The Poems of T. S. Eliot Volume I
Page 125
VII 41 Has the Church failed mankind, or has mankind failed the Church?: “the True Church can never fail”, The Hippopotamus 7. To C. M. Ady, 3 Jan 1940: “It is not clear just what, in your opinion, has failed, but the suggestion is alternatively that the Church has failed the modern world, or that the modern world has failed the Church. I think that whatever you mean could be put more clearly.”
VII 42–43 the Church is no longer regarded · · · and men have forgotten | All gods except Usury: “I seem to be a petty usurer in a world manipulated largely by big usurers. And I know that the Church once condemned these things”, The Church’s Message (1937). “would you yourself advocate · · · excommunication of persons practising usury?” Liberal Manifesto (1939). For usury, see note to A Cooking Egg 15–16, “a five per cent. Exchequer Bond”.
VIII
VIII 4–5] Psalm 79: 1: “the heathen are come into thine inheritances; thy holy temple have they defiled”.
VIII 6–7 Who is this that cometh from Edom? | | He has trodden the wine-press alone (7 variant With dyed garments from Bosra?): Isaiah 63: 1–4: “Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? · · · I have trodden the winepress alone · · · the day of vengeance is in mine heart, and the year of my redeemed is come.”
VIII 10 Peter the Hermit: instigator, in 1096, of the People’s Crusade.
VIII 15–18 Some went for love of glory, | Some went who were restless and curious, | Some were rapacious · · · Many left their bodies: Pound, Hugh Selwyn Mauberley IV (George Simmers, personal communication):
Some quick to arm,
some for adventure,
some from fear of weakness,
some from fear of censure,
some for love of slaughter, in imagination,
learning later …
some in fear, learning love of slaughter;
Died some, pro patria,
non “dulce” non “et decor” …
TSE included the poem in Pound’s Selected Poems. In his copy of Smart’s translation of Horace’s Odes, TSE underlined “It is sweet and glorious to die for one’s country” (III ii), and wrote “Dulce et decorum c”.
[Poem I 170–71 · Textual History II 476–77]
VIII 18 Many left their bodies to the kites: TSE’s first printed story tells of a wounded soldier, “not more than two-thirds dead”, waiting to be devoured by a vulture. In the final paragraph, as the bird flies off, the soldier “lost consciousness, and when he came to himself, it was to find that he was in the carriage of the rescuing hospital corps”, The Birds of Prey (1905).
VIII 19 sea-strewn along the routes: “Along the wet paths of the sea”, Goldfish IV 10.
VIII 27 our King did well at Acre: Richard I (Richard the Lionheart) captured the city of Acre in Western Galilee in 1191 during the Third Crusade. did well: the New Testament has “do well” repeatedly. “unto governors · · · for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well”, 1 Peter 2: 14.
VIII 36, 42–43 avarice · · · Our age · · · vice: “Perhaps the dominant vice of our time · · · will be proved to be Avarice”, The Church’s Message (1937); in the broadcast, TSE said not “vice”, but “sin”.
VIII 38 the Crusades: “I am not prepared to admit that the nominal motives (which were probably in part the actual motives) of a great many participants in the Crusades were wrong. I do not see how at the time anything could have checked me from a whole-hearted support of the Crusades, except such knowledge of the human heart as would lead one to anticipate what did happen; for actually, of course, the Crusades turned out a thoroughgoing disgrace to Christian Europe”, Notes on the Way (12 Jan 1935).
VIII 46–48 nothing is impossible, nothing, | To men of faith and conviction. | Let us therefore make perfect our will: Romans 12: 2: “be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed · · · that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (Hands). Garvie’s ed. of Romans, which TSE owned, glosses: “good, the morally right; acceptable, the religiously fit; perfect, what realizes the ideal, whether moral or religious”. make perfect our will: “Make perfect your will”, I 57. Murder in the Cathedral II, THOMAS: “if I am worthy, there is no danger. | I have therefore only to make perfect my will”. For “Our peace in His will”, see note to Ash-Wednesday VI 30–33.
IX
IX 1–2 Son of Man · · · show thee: Ezekiel 40: 4: “Son of man · · · set thine heart upon all that I shall shew thee”. TSE: “Son of man · · · you know only | A heap of broken images”, The Waste Land [I] 20–22.
IX 32–36 spirit and body · · · spirit and body · · · His Temple · · · must not deny the body: 1 Corinthians 6: 19: “Your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost.” TSE: “‘Body’ may suggest either ‘incarnation’ or ‘vile body’, and so set the mind off in quite different directions”, Christianity and the Secular (1944), a paper for The Moot. Visible and invisible must meet in His Temple: see notes to I 24–29 and X 3, 6.
IX 37 Now you shall see the Temple completed: a scrapbook kept by TSE’s mother (Houghton) contains a hymn she wrote for the dedication of the mission house of the Mission Free School of St. Louis, beginning:
The workman’s task is at an end,
The dwelling stands complete
Whose walls shall echo to the tread
Of happy children’s feet.
[Poem I 171–74 · Textual History II 477–78]
X
TSE resisted musical settings of his poems (see letter to the Master of Magdalene and Francis Turner, 9 Nov 1962, quoted at the end of “This Edition”, 6. TSE ON TREATMENTS OF HIS POEMS). However, he gave Martin Shaw permission to use Chorus X from The Rock in The Greater Light, an anthem for tenor solo, double choir and orchestra. The anthem was published in 1966 to mark the first anniversary of TSE’s death. A copy is at Magdalene (Eliotiana II).
For the early ms draft of this Chorus, see Textual History.
ms draft [6–14] For the snake in the Antistrophe, see Introspection.
ms draft [12–14] What fellowship hath Righteousness with Unrighteousness, light with darkness?: 2 Corinthians 6: 14.
ms draft [29–30] Light through the water showing the | seagods the passing shadow of Argo: see note to X 32–33.
X 2 By one who came in the night: 1 Thessalonians 5: 2: “the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night” (Hands).
X 3 a visible church, one more light set on a hill: Matthew 5: 14: “Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.” John Winthrop (one of the founders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony): “we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us”, A Model of Christian Charity (1630).
X 3, 6 a visible church · · · the Visible Church: of the Church: “In one use of the word, it means the ‘visible Church’ founded by Jesus Christ and living continuously since its foundation · · · In another use, it means ‘the invisible Church,’ consisting of all true believers, living and dead and to come · · · Those who use the term exclusively in the second sense, tend to think of the visible churches rather as societies or associations, of a voluntary nature · · · But for those to whom the first meaning is paramount, the Church is something which lives: as a tree may be encumbered by parasites, warped and mutilated by tempest, crippled by disease, so the Church lives, sustained by the Holy Ghost, Who causes the sap to flow through its living limbs”, Reunion by Destruction (1943) 12–13.
X 7–8 The great snake · · · moving his head to right and to left: “He sways [variant: moves] his head from side to side, with movements like a snake”, Macavity: The Mystery Cat 15.
X 9 the Mystery of Iniquity: 2 Thessalonians 2: 7.
X 12 be ye separate: 2 Corinthians 6: 17: “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord.”
X 14 Seek not to count the future waves of Time: Kipling: “Seek not to question other than | The books I leave behind”, The
Appeal 7–8. Included in A Choice of Kipling’s Verse and written out by TSE late in life on notepaper of the Emerald Beach Hotel, Nassau.
X 17 O Light Invisible, we praise Thee: Francis Thompson: “O world invisible, we view thee”, The Kingdom of God 1 (Grover Smith 1956 175). Light invisible: Paradise Lost I 63: “darkness visible”.
[Poem I 175 · Textual History II 478–80]
X 17–18 Light · · · Too bright for mortal vision: Paradise Lost III 375–76, 380: “Light, thyself invisible | Amidst the glorious brightness · · · Dark with excessive bright”.
X 24, 28 Glow-worm glowlight on a grassblade · · · small lights of those who meditate: Marvell: “whose dear light · · · meditate · · · Grasses fall”, The Mower to the Glowworms 1–8.
X 29–33 coloured panes · · · light reflected from the polished stone, | The gilded carven wood · · · fresco · · · submarine · · · light that fractures through unquiet water: “Reflecting light · · · coloured glass · · · drowned · · · window · · · ascended · · · Stirring · · · sea-wood · · · In which sad light a carvèd [variant: carven] dolphin swam”, The Waste Land [II] 83–96.
X 32–33 our eyes look upward | And see the light that fractures through unquiet water: Dante compares the astonishment of the eternal light to the sight of Jason’s ship, the Argo, from below: “che fe’ Nettuno ammirar l’ombra d’Argo” [that erst threw Neptune in amaze at Argo’s shadow], Paradiso XXXIII 96 (Matthiessen 153). TSE: “Nowhere in poetry has experience so remote from ordinary experience been expressed so concretely, by a masterly use of that imagery of light which is the form of certain types of mystical experience · · · I do not know anywhere in poetry more authentic sign of greatness than the power of association which could in the last line, when the poet is speaking of the Divine vision, yet introduce the Argo passing over the head of wondering Neptune”, Dante (1929) II. To Laurence Binyon, 7 July 1941, on his translation of this canto: “only one criticism, but that bothers me a good deal · · · A good deal is lost by rendering ‘Nettuno’ as ‘ancient seas’. To me the image has always meant Neptune looking up through clear water and seeing the light darkened by the hull of Argo passing over and there is something extraordinarily impressive about this sudden appearance of the old god in such a canto as this. And is ‘forgetfulness’ right for ‘letargo’? The precise feeling suggested here seems very difficult to render.” (Temple translates “letargo” as “lethargy”.) Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance ch. XXVII, on Zenobia’s death by water: “there, perhaps, she lay, with her face upward, while the shadow of the boat, and my own face peering downward, passed slowly betwixt her and the sky!”
[Poem I 175–76 · Textual History II 480–81]
Four Quartets: Headnote
1. First Publication 2. A Quartet of Four
3. Composition 4. “Not Merely More of the Same” 5. The War
6. Title 7. Music 8. Publication 9. TSE on Four Quartets
1. FIRST PUBLICATION
Burnt Norton Collected Poems 1909–1935 2 Apr 1936
East Coker NEW 21 Mar 1940
The Dry Salvages NEW 27 Feb 1941
Little Gidding NEW 15 Oct 1942
Burnt Norton was originally published as the last section, and longest new poem, in 1936. It then appeared separately as a pamphlet after the success of East Coker in this form. Like East Coker, the remaining two Quartets were each published first in NEW and then as pamphlets. The four were collected as the American edition US 1943 and subsequently in Britain in 1944. TSE to Hans Feist, 6 Dec 1945, of a proposed German translation of all his poems: “I do not, however, wish to publish at the present time all of my poems in one volume. That is to say, I wish to keep the Four Quartets in a separate volume by themselves.”
It was in the US likewise that a section called Four Quartets first figured within a larger collection of TSE’s poems: in US 1952. (Burnt Norton therefore appeared as a separate publication, as the opening of a publication, in the middle of a publication, and as the close of a publication: pamphlet, Four Quartets, US 1952, 1936.) After twelve impressions of 1944, the Quartets were gathered into the British Collected Poems in 1963. An edition of 290 signed copies of Four Quartets, finely printed by Giovanni Mardersteig in Verona, was published by Faber in 1960.
To Charles Williams, 31 Mar 1943: “As you have observed that Burnt Norton is included in the volume entitled Poems 1909–1935, your acumen will no doubt have led you to the conclusion that Burnt Norton was probably not composed later than 1936, which is exactly the fact. For the sake of consistency and in defiance of the truth I should prefer the date of Burnt Norton to be given as 1935. In any case, this departure from veracity does not affect the critical issue very much for the main point is that Burnt Norton is the first of these poems by some four years and that it is meant to be read first by anyone reading all four poems and that it will appear first in the volume consisting of all four together which will probably appear next year.”
[Poem I 177–209 · Textual History II 483–545]
To Richard Church, 24 Nov 1943: “The four poems together are intended to form a whole and we propose to publish them all together in a volume in the spring. Until this volume has appeared and made what impression it can, I feel that I should be doing myself a disservice in allowing Burnt Norton which I now consider simply as a section of a much longer poem to be published in any anthology.” To Norman Foerster, 20 Mar 1946: “I am still very anxious to establish the Four Quartets as one poem, and I still think that the publication of any one of the four parts in an anthology obstructs the establishing of that view, but I should like to come to a compromise, so I am writing to ask whether it would go to any degree toward meeting your wishes if I consent to your choosing separate sections from different poems in the volume. This, by fracturing the unity still further, would be better from my point of view since it would be clear that what appeared in the anthology were merely selections from the book and not a whole poem in itself.”
On In Memoriam: “Tennyson took a long time over the poem: perhaps there were superfluous passages, or stretches below his sustained level—if so, he eliminated and improved. The structure is designed with great care. Each section (some are very short and some longer) is a complete poem in itself—that is to say, represents a particular mood realised in its appropriate imagery: but the moods represented by the sections follow according to a logic of the emotions to form a continuous meditation on life and death”, “The Voice of His Time” (1942).
To H. W. Heckstall-Smith, 17 Sept 1947, on the recording of Four Quartets: “I am much interested in what you say further about the evidence of different degrees of intensity in my own reading of the poems. I think that you are certainly right on the whole although I was not altogether conscious of it. There are, however, passages in the poems which are deliberately intended to give an effect of flatness for purposes of contrast, and one should perhaps distinguish my own flatness in reading these passages from that of reading passages in which I do not feel complete conviction.”
To John D. Stephenson, 13 July 1945: “Burnt Norton is a manor house in Gloucestershire. I know nothing of the history of the house or of its owners. I merely happened to walk through the grounds one summer day at a time when the house had evidently been unoccupied for at least several years. East Coker is the small village in Somerset where my family lived for six or seven generations. Little Gidding is the chapel which is all that remains of the religious community run by the Ferrars in the seventeenth century. The best impression of it, any rate the best known, is that to be found in the first part of John Inglesant” (by J. Henry Shorthouse, 1881); see individual headnotes.
Four Quartets was recorded by the HMV Gramophone Co. Ltd. under the auspices of the British Council in London, and released in 1947. Six sessions were required: 22 Oct 1946 (Burnt Norton), 12 Nov (East Coker), 19 Nov (The Dry Salvages), 28 Nov (Little Gidding), 2 Dec (Burnt Norton, East Coker), 13 Mar 1947 (Burnt Norton).
Additionall
y: East Coker V only, May 1942 in Stockholm for the Swedish Broadcasting System; East Coker in full, before Nov 1945, for the BBC Indian Service (letter to Desmond Hawkins, 2 Nov 1945), and again 23 May 1947, at the National Gallery of Art, Washington; Little Gidding in full 13 May 1947, Harvard, as part of the Morris Gray Poetry Reading; and Little Gidding IV only 12 Nov 1950, for U. Chicago Round Table, broadcast by NBC.
2. A QUARTET OF FOUR
TSE to William Matchett, 19 Jan 1949: “The idea of the whole sequence emerged gradually. I should say during the composition of East Coker. Certainly by the time that poem was finished I envisaged the whole work as having four parts which gradually began to assume, perhaps only for convenience sake, a relation to the four seasons and the four elements. But certainly Burnt Norton at the time of writing was a solitary experiment, and I had nothing in mind for the next step.”
[Poems I 177–209 · Textual History II 483–545]
However, as early as 1938, when Geoffrey Tandy suggested an adaptation of Burnt Norton as voices for radio, TSE had revealed that he had something fourfold in mind. To Tandy, 10 Feb 1938: “About Burnt Norton. I do not feel quite sure about this idea of yours, although I recognise its profundity in principle. I had rather wait until I can manage to do something that I have had in mind for some time past: write a few pieces of Chamber Music, somewhat on the same lines, but deliberately with the intention of distribution between a definite number of voices, probably four. It may turn out that the stuff does not look any different from Burnt Norton, I mean that one kind will be as suitable or as unsuitable for several voices as the other, but there may turn out to be a difference, and as that seems just possible I had rather wait, and not confuse myself by bothering at present with an adaptation. However, I will go on thinking about the matter.” (For “chamber music”, see below, 7. MUSIC.)