Political Poems: ‘Little Gidding’ by T.S. Eliot

In the final episode of Political Poems, Mark and Seamus discuss ‘Little Gidding’, the fourth poem of T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets. Emerging out of Eliot’s experiences of the Blitz, ‘Little Gidding’ presents us with an apocalyptic vision of purifying fire. Suggesting that humanity can survive warfare only through renewed spiritual unity, Eliot finds a model in Little Gidding, a small village that for a time in the 17th century served as an Anglican commune before its closure under Puritan scrutiny. Mark and Seamus explore how Eliot’s poetics heighten our sense of the liminal and mystical, and how, by ‘scrambling our brains’, Eliot’s brilliant rhetoric subsumes his bizarre politics. Further reading in the LRB: Frank Kermode: Disintegration https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v16/n02/frank-kermode/disintegration Helen Thaventhiran: Things Ill Done and Undone https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v44/n17/helen-thaventhiran/things-ill-done-and-undone Tobias Gregory: By All Possible Art https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v36/n24/tobias-gregory/by-all-possible-art