At the end of the last segment, the poet was reconciled, though reluctantly, to the interminable present. Here, he seems to have domiciled until he leaves the dancing days of summer and enters the natural chaos of November—a month that, in semi-temperate England, anything is possible. Summer creatures still thrive, snowdrops not yet risen from their summer deathbeds, late roses that battle with early snow. It is the verdant version of the eternal all-times the poet sang of in Burnt Norton.
This dance of all seasons is not limited to the earth. The stars turn in their courses, fighting to get one last glimpse of the earth they got to see so briefly. Scorpio, a constellation that bespeaks suffering and malaise is ordered by the Sun, the bringer of all-life, to wind his way thither. The pestilence fights and flees the light. The Sun and the Moon in time eclipse each other, and deprived of their light, comets weep as they cannot find either the sky or the plains. “Whirled in a vortex that shall bring / The world to that destructive fire / Which burns before the ice-cap reigns.” The sun rules the stars but it cannot rule the earth. An earth that is still under death sentence—the whirling dance of the stars brings life, but the passage of time only brings the world closer to the day when it shall pass into dust by ice and flame.
I would be remiss if I did not mention at this point that I have not a clue what I am talking about. And, unlike Cicero, I mean it. I am no Eliot scholar, nor particularly well-read. So, I write my thoughts and speculations firmly in the hope that the reader will forgive my inanities and deepen my expositions.
Now, onward to clueless speculations. The second stanza of the poem is to my mind, inscrutable. The poet seems to be unsatisfied with his own words, “A periphrastic study in a worn-out poetical fashion, / Leaving one still with the intolerable wrestle / With words and meanings.” He’s attempted to expound the mysteries of the universe in poetry and he has failed.
He asks, “What was to be the value of the lone looked forward to, / Long hoped for calm, the autumnal serenity / And the wisdom of the age?” What is the point of the hoped for future? Of the calm days before the death of winter? Is the lie in the voice of the wisdom, or is the wisdom itself utterly deceived? “Bequeathing us merely a receipt for deceit?”
Eliot seems to spend the next few lines waffling between a despair of the value of all old knowledge and a condemnation of his ability to see it. In the phrase, “At best, only a limited value / In the knowledge derived from experience. / The knowledge imposes a pattern, and falsifies, / For the pattern is new in every moment.” He makes up his mind, he may not be able to grasp, or even trust, eternal truth, but the dance of life moves too quickly to trust more concrete, experience-won knowledge. He speaks again of deceiving, but only to say that the eternal wisdom only undeceives us of that which wasn’t worth knowing.
Yet, in this maze of deceiving and undeceiving, he steps once more into the wood between the worlds, and in that world “On the edge of the grimpen, where is no secure foothold, / And menaced by monsters, fancy lights, / Risking enchantment.” It is in this wood he finds his answer to the conflicts of many wisdoms. The secret is not lost in time, it is not found in experience or in the accomplishments of all sages. Rather, it is found in their folly, and through their folly, their humility.
Unlike all human strengths and musings, “humility is endless.”
When all the houses have fallen to dust, when all the dancers leave the wood, humility is all that remains.
Showing posts with label East Coker. Show all posts
Showing posts with label East Coker. Show all posts
Monday, January 11, 2010
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
East Coker -- II
II
What is the late November doing
With the disturbance of the spring
And creatures of the summer heat,
And snowdrops writhing under feet
And hollyhocks that aim too high
Red into grey and tumble down
Late roses filled with early snow?
Thunder rolled by the rolling stars
Simulates triumphal cars
Deployed in constellated wars
Scorpion fights against the Sun
Until the Sun and Moon go down
Comets weep and Leonids fly
Hunt the heavens and the plains
Whirled in a vortex that shall bring
The world to that destructive fire
Which burns before the ice-cap reigns.
That was a way of putting it - not very satisfactory:
A periphrastic study in a worn-out poetical fashion,
Leaving one still with the intolerable wrestle
With words and meanings. The poetry does not matter.
It was not (to start again) what one had expected.
What was to be the value of the long looked forward to,
Long hoped for calm, the autumnal serenity
And the wisdom of age? Had they deceived us,
Or deceived themselves, the quiet-voiced elders,
Bequeathing us merely a receipt for deceit?
The serenity only a deliberate hebetude,
The wisdom only the knowledge of dead secrets
Useless in the darkness into which they peered
Or from which they turned their eyes. There is, it seems to us,
At best, only a limited value
In the knowledge derived from experience.
The knowledge inposes a pattern, and falsifies,
For the pattern is new in every moment
And every moment is a new and shocking
Valuation of all we have been. We are only undeceived
Of that which, deceiving, could no longer harm.
In the middle, not only in the middle of the way
but all the way, in a dark wood, in a bramble,
On the edge of a grimpen, where is no secure foothold,
And menaced by monsters, fancy lights,
Risking enchantment. Do not let me hear
Of the wisdom of old men, but rahter of their folly,
Their fear of fear and frenzy, their fear of possession,
Of belonging to another, or to others, or to God.
The only wisdom we can hope to acquire
Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless.
The houses are all gone under the sea.
The dancers are all gone under the hill.
What is the late November doing
With the disturbance of the spring
And creatures of the summer heat,
And snowdrops writhing under feet
And hollyhocks that aim too high
Red into grey and tumble down
Late roses filled with early snow?
Thunder rolled by the rolling stars
Simulates triumphal cars
Deployed in constellated wars
Scorpion fights against the Sun
Until the Sun and Moon go down
Comets weep and Leonids fly
Hunt the heavens and the plains
Whirled in a vortex that shall bring
The world to that destructive fire
Which burns before the ice-cap reigns.
That was a way of putting it - not very satisfactory:
A periphrastic study in a worn-out poetical fashion,
Leaving one still with the intolerable wrestle
With words and meanings. The poetry does not matter.
It was not (to start again) what one had expected.
What was to be the value of the long looked forward to,
Long hoped for calm, the autumnal serenity
And the wisdom of age? Had they deceived us,
Or deceived themselves, the quiet-voiced elders,
Bequeathing us merely a receipt for deceit?
The serenity only a deliberate hebetude,
The wisdom only the knowledge of dead secrets
Useless in the darkness into which they peered
Or from which they turned their eyes. There is, it seems to us,
At best, only a limited value
In the knowledge derived from experience.
The knowledge inposes a pattern, and falsifies,
For the pattern is new in every moment
And every moment is a new and shocking
Valuation of all we have been. We are only undeceived
Of that which, deceiving, could no longer harm.
In the middle, not only in the middle of the way
but all the way, in a dark wood, in a bramble,
On the edge of a grimpen, where is no secure foothold,
And menaced by monsters, fancy lights,
Risking enchantment. Do not let me hear
Of the wisdom of old men, but rahter of their folly,
Their fear of fear and frenzy, their fear of possession,
Of belonging to another, or to others, or to God.
The only wisdom we can hope to acquire
Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless.
The houses are all gone under the sea.
The dancers are all gone under the hill.
Monday, January 4, 2010
East Coker I -- text
I
In my beginning is my end. In succession
Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended,
Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place
Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass.
Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires,
Old fires to ashes, and ashes to the earth
Which is already flesh, fur and faeces,
Bone of man and beast, cornstalk and leaf.
Houses live and die: there is a time for building
And a time for living and for generation
And a time for the wind to break the loosened pane
And to shake the wainscot where the field-mouse trots
And to shake the tattered arras woven with a silent motto.
In my beginning is my end. Now the light falls
Across the open field, leaving the deep lane
Shuttered with branches, dark in the afternoon,
Where you lean against a bank while a van passes,
And the deep lane insists on the direction
Into the village, in the electric heat
Hypnotised. In a warm haze the sultry light
Is absorbed, not refracted, by grey stone.
The dahlias sleep in the empty silence.
Wait for the early owl.
In that open field
If you do not come too close, if you do not come too close,
On a summer midnight, you can hear the music
Of the weak pipe and the little drum
And see them dancing around the bonfire
The association of man and woman
In daunsinge, signifying matrimonie—
A dignified and commodiois sacrament.
Two and two, necessarye coniunction,
Holding eche other by the hand or the arm
Whiche betokeneth concorde. Round and round the fire
Leaping through the flames, or joined in circles,
Rustically solemn or in rustic laughter
Lifting heavy feet in clumsy shoes,
Earth feet, loam feet, lifted in country mirth
Mirth of those long since under earth
Nourishing the corn. Keeping time,
Keeping the rhythm in their dancing
As in their living in the living seasons
The time of the seasons and the constellations
The time of milking and the time of harvest
The time of the coupling of man and woman
And that of beasts. Feet rising and falling.
Eating and drinking. Dung and death.
Dawn points, and another day
Prepares for heat and silence. Out at sea the dawn wind
Wrinkles and slides. I am here
Or there, or elsewhere. In my beginning.
In my beginning is my end. In succession
Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended,
Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place
Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass.
Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires,
Old fires to ashes, and ashes to the earth
Which is already flesh, fur and faeces,
Bone of man and beast, cornstalk and leaf.
Houses live and die: there is a time for building
And a time for living and for generation
And a time for the wind to break the loosened pane
And to shake the wainscot where the field-mouse trots
And to shake the tattered arras woven with a silent motto.
In my beginning is my end. Now the light falls
Across the open field, leaving the deep lane
Shuttered with branches, dark in the afternoon,
Where you lean against a bank while a van passes,
And the deep lane insists on the direction
Into the village, in the electric heat
Hypnotised. In a warm haze the sultry light
Is absorbed, not refracted, by grey stone.
The dahlias sleep in the empty silence.
Wait for the early owl.
In that open field
If you do not come too close, if you do not come too close,
On a summer midnight, you can hear the music
Of the weak pipe and the little drum
And see them dancing around the bonfire
The association of man and woman
In daunsinge, signifying matrimonie—
A dignified and commodiois sacrament.
Two and two, necessarye coniunction,
Holding eche other by the hand or the arm
Whiche betokeneth concorde. Round and round the fire
Leaping through the flames, or joined in circles,
Rustically solemn or in rustic laughter
Lifting heavy feet in clumsy shoes,
Earth feet, loam feet, lifted in country mirth
Mirth of those long since under earth
Nourishing the corn. Keeping time,
Keeping the rhythm in their dancing
As in their living in the living seasons
The time of the seasons and the constellations
The time of milking and the time of harvest
The time of the coupling of man and woman
And that of beasts. Feet rising and falling.
Eating and drinking. Dung and death.
Dawn points, and another day
Prepares for heat and silence. Out at sea the dawn wind
Wrinkles and slides. I am here
Or there, or elsewhere. In my beginning.
East Coker I -- Marriage and the Mystery
At the end of Burnt Norton, Eliot binds past, present, and future into one glorious Present. Yet, in the beginning of East Coker, he seems to reach a spiritual crisis—in sum, as he reconciles himself to a beginning he sees it as a death sentence. “In my beginning is my end” is the poet’s first cry, and from there he dissects the entire material world into their unbeautiful base elements.
It is a dismal picture—houses, homes, even in their genesis are reduced to dust. Old stone bows to the recycling of time and become earth, and all is reduced to “flesh, fur, and faeces.” He ends the first stanza in a depressed recitation of Ecclesiastes:
Houses live and die: there is a time for building
And a time for living and for generation
And a time for the wind to break the loosened pane
And a time to shake the wainscot where the field mouse trots
And the shake the tattered arras woven with a silent motto
It’s not pretty.
Yet, in the midst of this dim reflection on the ultimate death of all things the author has not given up hope. He faces this specter of death and works methodically towards the jobs and joys of this doomed moment. First, by breaking himself loose from the present vision he allows himself to once more hear the music of the spheres. “If you do not come to close, / On a summer midnight, you can hear the music / Of the weak pipe and the little drum.”
This music leads him to one of the most, arguably the most important human duty to the present life, “dancing around the bonfire, / The association of man and woman / in dausinge, signifying matrimonie-- / a dignified and commodious sacrament.” It is interesting to note that Eliot chose to refer to the ancient rite of marriage through the words of Edmund Spenser...a poet who in his Faerie Queen made it a point to ally the human dance of man and wife with the heavenly dance of Christ and Church. In “this two and two, necessarye coniunction,” Eliot sees both the hope for the present and the point of the future. United in earth, we live to be united with Christ. We unite in earth to show us how to unite in Christ.
This concord is born of the greatest of all celestial delights, yet is spun of the lowliest of earthly joys. Rustic joys: clumsy dancing and good earth, keeping the time and tasks of the seasons. Only here, does the author acquire the proper Ecclesiastical spirit where there is “the time of the seasons and the constellations / the time of milking and the time of harvest.”
In the single day of existence, he realizes there is always the hope of the new dawn. There is a preparation for the end, but even as he faces wrinkles and old age, Eliot says, “I am here / Or there, or elsewhere. In my beginning.”
It is a dismal picture—houses, homes, even in their genesis are reduced to dust. Old stone bows to the recycling of time and become earth, and all is reduced to “flesh, fur, and faeces.” He ends the first stanza in a depressed recitation of Ecclesiastes:
Houses live and die: there is a time for building
And a time for living and for generation
And a time for the wind to break the loosened pane
And a time to shake the wainscot where the field mouse trots
And the shake the tattered arras woven with a silent motto
It’s not pretty.
Yet, in the midst of this dim reflection on the ultimate death of all things the author has not given up hope. He faces this specter of death and works methodically towards the jobs and joys of this doomed moment. First, by breaking himself loose from the present vision he allows himself to once more hear the music of the spheres. “If you do not come to close, / On a summer midnight, you can hear the music / Of the weak pipe and the little drum.”
This music leads him to one of the most, arguably the most important human duty to the present life, “dancing around the bonfire, / The association of man and woman / in dausinge, signifying matrimonie-- / a dignified and commodious sacrament.” It is interesting to note that Eliot chose to refer to the ancient rite of marriage through the words of Edmund Spenser...a poet who in his Faerie Queen made it a point to ally the human dance of man and wife with the heavenly dance of Christ and Church. In “this two and two, necessarye coniunction,” Eliot sees both the hope for the present and the point of the future. United in earth, we live to be united with Christ. We unite in earth to show us how to unite in Christ.
This concord is born of the greatest of all celestial delights, yet is spun of the lowliest of earthly joys. Rustic joys: clumsy dancing and good earth, keeping the time and tasks of the seasons. Only here, does the author acquire the proper Ecclesiastical spirit where there is “the time of the seasons and the constellations / the time of milking and the time of harvest.”
In the single day of existence, he realizes there is always the hope of the new dawn. There is a preparation for the end, but even as he faces wrinkles and old age, Eliot says, “I am here / Or there, or elsewhere. In my beginning.”
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