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Little Gidding (poem)

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For the village, see Little Gidding, Cambridgeshire.

"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 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 emphasize 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 recognizing 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.

Background

St John’s Church, Little Gidding, as it is today

Following the completion of the third Four Quartets poem, "The Dry Salvages", Eliot's health declined and he stayed in Shamley Green, Surrey while recovering. During this time, Eliot started writing "Little Gidding". The first draft was completed in July 1941 but he was dissatisfied with it. He believed the problems with the poem lay with his own inability to write, that he started the poem with too little preparation, and that he wrote it too quickly. The later two were partially the result of the air raids on London, which caused him to rush through his writing. After the first draft was written, he set the poem aside, and he left in September to travel in order to lecture throughout Great Britain.[1]

After months of not working on the poem, Eliot slowly felt compelled to finish it, although it was not until the next August that he started working on it again. In total, there were five drafts. It was finished by 19 September 1942 and published in the October New English Weekly.[2]

Unlike the other locations placed in the titles of the Four Quartets poems, Eliot had no direct biographical connection to the actual Little Gidding because the original town was destroyed by the time he visited the place. As such, the town is supposed to represent almost any religious community.[3] Little Gidding was the home of an Anglican community established in 1626 by Nicholas Ferrar. The Ferrar household lived a Christian life according to High Church principles and the Book of Common Prayer. The religious community was later destroyed during the Civil War and rebuilt over time. Eliot visited the site in May 1936. "Little Gidding" was intended to conclude the Four Quartets series, summarising Eliot's views expressed in this series of poems.[4]

Poem

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 an emphasis on when the summer will arrive. The images of snow provoke desires for a spiritual life. This transitions into an analysis of the four elements and how fire is the primary element of the four. Following this is a discussion on death and destruction, things that were not accomplished, and regret for events that happened in the past.[5]

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 final 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 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 mankind.[6]

Themes

In terms of renewal, Eliot believed that suffering was needed for all of society before new life could begin. The original Little Gidding community was built for monastic living, but the town was destroyed by Puritan forces during the English Civil War in 1646 and the community broken apart. The church, the centre of the community, was restored in 1714 and again 1853. This image of religious renewal is combined with the image of the London air-raids and the constant fighting and destruction within the world. This compound image is used to discuss the connection of holy places with the Holy Spirit, Pentecost, communion with the dead, and the repetition of history.[7] The theme is also internal to Eliot's own poems; the image of the rose garden at the end "Little Gidding" is the image that begins "Burnt Norton" and the journey is made circular.[8] Also, the depiction of time within the poem is similar to the way time operates within The Family Reunion.[9]

Like his other poems known as the Four Quartets, "Little Gidding" deals with the past, present, and future, and humanity's place within them as each generation is seemingly united. In the second section, there is a ghost who is the compilation of various poets, including Dante, Swift, Yeats, and others. When the ghost joins the poet, the narrator states "Knowing myself yet being someone other". This suggests that the different times merge just like the different personalities begin to merge. This allows a communication and connection with the dead. Later, in the fourth section, humanity is given a choice between the bombing of London or the Holy Spirit; destruction or redemption. God's love allows humankind to redeem their selves and escape the living hell through purgation by fire. The end of the poem describes how Eliot has attempted to try and help the world as a poet. He parallels his work in language with working on the soul or working on society.[10]

The ghost, a combination of many literary figures, was originally addressed in the poem as "Ser Brunetto" before being revised as an ambiguous "you".[11] Eliot, in a letter to John Hayward dated 27 August 1942, explained why he changed the wording:

I think you will recognise that it was necessary to get rid of Brunetto for two reasons. The first is that the visionary figure has now become somewhat more definite and will no doubt be identified by some readers with Yeats though I do not mean anything so precise as that. However, I do not wish to take the responsibility of putting Yeats or anybody else into Hell and I do not want to impute to him the particular vice which took Brunetto there. Secondly, although the reference to that Canto is intended to be explicit, I wish the effect of the whole to be Purgatorial which is more appropriate. That brings us to the reference to swimming in fire which you will remember at the end of Purgatorio 26 where the poets are found.[12]

The theme of swimming through flames is connected to the depiction of Guido Guinizelli, a poet that influenced Dante, seeking such a state in Purgatorio XXVI. However, the depiction of swimming was transformed into an image of dancing, an act that appears throughout Yeats's poetry, within purgatorial flames. The critic Dominic Manganiello suggests that, in combing the image of dancing with purgation, Eliot merges Dante's and Yeats's poetic themes.[13]

Sources

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 within "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 within the poem: 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 within the poem, especially in discussions on the Holy Spirit and Pentecost.[17] Many critics have pointed out the influence of George Herbert within the poem, but Eliot, in a letter to Anne Ridler dated 10 March 1941, stated that he was trying to avoid such connections within "Little Gidding".[18]

Reception

Critics such as Malcolm Cowley and Delmore Schwartz described mixed emotions about the religiosity of the poem. Cowley emphasized the mystical nature of the poem and how its themes were closer to Buddhism than Anglicanism while he appreciated many of the passages. Delmore also mentioned the Buddhist images and his appreciation for many of the lines in "Little Gidding".[19] F. B. Pinion believed that the fourth section of the poem costs "Eliot more trouble and vexation than any passage of the same length he ever wrote, and is his greatest achievement in 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]

Notes

  1. ^ Ackroyd 1984 pp. 263–264
  2. ^ Ackroyd 1984 pp. 265–266
  3. ^ Gordon 2000 p. 242
  4. ^ Ackroyd 1984 p. 263
  5. ^ Pinion 1986 pp. 229–230
  6. ^ Pinion 1986 pp. 229–234
  7. ^ Pinion 1986 pp. 228–230
  8. ^ Manganiello 1989 p. 115
  9. ^ Gordon 2000 p. 242
  10. ^ Kirk 2008 pp. 260–263
  11. ^ Manganiello 1989 p. 148
  12. ^ Gardener 1978 qtd. pp. 64–65
  13. ^ Manganiello 1989 pp. 148–149
  14. ^ Ackroyd 1984 p. 270
  15. ^ Pinion 1986 p. 190
  16. ^ a b Pinion 1986 p. 229
  17. ^ Pinion 1986 pp. 230–232
  18. ^ Schuchard 1999 p. 185
  19. ^ Grant 1997 p. 46
  20. ^ Gordon 2000 qtd. p. 374

References

  • Ackroyd, Peter. T. S. Eliot: A Life. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984. ISBN 0671530437
  • Bergonzi, Bernard. T. S. Eliot. New York: Macmillan Company, 1972. OCLC 262820
  • Gardner, Helen. The Composition of "Four Quartets". New York: Oxford University Press, 1978. ISBN 0195199898
  • Gordon, Lyndall. T. S. Eliot: An Imperfect Life. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2000. ISBN 0393047288
  • Grant, Michael, T. S. Eliot: The Critical Heritage. New York: Routledge, 1997. ISBN 0710092245
  • Kirk, Russell. Eliot and His Age. Wilmington: ISA Books, 2008. OCLC 80106144
  • Manganiello, Dominic. T. S. Eliot and Dante. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989. ISBN 0312021046
  • Pinion, F. B. A T. S. Eliot Companion. London: MacMillan, 1986. OCLC 246986356
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