T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets, a collection of four poems composed between 1936 and 1942, is widely regarded as the epitome of Eliot’s poetics and a supreme philosophical poem, commencing with two epigraphs from Heraclitus. Eliot considered Parmenides, Plato, and Aristotle—who had historically steered Western philosophy as Heraclitus’s adversaries—to be philosophers of impure inspiration, ranking them inferior to Heraclitus. While Four Quartets has been the subject of extensive scholarship, primarily focusing on its connections to modern philosophy (such as Bergson and Bradley) and its religious dimensions (specifically Christianity), research explicitly linking it to Heraclitus’ philosophy remains notably scarce. This study examines Heraclitus’ unifying concepts of fire and Logos, explores their connections with modern science, and interprets them from philosophical and scientific perspectives. The ontological integration of fire and rose in Eliot’s Four Quartets signifies a fusion of Heraclitus’ and Eliot’s philosophies. This convergence offers a new approach to understanding and resolving the fundamental issues of life and death that humanity confronts.
Young‐Hee Kim (Thu,) studied this question.