Physics as Spiritual Exercise: T.S. Eliot and Natural Contemplation

This essay reads T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets as a dramatization of the Christian spiritual practice of natural contemplation, which aims at an understanding of the created world in its cycles of generation and decay in order to lead the soul to union with God. This focus allows for a better account of the poem's relationship to the natural world, grounding it in the ascetical and mystical traditions of Eliot's faith. This contemplative structure undergirding the Quartets makes the reading itself a spiritual exercise, leading to the discernment of life and beauty amidst a universe of death.