Musical Poetics in ‘Four Quartets’: A Transcendence of the Individual Will

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It is true that a great piece of music expresses to us something that words cannot express, and which therefore we cannot explain in words; it is true that music in its own way enlarges our range of emotion. But the moment a poet sacrifices sense to sound he ceases to write poetry (Eliot, Brooker and Schuchard 2019: 16). T. S. Eliot.Underlying the ‘Four Quartets’, arguably one of Eliot’s masterpieces, is a desperate search and expression for the real essence of life: one that encompasses an inarticulate, universalised emotion to transcend the individual will. A metaphysical poem, ‘Four Quartets’ is a clear allusion to Eliot’s desire in achieving a universal will that stretches beyond life and the external reality to reach the realm of a timeless still-point. Aiming to write poetry that could ‘get beyond poetry’ – get beyond life – Eliot’s experimentation in threading music and poetry together elucidates the importance of musicality in poetry (Matthiessen 1947: 90). With its power to evoke a ‘world unconscious’ to reveal the absolute, music gives form and pushes poetry beyond the limitations posed by the semantics of words (Virkar-Yates 2017: 82). This article examines Eliot’s musical pattern of uniting sound and sense in ‘Four Quartets’ to argue that a musical experience of poetry could transcend time: in exposing both poetry and life ‘naked in their bare bones’, Eliot aspires towards a state of absolute harmony in surrendering the individual to the universal will (Matthiessen 1947: 90).