Four Quartets T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets is a sequence of four interlinked long poems — Burnt Norton, East Coker, The Dry Salvages and Little Gidding. Written between 1935 and 1942, they form Eliot’s most mature exploration of time, history, and the possibility of spiritual renewal. Each “quartet” takes its name from a place tied to Eliot’s life and blends images of landscape, memory, and religious tradition. Through meditations on time’s cyclical nature, human suffering, and the limits of language, Eliot moves toward a vision of stillness and redemption in the midst of change. Christian theology, especially concepts of incarnation, sacrifice, and grace, shapes the poems’ movement from personal reflection to universal insight. Their musical structure—repeating themes and variations like a string quartet—creates a pattern of thought and sound. Four Quartets stands as one of the central works of modernist poetry, uniting philosophical depth with lyrical, prayer-like intensity.
