Quartet is a modernist classic that combines poetry and music perfectly. Eliot's creative ideas have presupposed the musical concept of "quartet". The theme of Eliot's works is constructed by polyphony, counterpoint, harmony and variation. Only by starting with the musical theme structure and related musical techniques can we fully understand the aesthetic value of this work.
Western traditional dualism is the philosophical background of the quartet, which presents a series of dualistic thoughts, such as finite and infinite, instantaneous and eternal, past and future, life and death. Eliot's intention is to think about ways to solve the binary contradiction, so as to find ways to save human time. The poet found that the meaning of "incarnation" of Jesus Christ provided the highest principle for human experience and time. Jesus Christ's "incarnation" has solved the problems of the unity of finite and infinite, the integration of emotion and reason, and the intersection of human nature and divinity. The poet hopes that human beings can understand the transcendental world from the empirical world, so as to integrate the empirical world with the transcendental world. This idea is also evident in the style of poetry. Poets strengthen the theme of poetry through the paradoxical verbal expression of religious theology, the tendency of metaphor and symbolism of images and the musicalization of stylistic structure.