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Music is sound organised in Time. This particular pieceby Beethoven inspired the musical form of Eliot’s “Four Quartets”, each quartet consisting of 5 movements. Eliot wrote to Spender and referred to this Beethoven piece, and the relief that is felt after great suffering. We know that Hamlet says to Horatio that there are more things in heaven and earth than are contained in his Philosophy. I have been arguing in several blog posts(http://michaelrdjames.org) that there is more to the philosophical content of Eliot’s poetry than many suspect. The combination of music, prose, and philosophy is what makes Eliot’s poetry classical and timeless. One example of this combination of how rhyming prose, philosophy, and the timing and rhythm of music, can make good poetry is the following section from Little Gidding:
Ash on an old man’s sleeve
Is all the ash the burnt roses leave.
Dust in the air suspended
Marks the place where a story ended.
Dust inbreathed was a house-
The walls, the wainscot and the mouse,
The death of hope and despair,
This is the death of air.
The end of the story of man may well be best pictured in the form of dust from the once blooming rose(the life of man), and this is suggestive of two ancient philosophical themes.
Firstly, we know Socrates turned away from his investigations of the physical world(the world of particles, air, fire, water, earth) fearing it may blind his soul to more important matters. Life and its creations reduced to dust may well prove to be the end of air. This is one of the suggestions in these lines. Secondly, there is an oracular prophecy that everything created by man is destined for ruin and destruction and it was this prophecy that motivated Socrates to lead the examined life, rather than a life investigating earth, air water and fire. Four Quartets is obviously a celebration of Christianity, but it is also and elaboration upon themes from Ancient Classical Greece. We ought to recall that the elements earth, air, water, and fire were important elements of Aristotle’s physics, which together with the processes of heat and cold, wet and dry can be used to explain both weather systems and life-systems. Dust in the air suspended may, that is combine with evaporated water to form clouds, which in turn produce rainfall, which in turn nourishes the earth: as the earth gets hotter dust rises again in the air and is swept upwards and across the earth by the four winds and the cycle continues. There is nothing in Eliot to contradict this physical account and whilst Aristotle does not shy away from exploring the physical world as did Socrates, he does agree with Socrates that the investigation of the human form of life(the human soul) is the most interesting form of investigation and he also embarks upon the project that resulted from the challenge of the Delphic oracle to man to “Know thyself!”