Mysticism and Sufism in T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets
Ashti Anwar Muhammed, Asma Jasim Muhammad
JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE STUDIES September 8, 2023 DOI: 10.25130/jls.3.4.19 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Mysticism |
| Key points | Argues that T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets contains mystical elements that have been overlooked, and that these elements point toward Sufism. Contends against readings of Eliot as an atheist poet, proposing that the poems offer a spiritual answer to the problems of twentieth-century people. |
Abstract
This paper attempts to trace mysticism in T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartetswith a special focus on the mystical elements in the poems with theirrelevant dimensions. It also aims at looking at different literaturesaround Eliot’s works which consider Eliot as an atheist poet whoseearlier writings contain secularist ideas but that only his Four Quartetsand ‘Ash Wednesday’ contain some differences to faith, with the aimof proving that Eliot was not an atheist writer.This paper also looks at the mystical aspects of Eliot’s FourQuartets which shift into a deeper aspect of life that is Sufism. Nostudies have been done on this significant aspect of his Four QuartetsThe study also aims at presenting the answer that Eliot proposes to theproblem of the people in the twentieth century through analyzing thehidden meanings of his poems
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on mysticism, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| The mystical mind: probing the biology of religious experience | 2000 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Religious and Mystical Experiences as Artifacts of Temporal Lobe Function: A General Hypothesis | 1983 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| The Problem of Pure Consciousness: Mysticism and Philosophy | 1993 | Edited collection of essays | |
| Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century | 2020 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Mysticism and schizophrenia: A phenomenological exploration of the structure of consciousness in the schizophrenia spectrum disorders. | 2016 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |