Four-Quartets
Burnt Norton
2026-06-19 2026-W25-5
J: There is a problem, but it’s slippery.
M: Why ‘the deception of the thrush’?
S: How do we consume the book? various: all at once, or quartet at the time, or a few lines at a time.
J2: recommends
S: connects to Ecclesiastes
Connection to music, in music the present moment retains the prior movement.
L: thrush connection to Tolkien
thrush: hope of spring, communication,
Keats: Ode on Grecian Urn unheard music is the highest music but not real
L: bell, funeral bell?
J: Hopkins: As Kingfishers Catch Fire
III Hampstead… stations on the Tube
References
As Kingfishers Catch Fire The Hobbit The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
song; Is that all there is?
Dove Descending: A Journey into TS Eliot’s Four Quarters
East Coker
2026-06-26 2026-W26-5
I: Echos of Eccl
connection to prev poem time movement and stillness humility
Eliot reciting Eyliot similar to Dante meeting his ancestor in Inferno speaking Old Italian.
St John of the Cross the Dark Night of the Soul 1500s
The Cloud of Unknowing 1300s
Reviewing images takes you back to it.
J: V no competition with either great men or saints. But we are to fight to recover what has been lost.
The old men to be explorers connects back to II with humility and new experience.
Meister Eckhart If you try to love, it’s already eluded you.
Houses in I can be dynasties
V:
If there only existed a single sense for the words of Scripture, then the first commentator who came along would discover it, and other hearers would experience neither the labor of searching, nor the joy of finding. Rather each word of our Lord has its own form, and each form has its own members, and each member has its own character. Each individual understands according to his capacity and interprets as it is granted him. Commentary on the Diatessaron 7.22 103
The Dry Salvages
2026-07-09 2026-W28-4
A: The ocean is both the beginning and the end of the river.
The heart of a city is noise and distraction.
S: The relation between river and sea is the relation between past and feature
Dover Beach
S: 1st Q: only present 2nd Q: present meaningful because of past and future 3rd Q: Cross, up/down forward/back
Annunciation entry of Timeless one into time. occupation of the saint
J2 M a good dinner: Babbette’s feast
A: every moment is the moment of our salvation
the process of doing is the saving
S: fruit theme connected to Annunciation
M: Only poem written in America
Old mean ought to be explorers –> fare forward voyagers
against progress time is no healer
J2: yew: tree associated with grave and eternity thereby
fortune-telling distraction by distraction
M We are only undefeated because we go on trying connected to East Coker That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss. For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.