2005-06-25
Four Quartets｜Eliot, T. S.
Four Quartets｜Eliot, T. S.
1935 BUIRNT NORTON (No. 1 of 'Four Quartets')
1940 EAST COKER (No. 2 of 'Four Quartets')
1941 THE DRY SALVAGES (No. 3 of 'Four Quartets')
1942 LITTLE GIDDING (No. 4 of 'Four Quartets')
*Krishna
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
\Krish"na\, n. [Skr. k[.r]sh[.n]a.] (Hindoo Myth.)
The most popular of the Hindoo divinities, usually held to be
the eighth incarnation of the god Vishnu.
WordNet (r) 2.0
n:8th and most important avatar of Vishnu; incarnated as a
handsome young man playing a flute
Eliot considered Four Quartets his masterpiece, as it draws upon his knowledge of mysticism and philosophy. It consists of four long poems... each in five sections. Although they resist easy characterisation, they have many things in common: each begins with a rumination on the geographical location of its title, and each meditates on the nature of time in some important respect—theological, historical, physical, and on its relation to the human condition. A reflective early reading suggests an inexact systematicity among them; they approach the same ideas in varying but overlapping ways, although they do not necessarily exhaust their questions.
External Link
1935 BUIRNT NORTON (No. 1 of 'Four Quartets')
I
Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
1940 EAST COKER (No. 2 of 'Four Quartets')
III
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 do not own
And where you are is where you are not.
1941 THE DRY SALVAGES (No. 3 of 'Four Quartets')
III
'Fare forward, you who think that you are voyaging;
You are not those who saw the harbour
Receding, or those who will disembark.
Here between the hither and the farther shore
While time is withdrawn, consider the future
And the past with an equal mind.
...
Fare forward.
O voyagers, O seamen,
You who came to port, and you whose bodies
Will suffer the trial and judgement of the sea,
Or whatever event, this is your real destination.'
So Krishna*, as when he admonished Arjuna
On the field of battle.
Not fare well,
But fare forward, voyagers.
1942 LITTLE GIDDING (No. 4 of 'Four Quartets')
V
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.
...
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.
*Krishna
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
\Krish"na\, n. [Skr. k[.r]sh[.n]a.] (Hindoo Myth.)
The most popular of the Hindoo divinities, usually held to be
the eighth incarnation of the god Vishnu.
WordNet (r) 2.0
n:8th and most important avatar of Vishnu; incarnated as a
handsome young man playing a flute
Eliot considered Four Quartets his masterpiece, as it draws upon his knowledge of mysticism and philosophy. It consists of four long poems... each in five sections. Although they resist easy characterisation, they have many things in common: each begins with a rumination on the geographical location of its title, and each meditates on the nature of time in some important respect—theological, historical, physical, and on its relation to the human condition. A reflective early reading suggests an inexact systematicity among them; they approach the same ideas in varying but overlapping ways, although they do not necessarily exhaust their questions.
External Link
