Four quartets (original 1943; edition 1978)

I listened to this without reading anything beforehand. I didn't pretend to understand, but "Dry Salvages" hit me most. (Because I had wanted to escape to the sea all day today.)

After I listened the first time, I read about the locations of all the poems and a little bit of background here and there and listened to it a second time. I get it! YAY!

Here is my review: http://carolhomeschool2.blogspot.com/2013/04/25-four-quartets-by-ts-eliot.html

Beautiful. :) ( )

Lovely, dense poetry. I used to carry this with me everywhere. ( )

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 Bhagavad Ghita. This stuff speaks to you. It has overly religious themes, which somehow seem very universal. History and the present moment. Written in the despair and fragile hope of the Blitz.

Bluh. I'm far too inarticulate to give these praise. Go read them. Then come back in a few months and closely follow a few lines, and commit them to memory. Then read them again. ( )

These poems need to be -- and deserve to be -- read again, and again, and again. It is as you become more and more familiar with them that their shape and their music become clearer, and that the dense, complex net of internal echoes and cross references begins to emerge. These are poems that richly repay their readers' efforts. And when your efforts have made you comfortable with at least "Burnt Norton", treat yourself by tracking down Henry Reed's parody, "Chard Whitlow"; with luck Google will point you to a recording of Dylan Thomas reading it in the style of Eliot. ( )

In these poems, Eliot finally comes to terms with the modern world. He manages to find answers to the questions that The Waste Land poses. It is those who are born into the modern world with its dangers and possibilities who are going to have to remake it: "last season's fruit is eaten". ( )