This lecture for Ihe T. S. Eliot Inlernational Summer School on the grounds of Little Gidding aims 10 reconstrucl Ihe exlent of Eliot's knowledge of Lilt1e Gidding before his firsl visil in May 1936, five years before he began 10 compose lhe poem in luly 1942. In a reading of “Little Gidding," Ihe 1eclure goes on 10 show how E1iol’s fami1iarily wilh Ihe lives and activities of Ihe Nicholas Ferrar family from 1625 10 1937 manifests ilself in the imagery and enhaoces Ihe sense of place and history that he creates in the poem. Drawing upon his correspondence aboul the composition of the poem, particularly his desire 10 build into its texture an “acute personal reminiscence, never to be explicated," the leclure concJudes Ihal “Little Gidding" is in part a love song of great loss and deep regret, and Ihal in the “11 sub1imation of his 10ve for Emily Ha1e, his Beatrice, he comp1etes his own Vita Nuova.