Eliot and the Language of Difficulty

Paper Summary:

This paper critically evaluates the complex linguistic structure of "The Four Quartets", focusing on circularity of Eliot's language and his frequent use of oxymorons. It argues that such linguistic devices signal Eliot's fundamental frustration regarding the inadequacy of language (both ordinary and poetic) and his search for a metalanguage. The paper also draws on Eliot's The Waste Land with its themes of hollowness and physical and linguistic disintegration.

From the Paper:

"The most striking and insistent characteristic of The Four Quartets must be its difficulty both of language and content. As a poem, it has no objective, no defined conclusion: 'In my end is my beginning' is the resounding message which, if unraveled, only serves to send the reader round in ever widening circles . The construction of the poem provides an explanation for the apparent lack of linear progression - written from 1936 to 1942, the four sections were only conflated for an American audience in 1943. However, together they possess a somewhat conflicting homogeneity both echoing and contradicting each other."

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