Mysticism under Scrutiny: The Influence of Seren Kierkegaard

Abstract

Four Quartets is generally understood to be the work of a Christian artist with a consistent religious and moral vision. Accordingly, although it is accepted that Eliot’s terms of reference widen from one Quartet to another, the possibility that he may in mid-course have actually begun to change his mind on a fundamental issue is almost never considered. And yet this is, I believe, the only true and possible explanation for the rather confused tone of hesitancy and ponderousness one has come to associate with Eliot’s third Quartet.

Every work of art adheres to some system of morality. But if it be really a work of art, it must contain the essential criticism on the morality to which it adheres…. The degree to which the system of morality, or the metaphysic, is submitted to criticism within the work of art makes the lasting value and satisfaction of that work.

(D. H. Lawrence, Phoenix 1)