MIDWINTER SPRING, THE STILL POINT AND DANTE. THE ASPIRATION TO THE ETERNAL PRESENT IN T.S. ELIOT'S FOUR QUARTETS

The concepts of temporal neutralisation and the resulting eternal present, central to Eliot's poetic sequence, are effectively conveyed through the images of "midwinter spring" and the "still point"-both of Dantean inspiration or influence, as we will see.3 The purpose of this paper, however, cannot be simply to confirm this influence, which was straightforwardly acknowledged by Eliot and has been thoroughly researched.4 The detailed analysis of these two specific Dantean images will lead to a consideration of their their role in Eliot's practice of poetry: expressing or revealing poetic thought and, in characteristically Eliotic manner, causing the poems where they appear to contain literary tradition. [...]Eliot chooses another image of the simultaneity of movement and stillness: the shaft of light, which appears to be still, but where dust slowly moves. [...]in their coalescence of various allusions, both images are highly representative of Eliot's style. [...]the negative theology that informs the poem is parallel with a form of "negative poetics" (2007: 427, 434).