Abstract
This article explores a recent performance of excerpts from T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets (1935/36–1942) entitled Engaging Eliot: Four Quartets in Word, Color, and Sound as an example of live poetry. In this context, Eliot’s poem can be analysed as an auditory artefact that interacts strongly with other oral performances (welcome addresses and artists’ conversations), as well as with the musical performance of Christopher Theofanidis’s quintet “At the Still Point” at the end of the opening of Engaging Eliot. The event served as an introduction to a 13-day art exhibition and engaged in a re-evaluation of Eliot’s poem after 9/11: while its first part emphasises the connection between Eliot’s poem and Christian doctrine, its second part – especially the combination of poetry reading and musical performance – highlights the philosophical and spiritual dimensions of Four Quartets.
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©2016 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- Editorial
- Introduction: Poetry and Performance
- Articles
- “Oh make thy selfe with holy mourning blacke”: Aspects of Drama and Performance in John Donne’s Holy Sonnet “Oh My Black Soule”
- Performance, Performativity, and the Medium of Poetry: W. B. Yeats’s “Among School Children”
- Engaging with T.S. Eliot: Four Quartets as a Multimedia Performance
- The Duality of Page and Stage: Constructing Lyrical Voices in Contemporary British Poetry Written for Performance
- Popular Songs, Poetry, and Performance: Observations on an On-going Debate
- ‘I wanna be a Rock Star!’ Lyrical Communication in Self-Referential Rock Songs
- On the Interface between Page and Stage: Interview with Patience Agbabi
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- Editorial
- Introduction: Poetry and Performance
- Articles
- “Oh make thy selfe with holy mourning blacke”: Aspects of Drama and Performance in John Donne’s Holy Sonnet “Oh My Black Soule”
- Performance, Performativity, and the Medium of Poetry: W. B. Yeats’s “Among School Children”
- Engaging with T.S. Eliot: Four Quartets as a Multimedia Performance
- The Duality of Page and Stage: Constructing Lyrical Voices in Contemporary British Poetry Written for Performance
- Popular Songs, Poetry, and Performance: Observations on an On-going Debate
- ‘I wanna be a Rock Star!’ Lyrical Communication in Self-Referential Rock Songs
- On the Interface between Page and Stage: Interview with Patience Agbabi