Four Quartets

Four Quartets is a collection of four poems by T.S. Eliot. The four pieces were originally published between 1934 and 1942, during a period of time in which Eliot’s life was disrupted by the events of World War II. They were then collected into a single volume in 1943. The poems are linked loosely by theme; all of them are about the relationship between people and the divine. At the time of its publication, several of Eliot’s contemporaries criticized Four Quartets for being too overtly religious. However, modern scholars tend to consider it Eliot’s last great work of poetry.

The first poem is called “Burnt Norton,” a meditative poem on the nature of time. Eliot imagines a construct in which all moments in the past and the present exist simultaneously at a time in the future. The speaker of the poem takes a walk in the garden and tries to focus completely on the present. He attunes his senses to the sounds of the birds, the smell of the flowers, and the movement of the clouds in an attempt to exist entirely in the moment.

As the speaker’s meditation continues, he feels that he has come to exist outside of place and time. He no longer feels that he needs to get somewhere and has reached a state of stillness.