Four Quartets

T. S. Eliot · 1936–1942; collected 1943 · English

Notable
Poetry, fiction & drama
Protestant
Anglican
Spirituality & mysticism

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What it is

Four linked meditative poems, "Burnt Norton", "East Coker", "The Dry Salvages", and "Little Gidding", each named for a place. Together they explore time, memory, and the moments when eternity breaks into history, moving toward a hard-won Christian hope.

Why it matters

Eliot's late masterpiece and a landmark of modern religious poetry, it brought the voices of the medieval mystics into twentieth-century literature.

Reading it

About 60 pages.

Influenced by4

Built on
The Divine Comedy · Dante Alighieri · c. 1308–1321
Four Quartets ('Little Gidding') writes its meeting with a ghost in an English imitation of the Divine Comedy's terza rima.
'Little Gidding' II
Built on
The Cloud of Unknowing · Anonymous · late 14th c.
Four Quartets ('Little Gidding') borrows a line from The Cloud of Unknowing: 'With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this Calling'.
Four Quartets, "Little Gidding", part V
Built on
Revelations of Divine Love · Julian of Norwich · Short Text after 1373; Long Text c. 1390s–1410s
Four Quartets ('Little Gidding') quotes Julian of Norwich's Revelations: 'Sin is Behovely, but / All shall be well'.
Four Quartets, "Little Gidding", part III
Built on
The Ascent of Mount Carmel · John of the Cross · c. 1578–1585 (debated)
Four Quartets ('East Coker') paraphrases The Ascent of Mount Carmel: to arrive where you are not, you must go by a way you know not.
'East Coker' III; Ascent I.13

Influenced0

No later works recorded yet.

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