Explicating Elliot (part 1.1)

I made the mistake of asking a very good friend what I should write about, and she, blessed me with the assignment of writing on any section of T.S. Elliot's Four Quartets. Being a literalist, I took the first part of the first section. Over time, I hope to do the whole work.

I do not understand Elliot. I would like to meet someone who does. It could be a very enlightening experience. Burnt Norton, Section 1, seems to be a long explanation on the relationship of time and memory. He begins with "time present and time past/Are both perhaps present in time future." He is collating all of time and experience into the present experience and memory of the individual. In this combination of time past, present, and future, "what might have been an abstraction.../What might have been and what has been/Point to one end, which is always present." In other words, all that was, is, and will be, can be captured in the memory and treated, not as a speculation or an abstraction, but what actually Is. I don't consider it too far a leap to posit that he is setting up a field by which things can be evaluated not by the traits one can casually observe, but rather by their Form. Not quite in the manner of the Platonic Form, but similar, but their Divine Essence. This may be a difference with no true distinction, but that is what you get for asking a disciple of the literary cannon to speak on a Master.

Once time and space are one, Elliot moves into the castle of his own creation. He steps into memory "Footfalls echo in the memory/Down the passage which we did not take/Towards the door we never opened/Into the rose garden." Elliot's use of rose imagery is its own tome. Here, he uses his oneness of time to explore all the everything that might have been. I think, he chose a rose garden as a place of protection and as the stepping stone to divine understanding and favor a la Dante's ascension to Paradise. Like Dante, Elliot, once in the memory fears to enter fully. "What am I doing?" "Is this worth it?" Seem to be the questions at hand. If I am going to knock on heaven's door, "disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves" am I doing it with the right questions? For the right purpose?

But, like Hansel and Gretel following a bird to salvation, so Elliot follows a bird into the garden in pursuit of an as-yet-unknown prize. Once committed to the chase, the author seem to enter a Dantean labyrinth of symbolism and ever-increasing understanding. At the first level of understanding he is faced with a thrush. Thrush are practical, common birds, with no great virtue to them, except a talent for survival. They are birds known for placing their eggs in the nests of other, more industrious birds, to be raised by them. Here "into the first world" let us take the thrush to symbolize a pragmatic, common-sense, human understanding of the world. They answer the question, "but how does it help me?"

The second level is past the rush for one's own gain, "there they were, dignified, invisible/Moving without pressure, over the dead leaves/In the autumn heat." No bird is mentioned at this level, yet there is a significant season. Autumn is the time when the earth begins to die yet before the world must fight for survival in winter. A warm autumn is a time of no great growth, yet no great threat. In this season, man can simply exist, drift, without the undignified scramble for gain or understanding. This is the level of blase meditation with no urgency for an answer.

The third level is an area of aesthetic delight yet no understanding. The bird summons us to "unheard music hidden in the shrubbery/And the unseen eyebeams crossed, for the roses./Had the look of flowers that are looked at." At this level, the individual cares for an appreciates beauty, but he appreciates it with no knowledge of what it is about it that is lovely. The flowers are beautiful, for they delight to be looked at, and the music hidden in the shrubbery is sweet, but no one can truly hear it. Art is merely accepting and accepted with no real effort made or received to fathom the wealth of Beauty. The observer is content to leave the music in the bushes and merely gaze upon the roses.

The fourth level is perhaps the most complicated. Here is the seeker observes structure, form, a pattern for beauty. Yet, rather than one form and pattern, it is all forms and patterns played upon each other in all their fullness, "and they, in a formal pattern,/Along the empty valley, into the box circle." The end of this maze of form and meaning is an aesthetic conundrum, "Dry the pool, dry concrete, brown edged,/And the pool was filled with water and out of sunlight,/And the lotus rose, quietly, quietly." Is it a secret that the lotus, the symbol of ultimate revelation stands at the heart of this picture of a barren well and a well full to overflowing? It seems as if at the center of all understanding, one must come to grips with the secret of peace in the midst of waste and plenty. This pool, at once so dry and so full, is the true home of the lotus of wisdom, and only by learning the lessons of both are were rewarded with the sight of it. Is this the last level? I don't think so, but it is the last for now.

For the bird bids us away, we are being watched, "for the leaves were full of children,/Hidden excitedly, containing laughter." Remember, we are still in the memory. One might be tempted to think that our own speculations are private, they bear no witness but our own, yet this reminder of the bird hints at the cloud of witnesses that surround every thought and action. Even more, these are children that surround us. Is it too much of a leap to say that this word of the bird, "human kind/Cannot bear very much reality" is a warning for man to be careful how far he goes within himself to seek wisdom lest he forever give up his chance to learn "like a little child?"

After having dug deep into the mind and heart for the path to wisdom, Elliot returns to reality with a restatement of his collation of time and space, but, with an interesting twist. "Time past and time future/What might have been and what has been/Point to one end, which is always present." What was an is, do not merely have the potential to come together, but, rather, all of time has and always will point to one single end--the present.

There, that is a students attempt to make sense of Burnt Norton, Part 1. Full text is below for the curious.