Monday, December 1, 2014

Four Quartets

Four Quartets by TS Eliot, 39 pages 
http://images.betterworldbooks.com/015/Four-Quartets-Eliot-T-S-9780156332255.jpg 
Four Quartets is unquestionably one of the poetic masterpieces of the twentieth century.  It is comprised, as the name suggests, of four poems: "Burnt Norton", "East Coker", "The Dry Salvages", and "Little Gidding".  The poems stretch from the Mississippi river

     Keeping its seasons and rages, destroyer, reminder
     Of what men choose to forget.  Unhonoured, unpropitiated
     By worshippers of the machine, but waiting, watching and waiting.

to an English village, where

     Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended,
     Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place
     Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass.
     Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires,
     Old fires to ashes, and ashes to the earth
     Which is already flesh, fur and faeces,
     Bone of man and beast, cornstalk and leaf.

Eliot contemplates time

     Time past and time future
     What might have been and what has been

and eternity

     Where past and future are gathered.  Neither movement from nor towards,
     Neither ascent nor decline.  Except for the point, the still point,
     There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.

In less than forty pages, the reader is taken on an expedition of discovery

     And the end of all our exploring
     Will be to arrive where we started
     And know the place for the first time. 

Four Quartets is unquestionably one of the poetic masterpieces of the twentieth century.

     You say I am repeating
     Something I have said before.  I shall say it again.
     Shall I say it again?

2 comments:

  1. Um, you forgot to mention that this is also quoted in the floor in Center for the Reader. "Burnt Norton" is, to be exact. :)

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  2. You may enjoy the book The Archivist, by Martha Cooley. She uses Eliot's verse in a really refreshing way, namely some passages from Four Quartets. This book helped me to appreciate Eliot far more than I ever had before. There are some heavy parts, and it is unbearably sad at points, but she writes beautifully.

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