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dc.contributor.advisorOutka, Paul
dc.contributor.authorBurdge, Alexander Robert
dc.date.accessioned2021-07-20T20:33:29Z
dc.date.available2021-07-20T20:33:29Z
dc.date.issued2020-05-31
dc.date.submitted2020
dc.identifier.otherhttp://dissertations.umi.com/ku:17117
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1808/31739
dc.description.abstractThis thesis reads T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets as a dramatization of the progress of the spiritual life as elaborated within early Christianity, moving from praxis, where the soul engages in ascetical practice in an effort to cleanse itself of passions; through the contemplation of nature, which aims at an understanding of the created world in its cycles of generation and decay; to theologia, or the mystical union with God. The focus in this essay is with the second stage in particular and seeks to better account for Eliot’s representation of nature by grounding it in the ascetical and mystical traditions, primarily but not exclusively Christian, that he was most engaged with. It is argued that this deep spiritual structure undergirding the Quartets functions to make the reading experience itself a type of spiritual exercise, with the end of cleansing the doors of perception and the discernment of life and beauty amidst a universe of death.
dc.format.extent54 pages
dc.language.isoen
dc.publisherUniversity of Kansas
dc.rightsCopyright held by the author.
dc.subjectLiterature
dc.subjectasceticism
dc.subjectecocriticism
dc.subjectFour Quartets
dc.subjectT. S. Eliot
dc.subjecttheoria physike
dc.titleT. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets and the Contemplation of Nature
dc.typeThesis
dc.contributor.cmtememberLollar, Joshua
dc.contributor.cmtememberConrad, Kathryn
dc.thesis.degreeDisciplineEnglish
dc.thesis.degreeLevelM.A.
dc.identifier.orcidhttps://orcid.org/0000-0001-9024-4268en_US
dc.rights.accessrightsopenAccess


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