12/14/07
The beautiful passage below was taken from T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets
With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this
Calling
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.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always—
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.
About Eliot's "Four Quartets" from the Wikipedia
Although many critics preferred his earlier work, Eliot and many other critics considered Four Quartets his masterpiece and it is the work which led to his receipt of the Nobel Prize.[20] The Four Quartets draws upon his knowledge of mysticism and philosophy. It consists of four long poems, published separately: Burnt Norton (1936), East Coker (1940), The Dry Salvages (1941) and Little Gidding (1942), each in five sections. Although they resist easy characterisation, 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 its relation to the human condition. Also, each is associated with one of the four classical elements: air, earth, water, and fire. They approach the same ideas in varying but overlapping ways, and are open to a diversity of interpretations.
Burnt Norton asks what it means to consider things that might have been. We see the shell of an abandoned house, and Eliot toys with the idea that all these "merely possible" realities are present together, but invisible to us: All the possible ways people might walk across a courtyard add up to a vast dance we can't see; children who aren't there are hiding in the bushes.
East Coker continues the examination of time and meaning, focusing in a famous passage on the nature of language and poetry. Out of darkness Eliot continues to reassert a solution ("I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope").
The Dry Salvages treats the element of water, via images of river and sea. It again strives to contain opposites ("…the past and future/Are conquered, and reconciled").
Little Gidding (the element of fire) is the most anthologized of the Quartets. Eliot's own experiences as an air raid warden in The Blitz power the poem, and he imagines meeting Dante during the German bombing. The beginning of the Quartets ("Houses…/Are removed, destroyed") had become a violent everyday experience; this creates an animation, where for the first time he talks of Love — as the driving force behind all experience. From this background, the Quartets end with an affirmation of Julian of Norwich "all shall be well and/All manner of things shall be well".
The Four Quartets cannot be understood without reference to Christian thought, traditions, and history. Eliot draws upon the theology, art, symbolism and language of such figures as Dante, St. John of the Cross and Julian of Norwich. The "deeper communion" sought in Burnt Norton, the "hints" and whispers of children, the sickness that must grow worse in order to find healing, and the exploration which inevitably leads us home all point to the pilgrim's path along the road of sanctification.
With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this
Calling
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.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always—
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.
About Eliot's "Four Quartets" from the Wikipedia
Although many critics preferred his earlier work, Eliot and many other critics considered Four Quartets his masterpiece and it is the work which led to his receipt of the Nobel Prize.[20] The Four Quartets draws upon his knowledge of mysticism and philosophy. It consists of four long poems, published separately: Burnt Norton (1936), East Coker (1940), The Dry Salvages (1941) and Little Gidding (1942), each in five sections. Although they resist easy characterisation, 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 its relation to the human condition. Also, each is associated with one of the four classical elements: air, earth, water, and fire. They approach the same ideas in varying but overlapping ways, and are open to a diversity of interpretations.
Burnt Norton asks what it means to consider things that might have been. We see the shell of an abandoned house, and Eliot toys with the idea that all these "merely possible" realities are present together, but invisible to us: All the possible ways people might walk across a courtyard add up to a vast dance we can't see; children who aren't there are hiding in the bushes.
East Coker continues the examination of time and meaning, focusing in a famous passage on the nature of language and poetry. Out of darkness Eliot continues to reassert a solution ("I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope").
The Dry Salvages treats the element of water, via images of river and sea. It again strives to contain opposites ("…the past and future/Are conquered, and reconciled").
Little Gidding (the element of fire) is the most anthologized of the Quartets. Eliot's own experiences as an air raid warden in The Blitz power the poem, and he imagines meeting Dante during the German bombing. The beginning of the Quartets ("Houses…/Are removed, destroyed") had become a violent everyday experience; this creates an animation, where for the first time he talks of Love — as the driving force behind all experience. From this background, the Quartets end with an affirmation of Julian of Norwich "all shall be well and/All manner of things shall be well".
The Four Quartets cannot be understood without reference to Christian thought, traditions, and history. Eliot draws upon the theology, art, symbolism and language of such figures as Dante, St. John of the Cross and Julian of Norwich. The "deeper communion" sought in Burnt Norton, the "hints" and whispers of children, the sickness that must grow worse in order to find healing, and the exploration which inevitably leads us home all point to the pilgrim's path along the road of sanctification.
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