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buer 's review for:
Four Quartets
by T.S. Eliot
I'm not saying anything that hasn't been said before when I say that TS Elliot was a genius, but damn. TS Elliot was a genius.
This is one of those books that begs to be revisited. The more often I go back, the more I get out of each poem, and although I definitely have my favorites (I've yet to really enjoy reading the last section), each poem always has something to offer. The book is a cynical meditation on time, writing, aging, and more.
I love it.
Some favorite quotes:
If all time is eternally present
All time is redeemable.
13
for the roses
Had the look of flowers that are looked at.
14
human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
14
Only through time time is conquered.
16
Distracted from distraction by distraction
17
that which is only living
Can only die.
19
Words strain,
Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,
Will not stay still.
19
Desire itself is movement,
Not in itself desirable
20
Out at sea the dawn wind
Wrinkles and slides. I am here
Or there, or elsewhere. In my beginning.
25
That was a way of putting it – not very satisfactory:
A perisphrastic study in a worn-out poetical fashion,
Leaving one still with the intolerable wrestle
With words and meanings
25
And the wisdom of age? Had they deceived us
Or deceived themselves, the quiet-voiced elders,
Bequeathing us merely a receipt for deceit?
The serenity only a deliberate hebetude,
The wisdom only the knowledge of dead secrets
Useless in the darkness into which they peered
Or from which they turned their eyes. There is, it seems to us,
At best, only a limited value
In the knowledge derived from experience.
26
every moment is a new and shocking
Valuation of all we have been
26
I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you
Which shall be the darkness of God.
27
And you see behind every face the mental emptiness deepen
Leaving only the growing terror of nothing to think about;
28
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.
31
We cannot think of a time that is oceanless
Or of an ocean not littered with wastage
Or of a future that is not liable
Like the past, to have no destination.
38
For most of us, there is only the unattended
Moment, the moment in and out of time,
The distraction fit, lost in a shaft of sunlight,
The wild thyme unseen, or the winter lightning
Or the waterfall, or music heard so deeply
That it is not heard at all, but you are the music
While the music lasts.
44
[We] are only undefeated
Because we have gone on trying.
45
This is one of those books that begs to be revisited. The more often I go back, the more I get out of each poem, and although I definitely have my favorites (I've yet to really enjoy reading the last section), each poem always has something to offer. The book is a cynical meditation on time, writing, aging, and more.
I love it.
Some favorite quotes:
If all time is eternally present
All time is redeemable.
13
for the roses
Had the look of flowers that are looked at.
14
human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
14
Only through time time is conquered.
16
Distracted from distraction by distraction
17
that which is only living
Can only die.
19
Words strain,
Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,
Will not stay still.
19
Desire itself is movement,
Not in itself desirable
20
Out at sea the dawn wind
Wrinkles and slides. I am here
Or there, or elsewhere. In my beginning.
25
That was a way of putting it – not very satisfactory:
A perisphrastic study in a worn-out poetical fashion,
Leaving one still with the intolerable wrestle
With words and meanings
25
And the wisdom of age? Had they deceived us
Or deceived themselves, the quiet-voiced elders,
Bequeathing us merely a receipt for deceit?
The serenity only a deliberate hebetude,
The wisdom only the knowledge of dead secrets
Useless in the darkness into which they peered
Or from which they turned their eyes. There is, it seems to us,
At best, only a limited value
In the knowledge derived from experience.
26
every moment is a new and shocking
Valuation of all we have been
26
I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you
Which shall be the darkness of God.
27
And you see behind every face the mental emptiness deepen
Leaving only the growing terror of nothing to think about;
28
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.
31
We cannot think of a time that is oceanless
Or of an ocean not littered with wastage
Or of a future that is not liable
Like the past, to have no destination.
38
For most of us, there is only the unattended
Moment, the moment in and out of time,
The distraction fit, lost in a shaft of sunlight,
The wild thyme unseen, or the winter lightning
Or the waterfall, or music heard so deeply
That it is not heard at all, but you are the music
While the music lasts.
44
[We] are only undefeated
Because we have gone on trying.
45