Preview

The Four Quartets

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1678 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Four Quartets
The Four Quartets
Eliot finds an interesting aspect of time and eternity as displayed in this poem. There are philosophical investigations made in the poem within the twentieth century. The poem highlights the efforts of scientists in the bid to comprehend time (Kramer 10). This begins from Einstein’s explanation of quantum mechanics that enabled artists and scientists to come up with numerous ideologies regarding time. Postmodernists hold the view that the value of timelessness on eternity results to destruction. Modernism offers solutions to postmodernism, through combating the effects of time by the use of an empirical method in reversing aging.
The four quartets may be considered as mystical pieces of religious poems done by Eliot. He makes mediations on time through a mixture of Christian and Hindu imagery through personal, as well as historical occurrences he picks on four structural elements to mark the framework of the poems. The burnt Norton associates with air elements named for a house visited in 1930s while the east Coker is associates with the earth. The name is also taken from a village in England. The dry salvages associates with water. Daily life events are reflected in the poem, little gadding.
Post modernists concur with the view that modernists marked the beginning of a historical occurrence through radical revolutions in literature. Eliot adopted a method of engaging real events into poetry through the changes seen in the direction of time. Postmodernist believe that modernists focused on the present as seen in the work of Eliot. Predictions in Einstein’s simulations indicate that a clock running close to a defined mass would run at a relatively slow rate than clocks placed at higher altitudes where there is less gravity. These discoveries inspired the poetic work of Eliot as he is seen to be fascinated by time through observations and reflections in poetry. A proof of the theories of time is strengthened by the support of artists and



Cited: Cooper, John. T. S. Eliot and the Ideology of Four Quartets. England, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Print. Eliot, Thomas. Four Quartets. California, CA: Harcourt, Brace, 1943. Print. Howard, Thomas. Dove descending a journey into T.S. Eliot 's four quartets Sapienta. San Francisco, SF: Classics/Ignatius Press, 2006. Print. Kramer, Kenneth. Redeeming Time: T.S. Eliot 's Four Quartets. Maryland, MD: Cowley Publications, 2007. Print. Grene, Ethel and Serverte, Herman. Annotations to T. S. Eliot 's Four Quartets. Indiana, IN: universe, 2010. Print.

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Powerful Essays

    Without an understanding of the time period when a poem is developed, we fail to fully appreciate and understand the purpose and messages within such compositions. While the contextual detail of some poems may be fairly simple, the way poets put words together often makes these themes, messages and forms abstract and confusing. A reader must attempt to delve deeper and study the context of society, culture, and that of the writer at the time of composition, or they will interpret and push away composed material as meaningless ‘mumbo-jumbo’ – which is what works by poets like T.S. Eliot strived to avoid.…

    • 1386 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Have you ever felt like time was running past you? That the world kept spinning while you just stood still? Time is a central theme in many of Kenneth Slessor’s poems, however it is primarily explored through ‘Out of time’ and ‘Five Bells’. Slessor has made it obvious that he is aware that time continues whether we want it to or not and this is what allows us to put into perspective the notion of humanity’s dominance.…

    • 849 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    TS Eliot’s 20th Century poem ‘The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock’ is widely seen as a modernist work that Eliot employs to make the reader of the poem actually create their own opinion of what is actually meant by the poem. The modernist movement happened mainly in the late 19th to early 20th Century and started with the French poet, Jules Laforgue. It is easy to draw similarities between Eliot’s Lovesong and all of Laforgue’s works as they both employ symbolist and modernist aspects in the way they describe everything through metaphor. Throughout the poem, Eliot uses many metaphors to describe what Prufrock is seeing, ‘through [those] certain half-deserted streets.’ What Prufrock is seeing is often shown through his fragile mindset. The use of metaphor is an interesting one as, despite promoting a great sense of uncertainty with the actual events that Prufrock is experiencing, it gives the reader a very clear idea of Prufrock’s character. It is undeniable that Prufrock is presented as ‘awkward and emasculated’ as his social and sexual insecurities are portrayed by Eliot throughout.…

    • 1567 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The changing conditions of the early 20th century had a clear and profound impact on T.S Eliot as his works convey a definitive Modernist ideas and literary techniques. With the breakout of World War I, evoked a sense that the great human civilisation was destroying itself. This belief was further compounded with the Second Industrial Revolution, which introduced innovative science, and revealed newly discovered advancements in the economical, political, cultural and most importantly the religious field. With the understanding of these advancements the “modern man” held the knowledge of our undeniable insignificance in the universe and ultimately questioned his existence due to the disintegration of what was previously strong religious values and belief in God. Modernist literature is a rejection of Romanticist ideals and is a criticism of modernisation itself. Eliot is able to explore the issues, which are hugely relevant to the modern experience. Specifically these include the isolation or alienation of an individual and the decay of social morality. These concerns are accentuated in Preludes (1917) and Rhapsody on a Windy Night (1917)…

    • 747 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    T.S. Eliot conveys the deteriorating state of humanity in the beginning of the twentieth century in the poems The Hollow Men and The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. Events, such as World War I, from the early twentieth century have influenced Eliot to express the superficiality and materialistic desire for wealth in modern society. The changing modern world with fallen morals and events such as the suffragette movement that brought a greater degree of freedom for women, have influenced Eliot to write about a breakdown in communication and society and its movement away from religion. Eliot uses a range of techniques such as metaphors and juxtaposition in the poems, The Hollow Men and The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock to convey the deteriorating state of humanity.…

    • 977 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Cited: Blithe, Hal and Sweet, Charlie. “Eliot’s THE LOVE SONG OF J. ALFRED PRUFROCK.” The Explicator 62.2 (2004): 108-110. Literary Reference Center Plus. Web.…

    • 1022 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The passing of time is a theme that pervades the poetry of famous American Robert Frost, who explores many aspects of the human experience in his poetry. Two poems which are vehicles for his attitude towards the passing of time are “A Leaf-Treader” and “The Road Not Taken”. Both explore the debate between transience and transcendence but display two differing outlooks on these.…

    • 918 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    1. How do we better understand the Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot?…

    • 5385 Words
    • 22 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    What are the main themes of T.S. Eliot’s ‘Preludes’? What aspects of the poem would you identify as modernist techniques? What does Eliot’s poem express about the condition of the human subject in early twentieth-century modernity? You need to substantiate your essay on a close reading and critical analysis of the poem.…

    • 1458 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Although the full meaning within T. S. Eliot’s dense poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” proves difficult to grasp, the deep meaning packed into every word makes the pursuit to understanding this poem a never-ending adventure. Scenery in “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” represents an intensely psychological account which should never, in any instance, by taken literally. The loss of time, the confusion of past, present and future tenses, the static movement, and the eternal metaphor of the question produces this psychological scenery which in turn amplifies the intensity of the poem.…

    • 1408 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    T.S. Eliot is often regarded as a poetic genius of his time and frequently, to this day as well. He lived a fairly, normal life as he grew up in St. Louis, Missouri then later attended Harvard University. Eventually, he left the United States for Sorbonne, England and returned to Harvard to study some more and ended up back in England where he became under the influence of Ezra Pound. Pound recognized Eliot’s poetic talent and assisted in many of his publications and influenced his work. What stood out to Pound was, perhaps, Eliot’s distinct style of writing created from his intense use of diction and lengthy sentences that often derived from metaphors.…

    • 1095 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Another major influence on Eliot’s poetry throughout his career includes Alfred Lord Tennyson. Eliot’s poem “The…

    • 194 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    History has seen advancements in technology, philosophy, and industry, all of which radically changed the lives of those witnessing such developments. Slower, more relaxed lifestyles have given way to lifestyles of a faster paced nature. George Eliot describes her preference for the leisure of the past, conveying the message that the rushed leisure of her time is hardly leisure at all. She accomplishes this by using several stylistic devices, including personification, imagery, and diction.…

    • 714 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Eliot shows that ‘life goes on’ regardless of difficulties. One aspect of this can be seen in Eliot’s portrayal of ‘work’, or the working population in a busy and important city. In the poem, work is presented as sterile and meaningless. Eliot shows this through the symbolism of the crowd that “flowed over London Bridge” (line 62):…

    • 1798 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Best Essays

    fhfjsddvdf

    • 5197 Words
    • 21 Pages

    Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton (1608–1674). The first version, published in 1667, consisted of ten books with over ten thousand lines of verse. A second edition followed in 1674, arranged into twelve books (in the manner of Virgil 's Aeneid) with minor revisions throughout and a note on the versification.[1] It is considered by critics to be Milton 's major work, and helped solidify his reputation as one of the greatest English poets of his time.[2]…

    • 5197 Words
    • 21 Pages
    Best Essays

Related Topics