A question of balance : T. S. Eliot's acceptance of cyclical time

The purpose of this study is to show how T. S. Eliot's gradual acceptance of cyclical time is revealed in his poetry. Eliot's poetry seems to fall naturally into two distinct periods: : the first is before his conversion to Anglo-Catholicism, the second after his conversion. Most of the temporal criticism focuses on poetry in only one of the two groups, usually the latter since it contains the most philosophical verse. Because most of the criticism written about Eliot's concept of time is based upon his post-conversion stage, the general critical consensus is that Eliot's view of time is Christian, or linear. This conclusion, however, is not founded on a comprehensive study of time in Eliot's poetry.

Eliot's early verse presents a negative attitude toward cyclical time, and poems such as "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," and "Rhapsody on a Windy Night" present personae who are obsessed with the passage of time. Eliot cannot come to terms with his fear of death, nor can he accept the human situation in time, and as a result, the early poems fail to present a positive attitude toward cyclical time and its implications.

The poems immediately following Eliot's conversion contain the most explicitly Christian images and terminology. The hope of immortality, promised by the Christian faith, provides Eliot with an alternative to his fear of death, and Ash-Wednesday is Eliot's record of the struggle between Christian asceticism, which promises immortality,and a sensual, fulfilling life within the world of time, which promises the certainty of death. 'Marina," another poem of this same period, becomes a link between optimistic Christian spiritualism and the rewarding contact with humanity in the world of time.

Thus Eliot gradually comes to accept cyclical time with the help of a Christianity and the achevement, presented in Four Quartets, of a proper balance between sense and spirit, love and desire, and past and present. Eliot comes to the realization that even though we are . a part of a natural cyclic process, of which death is an element, we can find meaning in life through the memory of personal experiences as well as through those of previous generations.

Time is an important concept in the Twentieth Century, and Eliot's poetry presents one modern man's attempt to come to terms with the implications and meaning of the fascinating idea of time.