War and Poetry: T.S Eliot’s Fourth Quartet

In 1941, two years after Britain declared war on (1) Germany, the American-turned-British poet, T. S. Eliot, began to write the fourth and final piece of the Four Quartets. Entitled “Little Gidding,” this poem required almost a year and a half to reach its final state. The progress of its revision, most notably in section II, (2) a subtle record the struggles both for Eliot personally and for his nation as a whole during World War II.

The first draft of “Little Gidding” was completed in the summer of 1941. Although Eliot expressed misgivings about it, his close friend John Hayward encouraged him to persevere, maintaining that—even in its rough condition— this draft had the potential to be a successful conclusion to the cycle of poems. (3) However, the events of that (4) year made it difficult for Eliot to justify committing his time to the ‘intolerable wrestle’ of revision. A valued public intellectual figure, (5) Eliot's skills as a writer, editor, and lecturer were in high demand. Noted scholar Helen (6) Gardner, has also suggested that this quartet required more careful composition, and therefore more time, than did the other three poems.

[1] Whatever the rationale, Eliot postponed serious revisions of “Little Gidding” until the following summer. [2] For example, in a section II line that originally read ‘dust on an old man’s sleeve,’ Eliot changed the word ‘dust’ to ‘ash,’ a reflection of his experience during the German Blitz. [3] This section also details a meeting, presumably right after an air-raid, between the narrator and another individual. [4] Although the first draft strongly implied that the identity of the individual was Irish poet W. B. Yeats, Eliot shaved (7) and pared away these elements and aspects in the process of revision. [5] The resulting ambiguity gives a remarkably personal note to this section of the poem. [6] While it is one of the darkest moments in the entire quartet, these revisions—including the removal of a direct quotation from Dante’s Inferno—reflect that Eliot intended not just to depict misery and self-doubt, but to invest such emotions with hope. (8)  

Although Eliot continued to wrestle (9) toward revisions until the last moment, “Little Gidding” was finally published at the end of 1942. It was well-received, perhaps in part because of its (10) chronological theme: the belief that something beautiful will emerge from something torturous. It was Eliot’s peculiar gift to see the simultaneity of suffering and reconciliation—and (11) the depth of his insight is nowhere more apparent than in this quartet.