Redeeming Time: T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets (Paperback)

~ Kenneth Paul Kramer (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

This exploration of T. S. Eliot's last major poem, Four Quartets, examines the poem's potential to transform readers' faith journeys. Kramer shows that the power of Four Quartets is its ability to create a dynamic interaction between the poem and the reader that promotes a genuine connection with the natural world, with others, and with the Divine.

Product Details

• Paperback: 190 pages
• Publisher: Cowley Publications (May 15, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1561012858
• ISBN-13: 978-1561012855
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #353,456 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent guide to Four Quartets, October 18, 2007

By	Rachel R. Munafo (Philadelphia, PA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets is one of the most difficult and obscure poems ever written. Kenneth Paul Kramer's Redeeming Time is an excellent guide to understanding the poem's hidden meanings. The author has devoted more than thirty-five years to Eliot's masterpiece: he wrote his Ph D. thesis on Four Quartets, made numerous research trips to all four locations of the titles to each poem, taught courses on it at university, and continued his study of the poems while writing numerous books. Redeeming Time is well-written,clearly organized, and includes one hundred pages of Notes in the back of the book, plus a bibliography of the works cited and an index. This is truly a scholarly work. Best of all, Kramer's analysis unlocks many of the difficulties for the reader. I found this book to be the most helpful and useful analysis on Four Quartets written thus far.I highly recommend it.

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Read This Book- Now!, December 7, 2007

By	Peter Baughan (Princeton, NJ) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Four Quartets captured me in its spell when I first encountered it in November '05. I have been trying to understand it, and its magnetic pull, ever since. Redeeming Time is brilliant in lifting the veil on Four Quartets and revealing the timeless truths so evoked there- and so hidden 'here'. If you are even vaguely interested in the contemplative / mystical life, or in touching 'sacramental existence' in the ordinary, feed your soul here- in Kramer's enabling strucutre- and let Four Quartets flow with even more power. Kenneth Kramer: what a gift. Thanks!

8 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Redeeming the Unredeemable, July 13, 2008

By	Helen M. Cotton "Helen Cotton, retired presch... (Boston MA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The fifth line of the first Quartet states that time is unredeemable. Kramer's book is a very long argument to the contrary, and in the end he doesn't persuade me. It seems to me that Eliot himself had troubles with his use of paradox to explicate Ecclesiastes, and so does Kramer. Glad I bought the book, it's great poetry, if unconvincing as a combination of philosophy and mysticism, and I'm happy someone as sensitive to the poetry as Kramer has spent what must be most of a lifetime pondering the riches of the text.