T.S.Eliot and Mysticism: The Secret History of "Four Quartets"

The story of the composition of "Four Quartets", in relation to mysticism, constitutes an interesting chapter in modern literary history. T.S. Eliot drew his inspiration not only from the literature of orthodox Christian mysticism and from a variety of Hindu and Buddhist sources, but also from the literature of the occult, and from several unexpected and so far unacknowledged sources such as the "mystical" symbolism of Shakespeare's later plays and the visionary poetry of Rudyard Kipling. The primary concern of this study is not with the sources as such, nor with an area somewhere behind the work, but rather with that point in "Four Quartets" where Eliot's own mystical attitude and his poetry unite and intersect.