Thomas
Stearns Eliot was born in 1888 in the United
States of America into
a family which supported the Unitarian Church. That is, they did not follow the doctrine of
the Trinity, (Father, Son and Holy Spirit as
the simultaneous but different faces of God).
After many years of seeking spiritual fulfilment
in philosophy and other faiths, Eliot decided
to become a member of the Church of England,
which meant being baptised in the Name of the
Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, before
being confirmed and admitted to full membership
of the Church. He did this in 1927, and then
began a lifelong journey to discover how to practise
his religion in daily life, convinced that this
meant regular attendance at Church, retreat into
contemplation, confession and spiritual direction.
1936:
T.S.Eliot on retreat
Early
in 1936, on one of the poet's visits to the Society
of the Sacred Mission at Kelham Hall
in Nottinghamshire, he was asked to read and
criticise the manuscript of a verse play written
by one of the members of this Anglican religious
community, Brother George Every. The play, entitled
Stalemate-the King at Little Gidding dealt with
the visit of King Charles 1st in May 1646. Eliot
was interested in the idea of Christian Community
as the ideal of the Christian life, and had read
about the Ferrars in earlier years: possibly
'John Inglesant', possibly Peckard's Life: both
volumes were in his library.
Eliot's
visit to Little Gidding
Eliot
was an Honorary Fellow of Magdalene College in
Cambridge,
and
during one of his visits may
have had conversations with some of the men
then working on the Ferrar papers held by the
College. He was escorted to Little Gidding by
the
Dean of the College, the Revd Hugh Fraser Stewart
and his wife, on Wednesday afternoon the 25 May
1936. Also with
the party was Bernard
Blackstone, Fellow of Trinity College, who was
working on the Ferrar material: his 'Ferrar Papers'
was published 1938. Eliot may also have met Alan
Maycock, who was about to publish his life of
Nicholas Ferrar, and who later asked Eliot to
be an honorary Patron of the Friends of Little
Gidding.
The roadsides would have been
lined with the flowering heads of Queen
Anne's
Lace (cow-parsley), and the hedgerows white with
May blossom (hawthorn). They would have driven
down the
rough road, and walked behind the brick-built
pigsty, turning in front of the farmhouse to
catch their first glimpse of the church façade
and the table tomb of Nicholas Ferrar.
'Four Quartets' The 'Four
Quartets' is a sequence of poetic reflections
on the importance of time and intersections
of timeless moments. Eliot experienced such a
moment
at Little Gidding on that spring afternoon,
and wrote the final part of his great work thereafter.
After it appeared in 1942, he published no
more
poetry, and died in 1965.
