"The river is within us, the sea is all about us" (line 15.) In his poem The Dry Salvages, T.S. Eliot uses the river, the smooth imagery of thin water, seeping through the countryside as an allegory of the quiet, which dwells underneath the surface of us all. The Dry Salvages is the third in Eliot's Four Quartets. Each of the four quartets can be read as an individual poem, complete within itself. Within the collection, Eliot's use of language is largely drawn from his study of philosophy and ancient Eastern religions such as Hinduism. Each poem is equally broken down into four sectors. Each poem represents one of the four worldly elements, air, earth, water and fire. Each poem contains a location reference of personal importance to Eliot.
[...] He reinforces the truth espoused by his opening line that he does not know much about the gods, but he knows of what his life is made. The fourth section is the shortest of The Dry Salvages. In the second and third sections he largely let go of the sea and water images, but in the fourth he ties in the beginning section with a reversion to the creatures within the water. Each section can be read as a poem in and of itself, but the fourth section stands alone stronger than any of the others. [...]
[...] He is able to loosen his water metaphors, ever so slightly, and permit the premise of his poem to come through. The second section largely focuses on meaning of events, memory and how those two variables work together to form a comprehensive recollection after the event. This recollection could be created by one's memory. Memory is not a wholly accurate picture because the memory chooses to remember how it affected the individual, less what was actually experienced. experience revived in the meaning/Is not the experience of one (lines 103-104) it cannot be understood merely in the context of one individual because that person is a cumulative portrait of past generations. [...]
[...] Eliot continues his analogy of life mirrored in the sea as he describes the life of a seaman. Those who live their life on the open water cannot control the water, just as all else cannot control anything outside themselves. The world is not fully understood by those who live within it and the sea is not fully understood by those who sail upon it. The poem reads as the authors' own attempt to understand the world in which he lives. [...]
[...] By trying to grasp the moment as it passes we are loosing the experience, this is what Eliot is trying to learn by way of studying ancient philosophers. If we must permit reflection, “consider the future/And the past with an equal (lines 159-160) giving neither more nor less emphasis. Do not wish for something that cannot be, do not pray for “fare well/But fare forward” (lines 175-176.) Ever moving forward, the past helps define the future but it cannot be weighed upon to predict the future. [...]
[...] Each generation will, however, come to same dilemmas and each must learn from the past, while living in the present to gain a respect for the future. Weaved throughout the imagery of the poem is a constant relationship to water. Eliot had a profound relationship with water, specifically the section of Massachusetts written about in this selection. The reader can feel the permeating effect water had on the authors' development as he uses it as a tie in for all other relationships; everything can be drawn back to the water. Eliot uses water as a constant, but that does not mean [...]
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