| Summary: | In his 'Landscapes,' T.S. Eliot experiments with the copla, a poetic meter associated with popular Spanish folksong. Related to the Latin copula, meaning 'link' or 'union,' the copla often uses a localized landscape to meditate on the struggle between profane and religious love. The presence of the copla form in 'Landscapes' calls us to reconsider the status of these neglected minor poems in Eliot's oeuvre. Attending to the poems' Spanish influences reveals Eliot's evolving thought on the place of personal emotion on the religious path. 'New Hampshire,' 'Virginia,' 'Usk,' 'Rannoch, by Glencoe,' and 'Cape Ann' can be read as a cohesive sequence beginning with personal contemplation and moving to the resignation of self, foreshadowing the religious sensibility arrived at through the Spanish mystics in Four Quartets.
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