios in his mind, afraid of how women shall see him, what they'll say about him; afraid of rejection. He lives life through other people, by listening to them while they live, and eat, and laugh - those voices are his amusement; if they fade, he fades with them.