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. However, the speaker knows that it is only through the construct of time that the state of enlightenment he has achieved gains any meaning. He knows that he will look back on this moment and remember it, but he can only do that by returning to the flow of time.

The speaker follows his train of thought to its logical conclusion: death. He determines that death gives life meaning because that which has begun must also end. Then the speaker hears the laughter of children from elsewhere in the garden, and he realizes that all his meditations are silly and only leading him to sadness.

The second poem is “East Coker,” which mimics the style and themes of “Burnt Norton,” though it was written several years later. The beginning of the poem takes a long view of history. He sees buildings being constructed, then crumbling, then being rebuilt. Aspects of nature are more permanent and long-lived.

The speaker contemplates his own death, but takes comfort in the fact that everyone dies. He does not trust science to save them from death because in his experience science only leads to war. Instead, people need to trust in Christ and have faith that death is not the end. The speaker tells his soul to be patient and wait, and they will all find out together what waits for them after death. He repeats the refrain, “my end is my beginning,” to emphasize the point that death is just a transition to another state.

The third poem, “The Dry Salvages,” was written during the air raids in Britain. The speaker meditates on a river, which is an insurmountable barrier until a bridge is built over it. The river waits for the day that the bridge is gone so that it can dominate the land once more. Humans and water act similarly. The ocean tides take place on a set schedule much like the bell that calls people to prayer.

People drown in deep water, and they can also drown in the onslaught of scientific ideas that distract them from faith and intuitive knowledge. When people reduce the past to a series of evolutionary facts, they fail to understand the true meaning of history. The speaker says a prayer to Virgin Mary for the souls of sailors, fishermen, and the drowned.

The poem ends with a list of ways various superstitions and faiths attempt to see the future. All of these are impossible because the future is something that must be experienced. Resigning oneself to the future, and to inevitable death, can be seen as a way of pushing forward to reach Heaven.

The final poem is “Little Gidding.” In contrast to the many images of water in “The Dry Salvages,” “Little Gidding” is full of images of fire. In the poem, fire is seen as purging and cleansing, much as it is in Pentecostal theology.

A series of images of winter give way to images of summer as the sun comes out and burns away the snow. The speaker says that fire is the primary of the four elements because it can transform the other three. A sudden fire can fill people with regret for things they lost or things they left undone.

The speaker goes on to describe the Battle of Britain, contrasting it with images of the Pentecostal fire and spiritual cleansing. The pattern of war and destruction keeps repeating itself, and so time exists in an eternal present. The speaker ends the poem with the argument that a sacrifice is always needed in order to reach enlightenment and salvation.

Poet Biography

Thomas Stearns Eliot—a poet, an editor, a dramatist, and a literary critic—was born in Missouri in 1888. He studied at Harvard University, completing his undergraduate degree in just three years. He traveled abroad to Europe while writing the dissertation for his PhD, but was unable to return to Harvard to take his final examinations due to travel constraints during World War I. While Eliot was in England, he taught French and Latin to schoolchildren and worked briefly as a bank clerk. At this time, Eliot met Ezra Pound, also living in London, and their friendship led to the start of the Modernist movement. Lamenting the effects of WWI, Eliot wrote “The Waste Land,” which was published in 1922 to international acclaim. In 1927, Eliot renounced his American citizenship and became a British subject. He died in London in 1965.

Among many awards and accolades celebrating his pioneering contributions to literature, Eliot received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964. Thirteen universities awarded him honorary doctorates, including Oxford, Cambridge, the Sorbonne, and Harvard. 

Poem Text

Eliot, T. S. “Four Quartets.” 1943. Harcourt.