Introduction : Eliot the essayist

Against (pure) transcendence : the essay and embodied truth

Eliot, Montaigne, and the essay : the matter of personality

Turning the essay : "tradition and the individual talent"

The perfect critic and imperfect critics : the essay, criticism, and impurity

Eliot's prose voice : the critical essayist as medium

"Restoring/With a new verse the ancient rhyme"

Four quartets : the poem as essay

The impure art of Four quartets : where literature and philosophy meet

Conclusion : faring forward, exploring still : participation instead of Puritan's progress.