Four Quartets

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1. GiGi
   

   The Four Quartets is a set of four poems written by T. S. Eliot that were published individually over a six year period. The first poem, Burnt Norton, was written and published with a collection of his early works while the other three, East Coker, The Dry Salvages, and Little Gidding, were written during World War II and the air-raids on Great Britain. The poems were not collected until Eliot's New York publisher printed them together in 1943. They were first published as a series in Great Britain in 1944.
   
   The central focus of the Four Quartets is man's relationship with time, the universe, and the divine. Time is seen as a binding force that keeps mankind from being able to transcend beyond boundaries and be able to find redemption. In discussing his understanding of the divine, Eliot blends Christian theological texts, allusions to Western literature, allusions to Eastern texts including the Bhagavad-Gita, and the works of Dante. Only through realizing Christ's sacrifice for mankind is an individual capable of being saved. Although many critics find the Four Quartets to be Eliot's great last work, other critics, including George Orwell, were dissatisfied with Eliot's overt religiosity.

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