2. Mysticism in T.S.Eliot's Four Quartets
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The Ferrar Family of Little Gidding C.1625-1637
THE GOOD OLD WAY REVISITED: The Ferrar Family of Little Gidding c.1625-1637 Kate E. Riley, BA (Hons) This thesis is presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of The University of Western Australia, School of Humanities, Discipline of History, 2007. ABSTRACT The Good Old Way Revisited: The Ferrar Family of Little Gidding c.1625-1637 The Ferrars are remembered as exemplars of Anglican piety. The London merchant family quit the city in 1625 and moved to the isolated manor of Little Gidding in Huntingdonshire. There they pursued a life of corporate devotion, supervised by the head of the household, Nicholas Ferrar, until he died in December 1637. To date, the life of the pious deacon Nicholas Ferrar has been the focus of histories of Little Gidding, which are conventionally hagiographical and give little consideration to the experiences of other members of the family, not least the many women in the household. Further, customary representations of the Ferrars have tended to remove them from their seventeenth-century context. Countering the biographical trend that has obscured many details of their communal life, this thesis provides a new, critical reading of the family’s years at Little Gidding while Nicholas Ferrar was alive. It examines the Ferrars in terms of their own time, as far as possible using contemporary documents instead of later accounts and confessional mythology. It shows that, while certain aspects of life at Little Gidding were unusual, on the whole the family was less exceptional than traditional histories have implied; certainly the family was not so unified and unworldly as the idealised images have suggested. -
TS ELIOT's PLAYS and RECEPTION Eliot's
T.S. ELIOT’s PLAYS and RECEPTION Eliot’s plays, which begin with Sweeney Agonistes (published 1926; first performed in 1934) and end with The Elder Statesman (first performed 1958; published 1959), are, with the exception of Murder in the Cathedral (published and performed 1935), inferior to the lyric and meditative poetry. Eliot’s belief that even secular drama attracts people who unconsciously seek a religion led him to put drama above all other forms of poetry. All his plays are in a blank verse of his own invention, in which the metrical effect is not apprehended apart from the sense; thus he brought “poetic drama” back to the popular stage. The Family Reunion (1939) and Murder in the Cathedral are Christian tragedies—the former a tragedy of revenge, the latter of the sin of pride. Murder in the Cathedral is a modern miracle play on the martyrdom of Thomas Becket. The most striking feature of this, his most successful play, is the use of a chorus in the traditional Greek manner to make apprehensible to common humanity the meaning of the heroic action. The Family Reunion (1939) was less popular. It contains scenes of great poignancy and some of the finest dramatic verse since the Elizabethans, but the public found this translation of the story of Orestes into a modern domestic drama baffling and was uneasy at the mixture of psychological realism, mythical apparitions at a drawing-room window, and a comic chorus of uncles and aunts. After World War II, Eliot returned to writing plays with The Cocktail Party in 1949, The Confidential Clerk in 1953, and The Elder Statesman in 1958. -
J.M. Reibetanz Four Quartets As Poetry of Place One Thinks of Four
J.M. Reibetanz Four Quartets as Poetry of Place One thinks of Four Quartets preeminently as a religious and philosophical poem; yet its argument does not proceed simply or preeminently on an abstract level. Rather, ideas enter our consciousness and our understanding through felt experience. Whether it be the paradox of the still point, the mystical negative way of illumination, the attitude of humility, the nature of time, the relationship of attachement, detachment, indifference and history, the necessity for atonement, or any of the other difficult ideas Eliot argues, the poetry leads us into a full experience of concepts by grounding them in places. Thus, we know the still point primarily through our vision in the rose-garden of Burnt Norton; the negative way of ilJumination is presented spatially as a descent into the darkness beneath the level of the London underground; the attitude of humility is derived out of the atmosphere of death that pervades East Coker; the nature of time is seen through our experience of the river and the sea; the thorny relationship of attachment, detachment, indifference and history is argued through the paradigm of the nettles on the hedgerow of Little Gidding; and the necessity for atonement arises from our experience of the tongues of fire that descend on wartime London. Even the primary religious concept of the Quartets. the Incarnation, is not fully argued in conceptual terms until three quarters of the way through the poem, at the end of The Dry Salvages. Long before that, however, its mystery is revealed to us in particular moments of illumination that transpire in time and also in place. -
Unit-1 T. S. Eliot : Religious Poems
UNIT-1 T. S. ELIOT : RELIGIOUS POEMS Structure 1.0 Objectives 1.1 Introduction 1.2 ‘A Song for Simeon’ 1.3 ‘Marina’ 1.4 Let us sum up 1.5 Review Questions 1.6 A Select Bibliography 1.0 Objectives The present unit aims at acquainting you with some of T.S. Eliot’s poems written after his confirmation into the Anglo-Catholic Church of England in 1927. With this end in view, this unit takes up a close reading of two of his ‘Ariel Poems’ and focuses on some traits of his religious poetry. 1.1 Introduction Thomas Stearns Eliot was born on 26th September, 1888 at St. Louis, Missouri, an industrial city in the center of the U.S.A. He was the seventh and youngest child of Henry Ware Eliot and Charlotte Champe Stearns. He enjoyed a long life span of more than seventy-five years. His period of active literary production extended over a period of forty-five years. Eliot’s Calvinist (Puritan Christian) ancestors on father’s side had migrated in 1667 from East Coker in Somersetshire, England to settle in a colony of New England on the eastern coast of North America. His grandfather, W.G. Eliot, moved in 1834 from Boston to St. Louis where he established the first Unitarian Church. His deep academic interest led him to found Washington University there. He left behind him a number of religious writings. Eliot’s mother was an enthusiastic social worker as well as a writer of caliber. His family background shaped his poetic sensibility and contributed a lot to his development as a writer, especially as a religious poet. -
Friends of Little Gidding Newsletter
A VIEW FROM LITTLE GIDDING Tom Gillum shares a personal view on Christian gentleness. FRIENDS OF Since my earliest memories, I have been reminded of my father’s school motto: ‘Manners maketh man’ – at the heart of being a ‘gentleman’. In a nation which LITTLE GIDDING has taken pride in this, it is a bit illogical I think, that in an attempt to help us NEWSLETTER identify more easily with him, some preachers have wanted to emphasise that he is not: gentle Jesus meek and mild. I understand why. May 2009 ‘Gentleness is a quality hard to fi nd in a society which admires toughness and roughness. We are encouraged to get things done fast, even when people get SPRING AND SUMMER AT LITTLE GIDDING hurt in the process. Success, accomplishment and productivity count. Gentle is the one who is attentive to the strengths and weaknesses of the other and enjoys being together more than accomplishing something. A gentle person treads carefully, looks tenderly and touches with reverence. A gentle person knows that true growth requires nurture, not force.’ (Henri Nouwen, Bread for the Journey, 6 February) Would it not be very good if English Christians could again be known for their gentleness? It is part of the risky way of relating in the way of Jesus. St Paul knew gentleness to be a primary characteristic of the Master (2 Corinthians 10.1). Easily hurt, humans cannot be vulnerable with one whose hands are not gentle. It may well be preferable to bottle up pain and guilt unless words of forgiveness are heard spoken with gentleness. -
The Verse Dramas of TS Eliot
University of Montana ScholarWorks at University of Montana Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers Graduate School 1959 Search for form| the verse dramas of T. S. Eliot Carol Sue Rometch The University of Montana Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd Let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Recommended Citation Rometch, Carol Sue, "Search for form| the verse dramas of T. S. Eliot" (1959). Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers. 3500. https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/3500 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at ScholarWorks at University of Montana. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at University of Montana. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE SEARCH FOR FORM; THE VERSE DRAMAS OF T.S. ELIOT by CAROL SUE ROMETCH B.A. Whitman College, 1957 Presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts MONTANA STATE UNIVERSITY 1959 Approved by; GhfiHrman, Boàrd of Examiners Dean, Graduate School WAY 2 8 1959 Date UMI Number: EP35735 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. ütaMitatton PlAMiing UMI EP35735 Published by ProQuest LLC (2012). Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. -
Copyrighted Material
Part I Infl uences COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL 1 The Poet and the Pressure Chamber: Eliot ’ s Life Anthony Cuda Over the course of his long career, T. S. Eliot preferred to think about poetry not as the communication of ideas but as a means of emotional relief for the artist, a momen- tary release of psychological pressure, a balm for the agitated imagination. In 1919, he called poetic composition an “ escape from emotion ” ; in 1953, a “ relief from acute discomfort ” ( SE 10; OPP 98). At fi rst, poetry alleviated for him the mundane pressures of a bank clerk who lived hand - to - mouth, caring for his sick wife during the day and writing for the Times Literary Supplement at night; later, it lightened the spiritual pres- sures of a holy man in a desert of solitude with the devils conniving at his back. Most frequently, though, it eased the pressure of an artist doubting his talent, an acclaimed poet who wrote more criticism than poetry, ever fearful that the fi ckle Muse had permanently left him. The most intensely creative stages of Eliot’ s life often coincided with the periods in which he faced the most intense personal disturbances and upheavals. But where do we, as students of Eliot, begin to account for that pressure? “ The pressure, ” as he himself called it, “ under which the fusion takes place ” and from which the work of art emerges ( SE 8)? We could begin with the bare facts. Eliot was the youngest of seven children, born on September 26, 1888 in St. Louis, Missouri. -
“All Manner of Things Shall Be Well”
School of Languages and Media Studies English Department Master Degree Thesis in Literature, 15 hp Course code: EN3053 Supervisor: Billy Gray “All Manner of Things Shall be Well”: Tractarianism, Eliot, and the Natural World in Four Quartets Monica Murphy Dalarna University English Department Degree Thesis Spring 2016 At Dalarna University it is possible to publish the student thesis in full text in DiVA. The publishing is open access, which means the work will be freely accessible to read and download on the internet. This will significantly increase the dissemination and visibility of the student thesis. Open access is becoming the standard route for spreading scientific and academic information on the internet. Dalarna University recommends that both researchers as well as students publish their work open access. I give my/we give our consent for full text publishing (freely accessible on the internet, open access): Yes ☒ No ☐ Table of Contents Introduction 1 I. The Oxford Movement: Liturgy and Poetics 7 II. Analogy 10 III. Sacramentality 13 IV. Burnt Norton and East Coker: Formed nature 15 V. The Dry Salvages: The Voyage Transformed 21 VI. Little Gidding: Language Transformed 26 Conclusion 30 Works Cited 33 Murphy 1 INTRODUCTION When T. S. Eliot announced his conversion to Christianity in 1928, Virginia Woolf wrote to her sister that “poor dear Tom Eliot [. .] may be called dead to us all from this day forward. He has become an Anglo-Catholic, believes in God and immortality, and goes to church [. .] There’s something obscene in a living person sitting by the fire and believing in God” (qtd. -
The Intersection of the Timeless Moment: Philosophical Structure
THE INTERSECTION OF THE TIMELESS MOMENT: PHILOSOPHICAL STRUCTURE AND ANTI-STRUCTURE IN T.S. ELIOT’S FOUR QUARTETS by ALAN LAYNE SMITH (Under the Direction of Adam Parkes) ABSTRACT This work is a consideration of a poetic dialectic of structured and anti-structured philosophical thought within T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets. This dialectic, first perceived by Eliot during his years spent as a candidate for the degree of doctor of philosophy at Harvard University, sets a philosophical structure gleaned from the teachings of F. H. Bradley’s pragmatic idealism and appreciated in the poetry of Dante Alighieri in poetic discourse with an anti-structure first apprehended by Eliot within the metaphysical void of Nāgarjuna’s Mādhyamikan via negativa. This essay proposes a sustained link between philosophical and metaphysical interests explored and qualified within Eliot’s graduate thesis and the poetic expression of the transcendent possibilities of those notions of structure and anti-structure within his Four Quartets. INDEX WORDS: Structure, Anti-structure, F. H. Bradley, Nagarjuna, T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets, Philosophy, Metaphysics, Transcendence, Anglicanism THE INTERSECTION OF THE TIMELESS MOMENT: PHILOSOPHICAL STRUCTURE AND ANTI-STRUCTURE IN T.S. ELIOT’S FOUR QUARTETS by ALAN LAYNE SMITH University of Georgia, 2009 A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree MASTER OF ARTS ATHENS, GEORGIA 2009 © 2009 Alan Layne Smith All Rights Reserved THE INTERSECTION OF THE TIMELESS MOMENT: PHILOSOPHICAL STRUCTURE AND ANTI-STRUCTURE IN T.S. ELIOT’S FOUR QUARTETS by ALAN LAYNE SMITH Major Professor: Adam Parkes Committee: Susan Rosenbaum Aidan Wasley Electronic Version Approved: Maureen Grasso Dean of the Graduate School The University of Georgia August 2009 iv DEDICATION This work is dedicated with love and gratitude to my family. -
Unit-42 Modern British Poetry an Introduction
This course material is designed and developed by Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), New Delhi. OSOU has been permitted to use the material. Master of Arts ENGLISH (MAEG) MEG-02 BRITISH DRAMA Block – 7 Murder in the Cathedral UNIT-1 T.S. ELIOT’S ESSAYS AND OTHER WORKS RELATED TO THE PLAY UNIT-2 BACKGROUND, PRODUCTION AND PERFORMANCE HISTORY UNIT-3 CRITICAL APPROACHES TO THE PLAY PART-I UNIT-4 CRITICAL APPROACHES TO THE PLAY PART-II UNIT-5 GENERAL COMMENTS AND OTHER READINGS UNIT 1 T.S. ELIOT’S ESSAYS AND OTHER WORKS RELATED TO THE PLAY Structure 1.0 Objectives 1.1 Introduction: Life and Works of T.S. Eliot 1.2 Dramatic Experiments : Sweeney Agonistes and The Rock 1.3 Eliot‘s essays relevant to his plays 1.4 Eliot‘s Poetic dramas 1.5 Exercises 1.0 OBJECTIVES This Unit will familiarise you with T.S. Eliot‘s: a. Life and works b. Dramatic experiments : Sweeney Agonistes and The Rock c. Essays relevant to his plays; and his d. Poetic dramas 1.1 INTRODUCTION : LIFE AND WORKS OF T.S. ELIOT Thomas Steams Eliot was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on 26th September, 1888. William Green Leaf Eliot (Eliot‘s grandfather from his father‘s side) was one of the earliest Eliot settlers in St. Louis. He was a Unitarian minister. Unitarianism arose in America in the mid eighteenth century as a wave against Puritanism and its beliefs in man‘s innate goodness and the doctrine of damnation. Unitarianism perceived God as kind. In 1834 William Green Leaf Eliot established a Unitarian church in St.Louis. -
At Last, the Real Distinguished Thing at Last, the Real Distinguished Thing
at last, The Real Distinguished Thing at last, The Real Distinguished Thing The Late Poems of Eliot, Pound, Stevens, and Williams by Kathleen Woodward OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS Excerpts from Four Quartets by T. S. Eliot are reprinted by permission of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., and Faberand Faber, Ltd.; copyright 1943 by T. S. Eliot; copyright 1971 by Esme Valerie Eliot. Excerpts from the following works are reprinted by permission of New Directions, New York, and Faber and Faber, Ltd., London: The Cantos ofEzra Pound, copyright 1948 by Ezra Pound; Pavannes and Divagations by Ezra Pound, copyright © 1958 by Ezra Pound, all rights reserved. Excerpts from The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens are reprinted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., and Faber and Faber, Ltd.; copyright © 1923, 1931, 1935, 1936, 1937, 1942, 1943, 1944, 1945, 1946, 1947, 1948, 1949, 1950, 1951, 1952, 1954 by Wallace Stevens. Excerpts from the following works by William Carlos Williams are reprinted by permission of New Directions: Paterson, copyright 1946, 1949, 1951, 1958 by William Carlos Wil liams; Pictures from Brueghel and Other Poems, copyright 1954 by William Carlos Williams; Selected Essays, copyright 1954 by William Carlos Williams; / Wanted to Write a Poem, edited by Edith Heal, copyright © 1958 by William Carlos Williams. Chapter 1 originally appeared in different form as "Master Songs of Meditation: The Late Poems of Eliot, Pound, Stevens, and Williams," in Aging and the Elderly: Humanistic Perspectives in Gerontology, edited by Stuart F. Spicker, Kathleen Woodward, and David D. Van Tassel (Humanities Press, 1978), and is reprinted by permission of Humanities Press, Inc., Atlantic Highlands, N.J. -
Simply Eliot
Simply Eliot Simply Eliot JOSEPH MADDREY SIMPLY CHARLY NEW YORK Copyright © 2018 by Joseph Maddrey Cover Illustration by José Ramos Cover Design by Scarlett Rugers All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher at the address below. [email protected] ISBN: 978-1-943657-25-4 Brought to you by http://simplycharly.com Extracts taken from The Poems of T. S. Eliot Volume 1, The Complete Poems and Plays, The Complete Prose of T. S. Eliot: The Critical Edition, The Letters of T. S. Eliot, Christianity and Culture, On Poetry and Poets, and To Criticize the Critic, Copyright T. S. Eliot / Set Copyrights Limited and Reproduced by permission of Faber & Faber Ltd. Extracts taken from Ash Wednesday, East Coker and Little Gidding, Copyright T. S. Eliot / Set Copyrights Ltd., first appeared in The Poems of T. S. Eliot Volume 1. Reproduced by permission of Faber & Faber Ltd. Excerpts from Ash Wednesday, East Coker and Little Gidding, from Collected Poems 1909-1962 by T. S. Eliot. Copyright 1936 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Copyright renewed 1964 by Thomas Stearns Eliot. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved. Extracts taken from Murder in the Cathedral, The Cocktail Party, The Confidential Clerk, and The Elder Statesman, Copyright T.