Little Gidding (poem)
Little Gidding is the fourth and final poem of T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets, a series of poems that discuss time, perspective, humanity, and salvation. It was first published in September 1942 after being delayed for over a year because of the air-raids on Great Britain during World War II and Eliot's declining health. The title refers to a small Anglican community in Little Gidding in Huntingdonshire, established by Nicholas Ferrar in the 17th century and scattered during the English Civil War.
The poem uses the combined image of fire and Pentecostal fire to emphasise the need for purification and purgation. According to the poet, humanity's flawed understanding of life and turning away from God leads to a cycle of warfare, but this can be overcome by recognising the lessons of the past. Within the poem, the narrator meets a ghost that is a combination of various poets and literary figures. Little Gidding focuses on the unity of past, present, and future, and claims that understanding this unity is necessary for salvation.
Poem[edit]
Critics classify Little Gidding as a poem of fire with an emphasis on purgation and the Pentecostal fire. The beginning of the poem discusses time and winter, with attention paid to the arrival of summer. The images of snow, which provoke desires for a spiritual life, transition into an analysis of the four classical elements of fire, earth, air and water and how fire is the primary element of the four. Following this is a discussion on death and destruction, things unaccomplished, and regret for past events.[6]
While using Dante's terza rima style, the poem continues by describing the Battle of Britain. The image of warfare merges with the depiction of Pentecost, and the Holy Spirit is juxtaposed with the air-raids on London. In the second section, a ghost, representing the poets of the past stuck between worlds, begins talking to the narrator of the poem. The ghost discusses change, art in general, and how humankind is flawed. The only way to overcome the problematic condition of humanity, according to the ghost, is to experience purgation through fire. The fire is described in a manner similar to the medieval mystic Julian of Norwich's writing about God's love and discussed in relationship to the shirt of Nessus, a shirt that burns its wearer. Little Gidding continues by describing the eternalness of the present and how history exists in a pattern. The poem concludes by explaining how sacrifice is needed to allow an individual to die into life and be reborn, and that salvation should be the goal of humankind.[7]
Sources[edit]
At one point in the poem, Eliot used terza rima rhyme in a manner similar to Dante.[14] In a 1950 lecture, he discussed how he imitated Dante in Little Gidding and the challenges that this presented. The lecture also dwelt on keeping to a set form and how Dante's poetry is the model for religious poetry and poetry in general.[15] Besides Dante, many of the images used in Little Gidding were allusions to Eliot's earlier poems, especially the other poems of the Four Quartets.[16]
Eliot included other literary sources in the poem: Stéphane Mallarmé, W. B. Yeats, Jonathan Swift, Arnaut Daniel, Nijinsky's dancing in Le Spectre de la Rose, and Shakespeare's Hamlet. Religious images were used to connect the poem to the writings of Julian of Norwich, to the life and death of Thomas Wentworth, to William Laud, to Charles I, and to John Milton. Eliot relied on theological statements similar to those of Alfred, Lord Tennyson's In Memoriam and Thomas Hardy's The Impercipient. The Bible also played a large role in the poem, especially in discussions on the Holy Spirit and Pentecost.[17] Many commentators have pointed out the influence of George Herbert in the poem, but Eliot, in a letter to Anne Ridler dated 10 March 1941, stated that he was trying to avoid such connections in Little Gidding.[18]
Reception[edit]
Critics such as Malcolm Cowley and Delmore Schwartz describe mixed emotions about the religiosity of the poem. Cowley emphasised the mystical nature of the poem and how its themes were closer to Buddhism than Anglicanism while mentioning his appreciation of many of the passages. Schwartz also mentioned the Buddhist images and his admiration for many of the lines in Little Gidding.[19] F. B. Pinion believed that the fourth section of the poem caused "Eliot more trouble and vexation than any passage of the same length he ever wrote, and is his greatest achievement in the Four Quartets."[16]
E. M. Forster did not like Eliot's emphasis on pain and responded to the poem: "Of course there's pain on and off through each individual's life... You can't shirk it and so on. But why should it be endorsed by the schoolmaster and sanctified by the priest until the fire and the rose are one when so much of it is caused by disease and bullies? It is here that Eliot becomes unsatisfactory as a seer."[20] Writing in 2003, Roger Scruton wrote that in Little Gidding Eliot achieved "that for which he envies Dante—namely, a poetry of belief, in which belief and words are one, and in which the thought cannot be prized free from the controlled and beautiful language".[21]