26 pages • 52 minutes read
T. S. EliotFour Quartets
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1941A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Literary Devices
Form and Meter
Four Quartets is entirely written in free verse. Free verse has no discernible rhyme scheme, meter, nor other pattern of language, which enables the flow of language to change tone and meaning at the poet’s whim. At times, the free verse of the Four Quartets plods along, as steady and deliberate in word choice as the grim content the words convey; other times, the lines flow as freely as the wind and the sea waves they describe. The mood of the speaker changes at various points in the poem, and free verse enables these mood shifts take place smoothly—much like the tone of a conversation can change.
Eliot is one of the most recognized modernist poets and his use of free verse reflects the early modernist tendency to write without regard for meter and rhyme. Though the Four Quartets reflects the liberated attitudes of the modernists—who eschewed formal traditional approaches to writing verses—Eliot employs rhymes and modes like the sestina. The fourth section of “East Coker” and the second section of “Little Gidding” employ a strict rhyme scheme while the fourth section of “Burnt Norton” resembles an ode; as well, in “The Dry Salvages,” a variation of the sestina appears in the second section where there are sequential rhymes. The appearance of traditional modes reflects the poet’s humility; as an aging poet, he recognizes the debt he owes to traditional modes of poetry, and he shows humility by honoring these old modes.
Epigraph
The poem begins with two Epigraphs by ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus. Eliot positioned the Epigraphs at the beginning of the Four Quartets in order to pose questions that establish a contemplative mood. The Epigraphs appear in both Greek and English, and Eliot chose the translations of German translator Hermann Diels from his volume Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker (The Fragments of the Presocratics) to begin Four Quartets.
The first Epigraph reads: Although logos [knowledge or reason] is common, the many live as if they had a wisdom of their own. Throughout the Four Quartets, Eliot examines the ways humans experience knowledge, pointing out that the wisdom of a group is often more useful that the knowledge of an individual. Additionally, the wisdom that comes with old age is not perhaps what the reader expects; to the truly wise, quantities of empirical knowledge mean less than an awareness of human foibles and one’s own tendency to desire distraction from reality.
The second Epigraph reads: The way upward and the way downward is one and the same. This paradoxical statement sets the tone for the many contradictions dominating the poems of the Four Quartets. Starting and ending points are the same, and vice versa. Stillness and movement are one and the same, though they appear opposites, as do the past and the future. Within these paradoxes, which cannot truly be understood, all humans—including the speaker of the poem—find opportunities to practice acceptance, an important theme weaving throughout the poems.
Paradox
Eliot’s Four Quartets begins with a paradox, which is a statement in literature that appears to contain contradictory or opposing ideas, but in actuality, at the same time, contains a truth. Though difficult at times to understand, the paradox is a familiar literary device with a long-standing tradition in works of Western literature. The paradox that begins the first poem of the series, “Burnt Norton,” concerns the present and the past, and their links to the future, introducing the reader to Eliot’s mystical ideas regarding the passage of time and the metaphysical experience of being human.
Time is a difficult subject to grasp, whether by scientific methods or poetic ones. Eliot’s use of paradox while elaborating his ideas about time highlights the fact that any attempt to reconcile time is universally difficult. The speaker of the poem provides shadowy images throughout the poems to illustrate time, offering the reader a literary hypnosis and inviting them to experience the images as mere suggestions of ideas. This impressionistic approach to writing about the elusive qualities of time benefit from paradox, as contradictions and confusions are made acceptable through the use of this well-established literary device. Just as the concrete quality of written language fails to capture the slippery concept of time, so does Eliot’s use of paradox offer insight while simultaneously denying readers any firm resolution at all.
Related Titles
By T. S. Eliot
