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Four Quartets

4.36 of 5 stars 4.36 · rating details · 6,209 ratings · 230 reviews

The last major verse written by Nobel laureate T. S. Eliot, considered by Eliot himself to be his finest work

Four Quartets is a rich composition that expands the spiritual vision introduced in “The Waste Land.” Here, in four linked poems (“Burnt Norton,” “East Coker,” “The Dry Salvages,” and “Little Gidding”), spiritual, philosophical, and personal themes emerge through sy...more

Paperback, 64 pages

Published March 20th 1968 by Mariner Books (first published 1943)

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Jun 19, 2011 Abailart rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: always-reading, poetry, re-reading

This is something that I've been reading and returning to for more than 40 years. Few works are so intimately connected with my own life changes. Truly, all poems are read afresh with each reading: as oneself changes, the poems change. In the case of Four Quartets, I used to go o it for melancholy comfort, a vague spiritual longing too balmed with its reverberations of paradox and eastern thoughts while rooted in the soil of an East Anglian mysticism. I also found its original influence (along w...more

10 likes · like · see review

Apr 30, 2007 Felicity rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: philosophers, writers, dreamers, mystics

Shelves: grad-school, favorites, poetry, rereading

Four Quartets is one of the most astounding pieces of writing I've ever encountered. It may start off strange and esoteric, but it becomes more and more familiar through the reading, until you feel almost as if you are experiencing Eliot's journeys and musings instead of reading a poetic result of them. It builds upon itself in the most transparent yet masterful ways. An incredible experience for me as a writer and a thinker.

7 likes · like · see review

Jan 30, 2013 Ken Moten rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Everyone

Shelves: poetry-stuff, philosophy-stuff, 20th-century-modernist-stuff, favorite-reviews-i-wrote

" The dove descending breaks the air
With flame of incandescent terror
Of which the tongues declare
The one dischage from sin and error.
The only hope, or else despair
Lies in the choice of pyre of pyre-
To be redeemed from fire by fire.

Who then devised the torment? Love.
Love is the unfamiliar Name
Behind the hands that wove
The intolerable shirt of flame
Which human power cannot remove.
We only live, only suspire
Consumed by either fire or fire." - Section 4 of "Little Gidding"

Now over the whole perio...more

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Jul 05, 2011 Emily O rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Emily by: Nick

Shelves: poetry-and-plays, american-lit, recommended-by-friends

I am consistently impressed with Eliot's use of language. My goodness, does the man know how to write a poem. While I'm not a huge fan of all the Anglican imagery, I was absolutely floored by at least one passage in each of the large sections. Eliot displays some incredible poetic craftsmanship, which was especially evident to me in The Dry Salvages, but was obviously present throughout the work. There is no doubt that Eliot is a master craftsman. I absolutely loved the way that images and phras...more

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Feb 17, 2008 John Wiswell rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Poetry readers, philosophy readers, classics readers, spiritual readers

I'm not a fan of poetry, but this dug deeply into me. For me, most poetry is borderline nonsense, overwritten or waters that have been muddied for the illusion (though I guess someone thinks that's the way of all Literature). Some poets cut right through my biases, though, and I was happy to find T.S. Eliot was one of them.

These Quartets are highly interested in time. Everything seems to relate back to time; memory, love, evolution, history, gods, the past of time, the future of time, aging, dea...more

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Feb 09, 2008 Lightsey added it · review of another edition

Whatever possessed me? Perhaps because I'm teaching The Waste Land this spring (again). . . Eliot requires a mental wrench for me: oh yes, imagine oneself a man, an ex-pat, etc, and perhaps most crucially, imagine oneself not in on certain joys of the bodily life. Eliot strikes me as a man into wrenching--wrenching himself to and away from this and that. So, anyway, a certain distance intrudes, it's hard to take his writing as having direct application--which is not to deny the craft or the inte...more

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Mar 05, 2010 Manny rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: why-not-call-it-poetry, transcendent-experiences

Question 1 (5 points)

Contrast the treatment of denotation and reference in the following works:

- Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations
- T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets
- Marcel Proust, A L'Ombre Des Jeunes Filles En Fleurs

Well, that's what I think's wrong with formal examinations.

_______________________________________

(Gratuitous cross-promotion)

Question 2 (3 points)

Order the following by the extent to which they glorify substance abuse:

- Irvine Welsh, Trainspotting
- Hunter S. Thompson, Fea...more

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Feb 12, 2009 Charles rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is a lifelong (or at least adult-lifelong) favorite of mine. I return to it every year or so. One of the great poetic reveries on Christianity and on the nature of eternity, immortality, and ethical purpose. As a nonbeliever, I find these four poems convincing and intelligent as regards one particular religion. As a transient sapient being in a boundless universe, I find them breathtaking in their attempt to pierce through the here and now into the transcendant and timeless. That ability to...more

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Jan 11, 2009 Allegra rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This quartet of longer poems is Eliot's very best and most provoking poetry. He has become a sort of Modernist monster over the years, but forget Prufrock and read this. His allusion to Beethoven's Four Quartets is apt. Eliot did not publish anymore poetry after this text, and Beethoven's quartet with four movements was his last finished work. Listen to the Beethoven quartet. Read Taking the Quantum Leap. Read about Sanskrit and Hinduism as well, appreciate this intricately layered poem even mor...more

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Apr 11, 2013 Robert rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a difficult piece to review because with all the moments of glaring lucidity, where Eliot's words portray thoughts and emotions you believed to be unobtainable, there is an equal amount of verse that drudges on with gentle thuds at the end of each lyric, neither inspiring nor necessary.

But I can't believe a poet who concludes:
'We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time'
Is not capable of cre...more

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Feb 12, 2012 Anastasia rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: biblioteca-civica, usa, poesia

Quattro quartetti è la penultima raccolta di poesie del caro Eliot. Un Eliot diverso, però, meno personale, si rivolge non più a sé, ma al tempo. E' un'intera dedica al Tempo, alle sue sfacettature, alle case in cui dimora (le rughe di un uomo, le stagioni, le case, la Terra).
In seguito comporrà solo due o tre poesie, si dedicherà completamente al saggio.
Posso dire che mi è mancato un sacco l'Eliot di The Hollow Men, The Waste Land, Ash-Wednesday?
Non sono neanche sicura di essere abbastanza m...more Quattro quartetti è la penultima raccolta di poesie del caro Eliot. Un Eliot diverso, però, meno personale, si rivolge non più a sé, ma al tempo. E' un'intera dedica al Tempo, alle sue sfacettature, alle case in cui dimora (le rughe di un uomo, le stagioni, le case, la Terra).
In seguito comporrà solo due o tre poesie, si dedicherà completamente al saggio.
Posso dire che mi è mancato un sacco l'Eliot di The Hollow Men, The Waste Land, Ash-Wednesday?
Non sono neanche sicura di essere abbastanza matura per capire queste poesie. Sono piuttosto astruse, complicate, proprio difficili da comprendere. Prendo la prima strofa che mi viene in mente:

Il dettaglio della trama è movimento
come nella figura delle dieci scale.
Desiderio stesso è movimento
per se stesso non desiderabile; amore
è per se stesso immobile, soltanto
causa e fine di movimento
senza tempo e senza desiderio
fuorché nell'aspetto del tempo
condensato in forma di limitazione
tra non essere ed essere.

(The detail of the pattern is movement,
As in the figure of ten stairs.
Desire itself is movement,
Not in itself desiderable;
Love itself unmoving,
Only the cause and end of movement,
Timeless, and undesiring
Except in the aspect of time
Caught in the form of limitation
Between un-being and being.

Ora, io ho provato a diverse volte a leggerlo. Ho provato con la versione tradotta, quella in inglese, ma non ho afferrato l'intera strofa. Sono arrivata a "causa e fine di movimento" e il mio comprendonio s'è bloccato lì. Mi sto ancora adesso scervellando per capire. Ho persino fatto leggere i versi a mia madre, che dopo un po' è scappata via dicendo che se continuava così, le sarebbe scoppiata la testa. Molto bene, Eliot è pericoloso. La traduzione della Feltrinelli, per quanto molto buona, scombina completamente la struttura delle sue poesie e va a intricare ulteriormente il problema.
Una cosa positiva è che ha un suo ritmo veramente godibile, si respira sempre al momento giusto per creare una notevole sinfonia. E ha diversi riferimenti ad Eraclito, che come filosofo mi garba parecchio. Felice di sapere che Eliot è un suo grande fan. Meno felice della completa dedica alla religione delle ultime strofe, purtroppo non sono credente come lui e certi versi non li posso..sentire, ma nel senso "sentire dentro di me". Non è che non li posso sopportare, ma no.
Sono sicura che ritornerò su questa raccolta, forse fra uno, due anni, sapendo già che nonostante l'ipotetica maturazione, dovrò scervellarmi ancora. Per quanto abbia apprezzato Quattro Quartetti nonostante i miei limiti, preferisco ancora le poesie precedenti. Assume un tono molto più stretto al lettore che qua, dove in alcuni punti sembra quasi freddo. (less)

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Apr 18, 2011 Robert rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

TS Eliot's Four Quartets was a drastic departure from the modernism he helped to create and the style that made him one of the most famous poets of the 20th century, away from the nihilist metaphysics immortalized in The Wasteland toward something earthier, more realistic, grounded in the King James Bible of his youth. In four long poems of five parts each, Eliot humanizes his towering voice, turning from the surfeit data of his earlier work to such subjects as nature, time, death and war; the r...more TS Eliot's Four Quartets was a drastic departure from the modernism he helped to create and the style that made him one of the most famous poets of the 20th century, away from the nihilist metaphysics immortalized in The Wasteland toward something earthier, more realistic, grounded in the King James Bible of his youth. In four long poems of five parts each, Eliot humanizes his towering voice, turning from the surfeit data of his earlier work to such subjects as nature, time, death and war; the result is some of the most effective, concrete, and moving work that he, or any poet, has ever done.

Eliot ended his career as a poet with Four Quartets, one with highs and lows that both his fans and detractors have yet to come to terms with. Taste is always personal, and it is this writer's opinion that his flaws, both as a poet and a thinker, can be explained, but not explained away. He wrote too well, accomplished too much on the page, and meant too much to the language to be thrown away by history. Any case in his defense should begin here.

The dove descending breaks the air
With flame of incandescent terror
Of which the tounges declare
The one discharge from sin and error.
The only hope, or else despair
Lies in the choice of pyre of pyre -
To be redeemed from fire by fire.

~from Little Gidding

At the time of their publication, the poems were criticized for their religiosity, sparse symbolism, and abandonment of despair: cardinal sins to a generation of writers still adamant in their lack of faith in humanity. Read today, these complaints miss their mark; it is the religious context of Eliot's language -- the sermonic tenor there in all of his best work, the way he doesn't adapt the tenants of symbolism as much as take them to church -- that gives these poems their beauty. In Burnt Norton and The Dry Salvages Eliot derives his symbols from his religious upbringing and the poems achieve unity through them. Although saddled by the occasional fey oratorical pronouncement, they show that if Eliot stopped being a modernist deity, he didn't necessarily stop being a modernist.

It is in his vision-strewn testimonies of London under attack where Eliot's writing soars. Like so many writers of the early 20th century, he believed the vile superstitions of the time regarding Jews, banks, and social credit, and thought that if one was to achieve peace, all three needed to be dealt with. The second world war, and especially Nazi Germany's bombing of his beloved London, snapped him out of those beliefs quickly; East Coker and Little Gidding were his response. In both poems, Eliot is the literary comforter on high, despairing of humanity's slide into war, firm in his belief in civilization, and adamant, in post-apocalyptic tone, that London would delivered through this fire, that

With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this
Calling

England, and humanity with it, would be saved. It is sad that this book hasnt. (less)

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Jan 22, 2011 Tim rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets is a masterpiece. I don't know how I missed it before this year. How can you not love a poem that says things like:

There is, it seems to us,
At best, only a limited value
In the knowledge derived from experience.
The knowledge imposes a pattern, and falsifies,
For the pattern is new in every moment
And every moment is a new and shocking
Valuation of all we have been....
Do not let me hear
Of the wisdom of old men, but rather of their folly,
Their fear of fear and frenzy, their...more

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Nov 30, 2009 Joe rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: x2009-november, nobel-prize-laureates, poetry, 2009

T.S. Eliot has always presented a problem for poets. His ability to insert the most esoteric thoughts into colloquial phrasing tricks many folks into thinking that they can do what the master does. How many poets have been spawned by the false simplicity of Prufrock or the seemingly careless collage of the Wasteland? But, lacking the prophet's insight or the preacher's humility, the fail almost universally to match Eliot's art.

Here, in the four quarters, Eliot finally puts aside his friendly ma...more

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Apr 02, 2011 Mary Overton added it

........................ In order to arrive there,
To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not,
You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy.
In order to arrive at what you do not know
You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.
In order to possess what you do not possess
You must go by the way of dispossession.
In order to arrive at what you are not
You must go through the way in which you are not.
And what you do not know is the only thing you know
And what you own is what you...more

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Mar 24, 2012 Peycho Kanev rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: poetry

The Four Quartets by TS Eliot is a classic. The Four Quartets are regarded by many to be the greatest philosophical poem of this century. The titles of the four sections which make up the Quartets are place names, each corresponding to a phase of spiritual development. What particularly satisfies about the Four Quartets is that they complete Eliot's broad spiritual landscape begun with "Prufrock," "Gerontion," and The Wasteland, poems about failure in a bankrupt universe, but with the words from...more

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Sep 08, 2009 Bpatoosk rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: everyone

Shelves: brilliance, books-that-changed-my-life-shelf

If I had to chose only 3 books to carry with me for the rest of my life - this would (without a doubt) be one of them. I had started with the Wasteland and Prufrock the year before, so I had a little Eliot experience before reading it - nevertheless the endless allusions/half-thoughts/references daunted me at first. Don't be daunted. Know that it will require more than one reading. Sit down and read it once all the way through - don't worry about getting any particular meanings - just read it an...more

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Mar 28, 2008 Christopher rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Everyone with a good head on their shoulders.

My favorite poem(s) in the (modern) English language. A spiritual affirmation of the highest order, and a literary accomplishment of the greatest kind.

For me, it feels like an unconscious answer to THE WASTELAND; a beautiful refutation of despair that never for a moment ignores the suffering inherant in the human condition.

Eliot's "farewell to poetry" (as Frank Kermode called it) is also his finest poetic achievement.

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Jul 13, 2011 Martin Rowe rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

My first experience of Eliot's interlinked poems was through an old vinyl recording of Alec Guinness reading them. Although I was all of seventeen, and understood little of what was being said, the impact upon me was huge. I knew that some of the poems were written during the Second World War and that they were steeped in Christian mysticism, and so set out to learn more about them.

I have now lived for thirty years with these poems, committed whole swathes of them to memory, and studied Eliot's...more

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Jun 14, 2012 Hadrian rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: american, poetry

Apparently I haven't put this into Goodreads and thought I did. Ah well.

This is really good poetry. Don't trust me. Go read it. It's not very long, and you can probably find it in 30 seconds on Google. Please go read it.

That being said, it is rather astonishing. Eliot has this rhythm, which survives even in Prufock, and shines here. Themes from religion and nature and history. Heraclius and Marcus Aurelius and St. John and aphorism and myth, Pentacostal fire and the chanting advance of the Bhaga...more

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Jan 09, 2010 J. Alfred rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

So this is my second time through this. The first time, I came away scratching my head. This time, I'm convinced that it is, without exaggeration, better than Eliot's The Waste Land, which, for a while, was being described as the seminal poetic work of the century. It's good.
Anyway, I know I'm biased because of the whole christianity thing, but I think almost everyone is a fan of intelligibility and coherency, both of which I feel The Waste Land lack, but this exhibits in spades, if one applies...more

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Jul 02, 2010 Christine rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: old-flames, poetry

Admitting that I read T.S. Eliot is like introducing you to my crazy great-uncle. I know he's going to embarrass me. He’s often a pompous ass when you take him out in public; he's never met a literary allusion he didn't like, and he positively pants after philosophical conceits. He filters everything through a religious perspective, which he tends to assume you share. Worst of all, he's a bigot--sometimes a subtle one, sometimes a shockingly unsubtle one.

And yet I love him, and still in much the...more

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Sep 01, 2007 Arlette rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

If you read this to yourself out loud and slowly, it will echo in your head the rest of your life. I think it will last forever.

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Sep 15, 2011 Jennalyn rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: poetry

I don't understand it, but I love it. I think that may be part of the point.

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Jan 21, 2010 Simon Maginn rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I'm not a poetry man. Most poetry just leaves me cold. Little splinters of nothing very much, and an aggravating sense of its own importance. Also very poor value for money: you don't get much for your shilling. Four Quartets, though, is quite different. If anyone asked me what it was about, I would say it is about this particular set of words in this order, nothing more or less. It demands to be read aloud (I am currently attempting to memorise it for this purpose) and is magical, incantatory,...more

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May 19, 2009 Saesnes rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, influential, poetry

Extraordinary, wonderful poetry: multi-layered, sensual, complex.

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Jul 11, 2012 Hansha rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make and end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from. And every phrase
And sentence that is right (where every word is at home,
Taking its place to support the others,
The word neither diffident nor ostentatious,
An easy commerce of the old and the new,
The common word exact without vulgarity,
The formal word precise but not pedantic,
The complete consort dancing together)
Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning,
Every poem...more

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Jul 13, 2012 Mark R. rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I haven't read a lot of poetry. There are one, maybe two, other collections of poetry on my have-read list on this site, so I'm not coming from a background of vast experience.

That said, T. S. Eliot's highly regarded series of poems, the "Four Quartets," is a beautifully written study of time and divinity, and how thoughts on these two matters confuse and excite the human mind.

One could read this book in about an hour, or take it a bit slower, focusing on the words and the expert way Eliot strin...more

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Jan 26, 2013 Scott B. rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It is quite simply the finest English poem of the 20th century. Eliot brilliantly restates the Christian vision for a modern age. The Four Quartets (especially Burnt Norton and Little Gidding) have as important a place in my spiritual and imaginative life as the finest Psalms of David, the first chapter of John's Gospel, Dante's Paradiso, and the Masses of Palestrina. They sustain endless readings. They move me to tears, give me hope, and fill me with envy that I should never produce anything so...more

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Mar 10, 2011 Scarlett Sims rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: church-book-group, religious, philosophical, poetry

I like Eliot's poetry, I mean, I like how it sounds, but sometimes I have trouble understanding it. Hunter and I read these together (well it was for our book club except that we weren't around to actually go so we read and discussed them together) and really took some time picking apart the meanings of them. He has lots of references to events and other works. East Coker was I think my favorite but I'm not even sure I can say why. It takes a different kind of mind than mine to really grasp thes...more

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About T.S. Eliot

Thomas Stearns Eliot was a poet, dramatist and literary critic. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948 "for his outstanding, pioneer contribution to present-day poetry." He wrote the poems The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, The Waste Land, The Hollow Men, Ash Wednesday, and Four Quartets; the plays Murder in the Cathedral and The Cocktail Party; and the essay Tradition and the Individ...more

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Quotes from Four Quartets

“For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.” — 2,651 people liked it

“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.” — 753 people liked it

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