A Study Of T.S. Eliot's Religious Quest

Since The Waste Land was published. T. S. Eliot had been a target for western critics. Among all motifs, Eliot's religious conversion in his late years becomes one of the major concerns of the researchers. In fact, Eliot's conversion can be traced back to his Unitarian heritage and his religious quest occupies most of his life. Based on Eliot's religious quest, this paper discusses the three major religious doctrines Eliot encountered in different stages and their influences on his poetry. The first was American Unitarianism in which family Eliot was brought up. Although Eliot was dissatisfied with his family's religion, it exerted subtle and intricate influences on him as well as on his early poems. The next stage of Eliot's religious development was his study experience in Harvard where he encountered Indian thoughts and was fascinated by the ideas of Hinduism and Buddhism. Both his poem The Waste Land and Four Quartets contained the Indian traditions. The third one Eliot encountered was Anglo-Catholicism in which he found the most satisfactory doctrines and to which he finally decided to convert. Although Eliot's religious quest is circuitous, the innermost impulse to the quest is the same, which comes from Eliot's search for a continuous tradition. After his conversion, Eliot made his religious quest an end. and eventually attaining mental peace.