RT Article
T1 Physics as Spiritual Exercise: T.S. Eliot and Natural Contemplation
JF Christianity & literature
VO 69
IS 4
SP 568
OP 586
A1 Burdge, Alexander
LA English
PB Johns Hopkins University Press
YR 2020
UL https://www.ixtheo.de/Record/1744316546
AB This essay reads T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets as a dramatization of the Christian spiritual practice of natural contemplation, which aims at an understanding of the created world in its cycles of generation and decay in order to lead the soul to union with God. This focus allows for a better account of the poem's relationship to the natural world, grounding it in the ascetical and mystical traditions of Eliot's faith. This contemplative structure undergirding the Quartets makes the reading itself a spiritual exercise, leading to the discernment of life and beauty amidst a universe of death.
K1 Four Quartets
K1 T. S. Eliot
K1 contemplation of nature
K1 Spiritual Exercise
K1 theoria physike
DO 10.1353/chy.2020.0067