And what there is to conquerīy strength and submission, has already been discovered In the general mess of imprecision of feeling, With shabby equipment always deteriorating Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate, Is a wholy new start, and a different kind of failureīecause one has only learnt to get the better of wordsįor the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which Twenty years largely wasted, the years of l'entre deux guerres. The end of the poem describes how Eliot has attempted to help the world as a poet, and he parallels his work in language with working on the soul or working on society.“So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years. God's love allows mankind to redeem themselves and escape hell. The poem states that humanity is given a choice between the bombing of London or the Holy Spirit. 'Little Gidding' - In this poem, Eliot returns to discussing war - World War II this time. To be successful at this, you need to follow God. Life is a constant battle, and if you ever stop, you will be swallowed up by the waters and smashed against the rocks. 'The Dry Salvages' - This poem echoes some of the same message Eliot was professing in the previous poem regarding a revering of God and Christ, but he uses a metahpor of the sea and its rocky shore to convey this and a person's struggle through life. That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood-' ' And that, to be restored, our sickness must grow worse.' But, people will only re alize this when the wors t has come to fruition. He warns that people's selfish ways will be the downfall of humanity, but through Christ, there is hope. He begins by speaking of the great circle of life - what is given life must some day die and what comes up, must come down.

' With this poem in particular, Eliot endeavors to heavily persuade people back to Christianity. 'East Coker' - ' In my beginning is my end. ' Love is itself unmoving, Only the cause and end of movement.' 'Burnt Norton' - El iot is essentially advising us to not d well on the past, which can not be undone, or the future, which cannot be predicted, but is instead advising us to focus on the present. Four Quartets are four interlinked meditations with the common theme being man's relationship with time, the universe, and the divine. Unlike The Waste Land, though, this collection of four poems: 'Burnt Norton,' 'East Coker,' 'Dry Salvages,' and 'Little Gidding' is meant to uplift, to bring back the people to religion, to give hope.

While working on his play Murder in the Cathedral, Eliot came up with the idea for a poem that was structured similarly to The Waste Land.

Four quartets text