Poetry and Exile: T. S. Eliot, 'Four Quartets' - Professor Belinda Jack

Professor Belinda Jack examines the power and impact of T.S. Eliot's works 'The Four Quartets': www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and...
These poems retain a stubborn opacity and no interpretation is ever wholly satisfactory. The difficulty of Eliot's poetry is partly a function of the poems' dense allusions to so much other poetry. But by exploring the idea of exile in relation to locality and the idea of space more abstractly, the shape of Four Quartets as descriptive of a spiritual journey comes into better focus. Autobiographically it is clear that Burnt Norton, the house and its extensive gardens, East Coker, and above all the religious community at Little Gidding, matter greatly to our understanding of both Eliot's life and also his poetry. But the antithesis of place, that is the idea of exile from place, is equally important.
The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and...
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[@johnmartin2813]

I personally find the opening of the first movement of Burnt Norton very incantatory.

[@idecantwellbarnes6707]

Thank you Professor Belinda Jack and thank you Gresham College.

[@paulbrucker3345]

So far, listening to half this lecture, the professor is talking about art generalities and, at best, talking around the supposed subject of the lecture, the Four Quartets -- rather than getting into the text itself to illuminate it. Instead, it seems to put a frame around the poem rather than to explore the poem itself.

[@JaGaJG1]

The idea that poetry is democratically open to personal interpretation by the reader goes directly against T.S. Eliot's theories on poetry. His poems are exactingly precise, and if you deem his attempts successful, mean exactly one thing: exactly what they say. He belonged to the school of the New Critics. This must be kept in mind when trying to understand his poetry.

[@quagapp]

But I don't think that applies so much to The Waste Land. He talks also of 'emotional logic' or something like that. Also, that 'great poetry communicates before it is understood'. The Quartets have (or seem to have) a definite almost single meaning but for the reader they mean something even deeper than his 'religious message' of salvation and the still point and so on (as in another lecture on KZbin somewhere, I forget the lecturer). But it is like a great music, you may not get it as per se, but you get more or less out of it...not sure of the democratic thing. Eliot wasn't keen on democracy either.

[@TheLitLass]

Oh, Dame Helen Gardner--what a perfect quotation! (I want to be Helen Gardner when I grow up.) "We must find the meaning in the reading."

[@mgenthbjpafa6413]

I hear the author or Alex Guinness voice when life gives me the lemons... and that works, and can see 🌹 s

[@jeffinrodriguez914]

"disturbing the dust" here the dust could be a symbolic embodiment of past and present, as in the biblical saying "dust thou art and to dust thou shall return". So the poet might be pointing out the futility of contemplating the past and present of human life, which is the "bowl of rose leaves"

[@mgenthbjpafa6413]

Congratulations dear Professor, finally a lecture that gains my admiration and where I strongly believe to have learned, even if only the Beauty of your expressions.

[@mgenthbjpafa6413]

Don't get me wrong. Much was learned and left to reflect. Amazing clarity and supposedly only the crust of you. Honored.

[@thomassimmons1950]

Well Done..!

[@comprehensiveboycomprehens8786]

So how did he acquire that accent?

[@mgenthbjpafa6413]

As you must have one.

[@Ackermix]

Why The waste land is considered a masterpiece and the most important of the century and not the Four Quartets

[@mgenthbjpafa6413]

Yes. The four quartets are the summit.

[@Simpaulme]

Because TWL was first and more ground breaking?

[@quagapp]

This bloke shows the deep religious significance of the poem. A very good explication even though I am not religious as such: Thomas Howard, Professor Emeritus, St. John's Seminary, and author, "Dove Descending: A Journey into T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets" - Gordon College Symposium Key Note Address - Thursday April 18, 2013

[@mgenthbjpafa6413]

As a convict atheist I may consider some propriety on your comments. But limited by the greater meaning of poetic Flux of conscienceness.

[@MrRichiekaye]

Difficult poetry is only those clause-phrase-stanzas which the writer did not wish or could not make evident by means of skill.

[@briankelly5828]

'Four Quartets' makes no sense except as Christian mysticism. To say it describes a universal human experience that anyone of any faith can access is to misread it completely.

[@bobbythesharp]

Exactly, if you don't understand st John of the Cross you won't fully get 4Q

[@alexlu9418]

i 'only' have a bachelor's in Religious Studies, and i also detect traces of both Christian Mysticism and Gnostic elements. Juan de la Cruz and Meister Eckhart. But the major faiths have a mystical branch for a reason, like a release valve. i've loved F.Q. since high school. i think it's possible for students of Hinduism (Gita), Jewish mysticism (Zohar, Kabbalah), a Sufi mystic (Hafiz, Rumi) or just a sensitive reader to get something out of reading and rereading F.Q. imo i also expect Eliot's erudition to go beyond my hunches; the joy of reading is often such encounters with a mind far more original and comprehensive than my own.

[@malvinderkaur4187]

Intellect' is very subjective, it can be very facetious, pretentious and yet it can be very simple and delightful, delighting in simple verses and understanding... i have come across so called poems or writing in their effort to be pseudo intellect, it was so obviously put off, boring stupid pieces of those efforts, A genuine intellect immediately catches on to what is what , even intelligent genuine difficult piece will connect with the ones who understand it, but that group is niche like' critics choice' then what delights the masses.