本論文旨在探討湯瑪斯‧史坦納‧艾略特的《四重奏》中， 東西方智慧的匯流地帶。
在這價值觀淪落，人們處心積慮，瘋狂地追求權勢與科學競技的時代裡，湯瑪斯‧史坦納‧艾略特的《四重奏》是一部具有深遠意義的人類心靈探索史。這些詩作不但對靈魂本質作深入探討，並對人類歷史的內在性進行思索。對艾略特而言，藝術作品本身並不夾帶任何表達真理，或追求人生意義的外在責任。因為藝術本身與生就蘊涵著其本質上的真實性和內在性意義，故能意韻無窮。
成就一首好詩，是詩人對其社會另一種形式的奉獻，也是身為詩人的
入世任務。於是艾略特在他的《四重奏》裡，不但深刻地描繪出詩人竭盡所思地為他的詩作尋覓達意之詞，更刻劃著詩人身處於紛擾人間的心路歷程。
為了替在道德上和心靈上皆混淆不堪的現代社會找尋一條出路，艾略特重返古希臘精神的哲學領域，同時吸取東方哲學中的精華，深情地譜出一部融匯東西方浩瀚智慧的不朽詩篇。

T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets is a significant document that records a poet’s
exploration in a world vacant of basic values, in which people race madly for
power and technological advance. The quartets not only probe the soul but
explore the history of men. For Eliot, however, the concept of art as
ontological significance does not take a work of art for the bearer of truth or
meaning, but sees it in itself as truth and meaningful, and therefore never
devoid of meaning. The proper making of the poem is a form of right action
and a part of the religious duty of the poet, so the quartets are continually
concerned with the right words as well as the poet’s spiritual journey in the
muddy world. In order to search for a way out of the moral and spiritual
chaos of the modern world, Eliot traveled back to the original spirit of the
Pre-Socratic philosophy, Heraclitus’ logos, and absorbed the primal spring of
the Oriental philosophies and thus succeeds in achieving a rich fusion of
Oriental and Occidental wisdom.

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