BOOKS: “Four Quartets” by T. S. Eliot

Four QuartetsFour Quartets by T.S. Eliot
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Available online

Four Quartets is a collection of four long poems by T.S. Eliot, written over several years before and during the Second World War. The poems are: “Burnt Norton,” “East Coker,” “The Dry Salvages,” and “Little Gidding.” They share a theme of metaphysical inquiry, particularly regarding time and man’s relation therewith. The book came out about five years before Eliot won the Nobel Prize for Literature, and was the last of his major poetry collections, and so it reflects a mature phase of his poetry writing.

I loved this collection, which combines food for thought with beautiful turn of phrase. As far as I could see, most of the disgruntlement with the collection had to do with Eliot’s religious / spiritual references, which offended the sensibilities of some of the most stridently atheist / agnostic individuals in the poetic community. Besides reflecting his own Christian worldview, Eliot had clearly been moved by reading the Bhagavad Gita and makes a number of references to Krishna.

Four Quartets is a pleasant read and I’d highly recommend it for poetry readers.

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“The Flea” by John Donne [w/ Audio]

Source: CDC
Mark but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is;
It sucked me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be;
Thou know'st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead,
  Yet this enjoys before it woo,
  And pampered swells with one blood made of two,
  And this, alas, is more than we would do.

Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, nay more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is;
Though parents grudge, and you, w'are met,
And cloistered in these living walls of jet.
  Though use make you apt to kill me,
  Let not to that, self-murder added be,
  And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail, in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it sucked from thee?
Yet thou triumph'st and say that thou
Find'st not thy self, nor me the weaker now;
  "Tis true; then learn how false, fears be:
  Just so much honor, when thou yield'st to me,
  Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee.