Reading Eliot’s Four Quartets: From the Fleshy to the Spiritual World through Recovering Times

Abstract

It is very difficult for us to define the main theme of Four Quartets conclusively. Nevertheless, many researchers agree that it is based on Christianity. This paper examines the significance of Christianity, especially redemption from/in time in Four Quartets. Eliot divides time into two categories: fleshy and spiritual world. Surely Eliot emphasizes the former. So he demands that we pay attention to the spiritual, not fleshy, world. Concentrating on the spiritual world, our soul could be away from the fleshy world. The fleshy time is visible and calculable while the spiritual time is invisible and uncalulable. The way that we could go into the spiritual time is to give our own self up and wait with patience and humility. In Four Quartets Eliot profoundly probes the theme through the still point, love, dance, zero summer.