Abstract
On 19 January 1935, shortly before Eliot began work on ‘Burnt Norton’, he made public something of his own attitude to magic by quoting with approval Fr Herbert Thurston’s statement that ‘for the mass of mankind spiritualistic practices are dangerous and undesirable’.1 Six years later in his third Quartet, ‘The Dry Salvages’, Eliot again repeated this judgment and gave it the stamp of his own moral and poetic authority.
When the familiar scene is suddenly strange Or the well known is what we have yet to learn, And two worlds meet, and intersect, and change… By whom, and by what means, was this designed?
(T. S. Eliot, ‘To Walter de la Mare’, 1948)
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
T. S. Eliot, ‘Letter to the Editor’, Time and Tide, xvi.3 (19 January 1935 ) p. 95.
T. S. Eliot, ‘From Poe to Valéry’, in To Criticize the Critic and Other Writings (London, 1948 ) p. 31.
T. S. Eliot, ‘To Walter de la Mare’, in The Complete Poems and Plays of T. S. Eliot (London, 1969 ) p. 205.
Evelyn Underhill, Mysticism (London, 1930) p. 70.
Fred Gettings, The Encyclopaedia of the Occult (London, 1986) p. 202.
C. A. Bodelsen, T. S. Eliot’s ‘Four Quartets’ (Copenhagen, 1966 ) p. 100.
Dion Fortune, The Mystical Qabalah (London, 1935) p. 18.
See R. P. Festugière O.P., L’Astrologie et les Sciences Occultés (Paris, 1950 ) p. 166.
See T. S. Eliot, ‘A Foreign Mind’, in The Athenaeum, 4653 (4 July 1919) p. 552 (a review of The Cutting of an Agate by W. B. Yeats).
See T. S. Eliot, ‘Shorter Notices’, in the Egoist, v.6 (une-July 1918) p. 87 (a review of Per arnica silentia lunae by W. B. Yeats).
W. B. Yeats, ‘Modern Poetry: a Broadcast ’ (1936) in Essays and Introductions (New York, 1977 ) p. 499.
W. B. Yeats, ‘Magic’ (1901) in Essays and Introductions, pp. 28–52.
T. S. Eliot, ‘The Modern Mind’ in The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism (London, 1933 ) p. 140.
T. S. Eliot, After Strange Gods (London, 1934 ) p. 45.
See W. B. Yeats, ‘The Symbolism of Poetry’ (1900), in Essays and Introductions, pp. 159, 163.
Maurice Maeterlinck, The Treasure of the Humble, trans. Alfred Sutro (London, 1897).
John Carswell, Lives and Letters, 1906–1957 (London, 1978) pp. 171–2.
T. S. Eliot, ‘A Commentary’, Criterion, xvi. 63 (January 1937) p. 293.
T. S. Eliot, ‘A Commentary’, Criterion, xiv. 55 (January 1935) p. 261.
T. S. Eliot, ‘Preface’, in Thoughts for Meditation: A Way to Recovery from Within, selected and arranged by N. Gangulee (London, 1951 ) p. 11.
P. D. Ouspensky, Tertium Organum, the Third Canon of Thought: A Key to the Enigmas of the World (London, 1934; first published, 1921 ) pp. 258 – 9.
T. S. Eliot, ‘Mr Charles Williams’ (an obituary notice), Times, 17 May 1945, p. 7.
T. S. Eliot, ‘The Significance of Charles Williams’, Listener, xxxvi.936 (19 December 1946 ) p. 895.
Glen Cavaliero, Charles Williams: Poet of Theology (Cambridge, 1983) p. 4.
Charles Williams, The Greater Trumps (London, 1932) p. 44.
Denis Saurat, Literature and the Occult Tradition: Studies in Philosophical Poetry (London, 1930) p. 61.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 1991 Paul Murray
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Murray, P. (1991). Mysticism and Magic. In: T. S. Eliot and Mysticism. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-13463-2_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-13463-2_10
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-0-333-61406-8
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-13463-2
eBook Packages: Palgrave Literature & Performing Arts CollectionLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)