T.S. Eliot - The Eternal

When I first read Eliot, I was still at university. I fell in love with his work as soon as I read The Waste Land. T.S.Eliot haunted my college years to such an extent that I wanted to read more. Having read all his poems - my favourite being  Four Quartets -  I went on to read his plays and essays such as Murder in the Cathedral, The Cocktail Party and Tradition and the Individual Talent.

Almost 8 years after I had graduated from university, T.S. Eliot came to haunt me again. This time, I decided to write a book about this brilliant man concentrating on the elements of Time and the Eternal in his major poems. The book, published in February 1991, didn't sell well but it gave me the satisfaction of  making a dream come true. I have incurred many debts in writing this book. My understanding of the element of Time, of the Flux and the Eternal has been largely shaped by Staffan Bergsten's Time and Eternity and by Henri Bergson's Durée et Simultanéité. I owe more personal debts to my revered instructor John G. Blair who, despite the difficulty of some issues, greatly encouraged me with his help and advice to humbly add to the already considerable bulk of commentary on Eliot's poems.

Here's an excerpt from Chapter IV - Four Quartets

T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets were written during the period of the poet's mature life, between 1934 and 1942, and reflect with his personal experience his wide and varied reading and thinking.. A complex poetic structure is the means by which the emotional and intellectual elements are incorporated into a whole. Through the complexity of the poetic structure and the symbolism, one imposing theme, which becomes almost an obsession, is emphasized by the poet from the very outset: the theme of time.

Time present and time past

Are both perhaps present in time future

And time future contained in time past

(Burnt Norton I)

The theme of time, which gradually developed in Burnt Norton and the other Quartets, is also brought into contrast with another theme: that of the timeless or eternity. The antithesis of time and eternity is significant for the structure of the Quartets because, as a symbol, it reflects two basic elements important to Eliot's experience as man and poet: the individual life and history in general versus the eternal and unchanging.

In Four Quartets, there are elements from Heraclitus' philosophy but these do not relate to Eliot's own positive theory of time. They represent rather the notion of the Logos in the flux, the creative and at the smae time destructive character of the four elements: earth, water, air and fire. Eliot's aim is not to imitate Heraclitus but to transform these ideas into his own christian philosophy. So, when he writes "The way up is the way down, the way forward is the way back", he does not mean that time is relative or that the temporal is the ultimate reality. What he really means is that within the flux, there is only one choice: either death or God. If we reject God, who is the timeless, the Eternal, all experiences are worth nothing. It is in this way that Eliot changes the Heraclitian theory of time into a christian theory of value: within the flux, if nothing else is recognised as more real, no experience is any different from any other in so far as its value is concerned. Eliot's theory of time tends to be rather neo-platonic than Heraclitian. It is essentially an immanence doctrine to which the Eternal or the Timeless is regarded as the creative force of the flux or the temporal.

This is not to say that Eliot denies the reality of the flux. For Eliot, the flux is real but its reality is sustained by the more ultimate reality of the Eternal. The flux is not an illusion, but it is an illusion to regard it as the only reality.

Excerpt from T.S. Eliot The Eternal by Anastasia Marou

Do you read or write poetry? Who's your favourite poet? 

Comments

[FaithB]

I do enjoy poetry, Anastasia. I enjoyed TS Eliot's book of "cat" poems published by his friends after he died. I teach "CATS" to my kids and explain that it all began with letters written to his friends and relatives, went into a book of poetry and has ended up a musical/movie.
I enjoy reading e.e.cummings and also Rumi, books of love poetry. As you well know, I also enjoy writing poetry, though mine poems are free prose.
I also have a copy of the book you wrote, and I am VERY proud of it and its author.... my wonderful friend, Anastasia!

(PS: I did begin blogging on Typepad again)

[Kofla Olivieri]

I am not a poetry fan, lol

[Christina]

I read The Waste Land in Greek - translated by our great poet Seferis. Now I'm very interested to read Four Quartets! The theme sounds quite thought-provoking. I love poetry very much, especially greek poetry. My favorite poets: Seferis, Empirikos, Kavafis and Ritsos. I used to like Kariotakis at a time but I now find him quite depressing...

[Laura]

I am also the proud owner of a copy of your book which you kindly sent to me. Your book helped me to have a better understanding of Eliot's major poetry. You know, Anastasia,prose in its most basic form makes its meaning directly, through the content of the words. It literally attempts to say what it means. Poetry also makes much of its meaning in that way. One of the ways, however, that people have defined poetry over the centuries is that poetry is writing that also makes its meaning less directly, through the sound of the language, through how the words are broken into lines, through metaphor (rather than explanation), and through the poet's ability to say what they do more concisely, eloquently, and rhetorically than what we expect from prose. This is probably the reason why I love poetry more than prose. To me Shakespeare is the greatest poet of all times, but I also enjoy reading William Blake, John Donne, Graham Burchell, Harold Pinter and Adrian Green.

[Jim]

I'm not really into poetry, but I do love Shakespeare's sonnets. Here's my favourite:

Those hours that with gentle work did frame
The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell
Will play the tyrants to the very same,
And that unfair which fairly doth excel:
For never-resting time leads summer on
To hideous winter and confounds him there,
Sap checked with frost and lusty leaves quite gone,
Beauty o'er-snowed and bareness every where:
Then were not summer's distillation left
A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,
Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft,
Nor it nor no remembrance what it was.
But flowers distilled though they with winter meet,
Leese but their show, their substance still lives sweet.

[Gary Conrado]

I love poetry and I feel its a great way to express yourself.
mary poppins

[Constantinos]

I do enjoy reading poetry from time to time. My favourite Greek poets are Kostis Palamas and Dionisios Solomos. I also like Emily Brontes poems. My most favourite is called "Hope"

HOPE

by: Emily Brontë (1818-1848)

OPE Was but a timid friend;
She sat without the grated den,
Watching how my fate would tend,
Even as selfish-hearted men.

She was cruel in her fear;
Through the bars one dreary day,
I looked out to see her there,
And she turned her face away!

Like a false guard, false watch keeping,
Still, in strife, she whispered peace;
She would sing while I was weeping;
If I listened, she would cease.

False she was, and unrelenting;
When my last joys strewed the ground,
Even Sorrow saw, repenting,
Those sad relics scattered round;

Hope, whose whisper would have given
Balm to all my frenzied pain,
Stretched her wings, and soared to heaven,
Went, and ne'er returned again!

[Haruko N]

First, I would like to thank you for this wonderful post which allows me to learn more about English poetry. The comments have also added to my poor knowledge of English poetry. I will try to read Shakespear and Eliot in English! I love poetry very much but I read only Japanese poets like Tadamine, Kornachi and Tsurayuki.

[Jean-Paul Bouvier]

Félicitations, Anastasia! Je ne savais pas que tu es auteur aussi. Quant à moi, je n'aime pas trop la poésie.

[Lakis Ioannou]

I enjoy reading biographies and political books. The truth is I'm not very keen on poetry but I like Lord Alfred Tennyson and Thomas Hardy's poems.