Burnt Norton
τοῦ λόγου δὲ ἐόντος ξυνοῦ ζώουσιν οἱ πολλοί ὡς ἰδίαν ἔχοντες φρόνησιν I. p. 77. Fr. 2.
“Although logos [knowledge or reason] is common, the many live as if they had a wisdom of their own.”
ὁδὸς ἄνω κάτω μία καὶ ὡυτή I. p. 89 Fr. 60.
The way upward and the way downward is one and the same
H. A. Diels: Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker (Herakleitos)
The Fragments of the Presocratics (Heraclitus)
Written in 1935. Burnt Norton is a manor in Gloucestershire visited by Eliot in 1934. Its rose garden suggested the imagery of the opening section.1
I
lotos: lotus
II
axle-tree: axle
inveterate: long-standing
Erhebung: Elevation/exaltation (German)
smokefall:
- The close of the day before nightfall, when fog comes.
- The soot fallout from a cloud of smoke.
III
tumid: swollen, enlarged; unhealthy, pompous
eructation: belching
torpid: unmoving; lethargic
appetency: strong desire, craving
IV
clematis: a climbing vine with flowers
V
disconsolate: dreary; inconsolable
“As in the figure of the ten stairs” The Dark Night of the Soul by St. John of the Cross states that “there are ten steps on the mystical ladder of divine love.” Other references to St. John of the Cross are scattered throughout the poem.1
East Coker
Written in 1940. East Coker is a village near Yeovil, Somerset, Eliot’s ancestral home. Andrew Eliot left East Coker for the New World in about 1669.
I
wainscot: wooden paneling on the lower part of walls.
arras: a tapestry or wall hanging
daunsinge: dancing
The association of man and woman In daunsinge, signifying matrimonie…”
This passage is taken from The Boke Named the Governour (1530) by Sir Thomas Elyot, an ancestor of T.S. Eliot. 2
betokeneth:
- to signify by some visible object
- to foreshadow by present signs
loam: a type of fertile soil
II
periphrastic: expressed in more words than necessary; circumlocutory
hebetude: mental lethargy or dullness
In the middle, not only in the middle of the way But all the way, in a dark wood, in a bramble,
An echo of Dante
grimpen: From Grimpen Mire in Doyle’s The Hound of the Bakervilles, a dangerous bog.
III
Almanach de Gotha: A directory of Europe’s Royalty and Nobility
IV
distempered: diseased.
V
l’entre deux guerres: between the Wars
“In my end is my beginning”: the motto of Mary Queen of Scots (“En ma fin est mon commencement”).
The Dry Salvages
Written in 1941. “The Dry Salvages—presumably les trois sauvages—is a small group of rocks, with a beacon, off the N.E. coast of Cape Ann, Massachusetts.” Eliot’s family spent time in this area during his childhood.
By his own reckoning (in a speech given upon receiving the Emerson-Thoreau Medal from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1959, at which he read this poem), the poem begins where Eliot began (St. Louis, the Mississippi River) and ends where he expected to end (a parish church of a village in Somerset).1
I
“By worshippers of the machine” Notes on “Against the Machine”
ailanthus: The Tree of Heaven, a fast growing, foul smelling tree, considered invasive in North America and many parts of the world.
dooryard: the yard near the front of back of a house, but here also a reference to Whitman’s “When Lilacs Las in the Dooryard Bloom’d”
groaner: a whistling bouy
II
halycon: undisturbed, serene, but alternately relating to the kingfisher. (poetic) A kingfisher whose nesting by the sea was said, in classical mythology, to cause the Gods to restrain the wind and waves.
III
Krishna and Arjuna on the battlefield: in the Mahabharata, the discourse known as the Bhagavad Gita.
descanting:
- to discuss at length
- A musical term: a counterpoint melody sung or played above the theme.
fructify: produce fruit.
IV
“Figlia del tuo figlio”: “Daughter of your son” (i.e. Mary and Jesus); from Dante’s Paradiso Canto 33.
Angelus: a devotion in memory of the Incarnation “Angelus Domini nuntiavit Mariæ” “The Angel of the Lord declared unto Mary”.
V
haruspicate: divination by reading the entrails of sacrificial victims. i
scry: divination by looking into a crystal ball (or similar)
sortilege: casting lots
Edgware Road: the main road from the Marble Arch in London toward Edgware
chthonic: underworldly
Little Gidding
Written in 1942. Little Gidding is a village in Cambridgeshire visited by Eliot in 1936. It was the home of a religious community established in 1626. In 1633 Charles I visited the community; in 1646 he returned, fleeing Parliamentary troops who broke up the community.
I
sempiternal: everlasting. (or in philosophy, having infinite temporal duration, as opposed to lacking temporal duration [outside of time])
voluptuary: sensual pleasure seeking
II
wainscot: See East Coker I.
drouth: drought
peregrine:
- wandering, traveling, migratory
- foreign
valediction: a parting word or speech
III
nettle: to sting, irritate, or vex
“Sin is Behovely, but All shall be well, and All manner of thing shall be well.” Dame Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love, the 13th revelation; a modern translation of which might read “Sin was necessary, but it is going to be well, everything is going to be well”.
“By the purification of the motive In the ground of our beseeching.” Dame Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love, the 14th revelation.
V
diffident: timid, modest, (lacking self confidence)
pedantic: overly concerned with formal rules and trivialities; showing off one’s knowledge in a tiresome manner.