The motif of place in T.S. Eliot's "Four Quartets"

Abstract or Introduction

The title of Eliot's poetic work Four Quartets already tells that it consists of four poems. These are named Burnt Norton, East Coker, Dry Salvages and Little Gidding. Each of them is separated into five sections. Eliot wrote them over a period of eight years, namely between 1935 and 1942 which was the time of the Second World War.
Probably it is to a great extent due to mirroring the identity of wartime Britain that Eliot reached with Four Quartets a large public for the first time. Today Four Quartets are considered to be Eliot's masterpiece. Each poem was separately composed and published as an independent work at first. Though each poem is individual they form together a perfect unity: Read consecutively each illuminates the others, and the symbols employed become richer and more solid with repetition; ... Four Quartets reveal Eliot's insights into the cyclical nature of life by means of themes and images which occur again and again throughout the poems. The quartets are regarded as the clearest exposition of Eliot's Christian beliefs. The very nature of experience, spiritual renewal and connections of the personal and historical present and past are addressed. Not only the central aspect of time is important but also the motif of place does play a major role in the quartets. Typically enough are the place
names each poem bears. The places which are mentioned are not simply geographical points; they are rather associated with deep emotions.