T.S. Eliot's Dark Night

In undergraduate school, I read "The Wasteland" by T.S. Eliot. Didn't understand it a bit. I was sure I didn't like the poet and vowed never to read anything else by the man.

But then he ends up on my required reading list for comprehensive exams in graduate school. I had no choice. I simply had to read (and be able to write literary analysis of) a collection of poetry called Four Quartets.

With more than a little resentment, I searched for the book at Borders Bookstore and forked over good money for it. Very quickly, I realized that I actually do like the poet. And here is a little taste of Eliot just for you.

Four Quartets, by T.S. Eliot
-From “East Coker III”

I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you
Which shall be the darkness of God. As, in a theatre
The lights are extinguished, for the scene to be changed
With a hollow rumble of wings, with a movement of darkness on darkness;
And we know that the hills and the trees, the distant panorama
And the bold imposing façade are all being rolled away—

So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness
the dancing. (112-127)

***If you are reading Four Quartets for a class, I recommend reading it with Thomas Howard's book Dove Descending. I came across the book many years after graduate school ended. Too late for me to benefit from it academically, but I enjoyed it immensely on a personal level.

T.S. Eliot's Dark Night

English Assignment for the Secondary Home School Student

Book review – Dove Descending

Premise of book – the author mines the treasures buried in T. S. Eliot’s poetry and presents a Catholic reading of Four Quartets.

DOVE DESCENDING, By Thomas Howard, Ignatius Press, 2006. 160 pages.

In his book Dove Descending, Thomas Howard offers readers a wonderful footnote to T.S. Eliot’s book of poetry entitled Four Quartets. Howard explores the intersection of scholarship and faith, while preserving a truly Catholic understanding of Eliot’s work. The book is for those who find Eliot’s poetry theologically intriguing, but at times elusive. It is for the priest who writes countless homilies and delights in a fresh source of quotable lines. It is not for those who expect poetry to resemble a Mother Goose rhyme.

Perhaps the most unique potential reader is the secondary-level home school student and parents who want their student to be exposed to spiritually trustworthy material with a strong literary component. This book will challenge the young adult reader (15-18) and prepare him or her for college-level literature courses. It is designed to be a companion book to Eliot’s Four Quartets and give the student a joyride through theology and philosophy without compromising the faith. I recommend that the student cover a page or two each day in Howard’s book and read the corresponding lines of poetry in Eliot’s book. Ideally, the student would be given ample opportunity to reflect on the readings and explore his own thoughts in a personal journal. Reading the books in tandem is like having a front-row seat in the finest literature class. It is like having a personal tutor who happens to be a literary genius.

Like many Catholic scholars before him, Thomas Howard gives God, the Church and the literary world his very best.

* * *

Howard was a professor of English and literature for over thirty years. He is the author of numerous popular books including, Chance or the Dance, Evangelical is Not Enough, Lead Kindly Light, and On Being Catholic.

English Assignment for the Secondary Home School Student