Light and Mystical Writing: T. S. Eliot’s Poetic Practice in Four Quartets

Abstract

Abstract:Over the decades, scholarship has often sketched T. S. Eliot as a “failed mystic,” and variously interpreted Four Quartets as philosophical, mystical, or religious poetry. But, for Eliot, the most successful religious poetry is the one that could be “unconsciously Christian, rather than deliberately and defiantly, Christian” (“Religion and Literature”). In order to achieve this aim in his poetic practice, Eliot adopts different strategies to incorporate mystical language and imagery into Four Quartets. Borrowing translation terminology, this article shows how, in three instances dealing with mystical light and ascent, Eliot domesticates a Dantesque reference, removes an allusion to St. John of the Cross, and includes, with foreignizing results, a German word associated with Meister Eckhart’s mysticism. From these writers, Eliot also learns approaches to accommodate the language of mystical experiences of light and ascent into modern, unconsciously religious poetry.