Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Preface to second edition
- Introduction
- 1 The growth of the poet's mind
- PART ONE 1905–1912 – AN INDIVIDUAL TALENT
- Oxford University Extension Lectures
- PART TWO 1912–1922 – ‘SHALL I AT LEAST SET MY LANDS IN ORDER?’
- PART THREE 1922–1930 – ‘ORDINA QUEST’ AMORE, O TU CHE M' AMI'
- PART FOUR 1931–1939 – THE WORD IN THE DESERT
- PART FIVE 1939–1945 – APOCALYPSE
- AFTERWORDS
- APPENDICES
- Notes
- Index
PART FIVE - 1939–1945 – APOCALYPSE
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Preface to second edition
- Introduction
- 1 The growth of the poet's mind
- PART ONE 1905–1912 – AN INDIVIDUAL TALENT
- Oxford University Extension Lectures
- PART TWO 1912–1922 – ‘SHALL I AT LEAST SET MY LANDS IN ORDER?’
- PART THREE 1922–1930 – ‘ORDINA QUEST’ AMORE, O TU CHE M' AMI'
- PART FOUR 1931–1939 – THE WORD IN THE DESERT
- PART FIVE 1939–1945 – APOCALYPSE
- AFTERWORDS
- APPENDICES
- Notes
- Index
Summary
In that vision Arjuna saw the universe, with its manifold shapes, all embraced in One, its Supreme Lord…
[Arjuna said:] ‘Thou seemest to swallow up the worlds, to lap them in flame. Thy glory fills the universe. Thy fierce rays beat down upon it irresistibly…’
Lord Shri Krishna replied: ‘I have shown myself to thee as the Destroyer who lays waste the world…’
(The Geetā, ch. XI (‘The Cosmic Vision’))I presumed to fix my look on the eternal light so long that I wearied my sight thereon!
Within its depths I saw ingathered, bound by love in one volume, the scattered leaves of all the universe;
substance and accidents and their relations, as though together fused, after such fashion that what I tell of is one simple flame.
(Paradiso, XXXIII)the only hopeful course for a society which would thrive and continue its creative activity in the arts of civilisation, is to become Christian. That prospect involves, at least, discipline, inconvenience and discomfort: but here as hereafter the alternative to hell is purgatory.
(The Idea of a Christian Society (1939))- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Thomas Stearns Eliot: Poet , pp. 201 - 202Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1995