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T. S. EliotA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Come, the narrator in the first section, “The Burial of the Dead,” intones, and “I will show you fear in a handful of dust” (Line 30). This opening section serves as an invitation to acknowledge what is difficult and even disturbing: the morally bankrupt and spiritually enervated condition of a civilization capable of sustaining a pointless and brutal war for close to ten years, a war conducted with unprecedented savagery that left more than 20 million dead—most civilians. The four episodes, presented as evidence of this civilization’s decline into spiritual emptiness, reveal lives of the living dead—lives lost to hope, adrift in ennui, in a perilous, surreal culture-scape that is barren and cheerless, a civilization lost to its own grandeur now little more than “[a] heap of broken images, where the sun beats/And the dead trees give no shelter” (Lines 22-23). Marie, the countess, lives only in her few memories of a distant childhood, sledding in the mountains where for the briefest moment, she felt “free” (Line 17). Now she dreads the return of spring. “April,” she says, “is the cruelest month” (Line 1), preferring the uncomplicated wintery world of her spiritual paralysis and emotional indifference.
There is a fleeting image of a young girl, her long hair wet from rain, carrying hyacinths—an image of life, innocence, happiness, and natural beauty that inexplicably fades.
By T. S. Eliot
Ash Wednesday
Ash Wednesday
T. S. Eliot
East Coker
East Coker
T. S. Eliot
Four Quartets
Four Quartets
T. S. Eliot
Journey of the Magi
Journey of the Magi
T. S. Eliot
Little Gidding
Little Gidding
T. S. Eliot
Mr. Mistoffelees
Mr. Mistoffelees
T. S. Eliot
Murder in the Cathedral
Murder in the Cathedral
T. S. Eliot
Portrait of a Lady
Portrait of a Lady
T. S. Eliot
Preludes
Preludes
T. S. Eliot
Rhapsody On A Windy Night
Rhapsody On A Windy Night
T. S. Eliot
The Cocktail Party
The Cocktail Party
T. S. Eliot
The Hollow Men
The Hollow Men
T. S. Eliot
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
T. S. Eliot
The Song of the Jellicles
The Song of the Jellicles
T. S. Eliot
Tradition and the Individual Talent
Tradition and the Individual Talent
T. S. Eliot