earticle

영어

T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets is the most complex poem which deals with the meditation about moment and eternity with profundity. Especially, in “Little Gidding” he overcomes the limitation of time and suggests the possibility of salvation through the experience of moment and eternity. So, the aim of this study is to explore systematically the theme of moment and eternity through the relation of the world of the time and the world of the timeless in “Little Gidding”. As Little Gidding means the symbolic place where spiritual communion can be done, it becomes a universal place, in other words, “England and nowhere” spacially and “never and always” in physical time. In this special place, the poet experiences the delicate balance of time and eternity, and realizes that this moment is the still point transcending time. With his view of time, this poem shows from destruction through purification to the eternal combination of the rose and the fire, using the fire image repeatedly. This suggests that human love(the rose) is redeemed by God’s love(the fire) and is reconciled in the fire of purification. Like this, T. S. Eliot embodies his personal experiences in the poem and tries to rediscover life’s true value and meaning from the world of desolate and meaningless time. He wants to recognize the moment which we cannot ordinarily feel. If we can understand the eternal world of the timeless through the experience of the changing world of time, we will also understand the unity of the two conflicting concepts, moment and eternity. And he believes that we will transcend all oppositions and arrive the unchanging eternal world, the still point which is a world of harmony and reconciliation.