East Coker (poem)
Encyclopedia
East Coker is the second poem of T. S. Eliot
's Four Quartets
. It was started as a way for Eliot to get back into writing poetry and was modeled after Burnt Norton
. It was finished during early 1940 and printed for the Easter edition of the 1940 New English Weekly
. The title refers to a small community
that was directly connected to Eliot's ancestry and was home to a church that was later to house Eliot's ashes.
The poem discusses time and disorder within nature that is the result of humanity following only science and not the divine. Leaders are described as materialistic and unable to understand reality. The only way for mankind to find salvation is through pursuing the divine by looking inwards and realizing that humanity is interconnected. Only then can people understand the universe.
He managed to complete two sections by February 1940, but finished the rest during that month. John Davy Hayward
, Herbert Read
and others helped review and edit it. East Coker was published in the March 1940 New English Weekly for its Easter edition. It was later reprinted May and June, and it was published on its own by Faber and Faber
in September. With the completion of the poem, Eliot began creating the Four Quartets as series of four poems based on the same theme with Burnt Norton as the first in the series and East Coker as the second.
The second section discusses disorder within nature, which is opposite to the discussion of order within nature found in the second section of Burnt Norton. Also, rational knowledge itself is described as being inadequate for explaining reality. Those who pursue only reason and science are ignorant. Even our progress is not progress as we continue to repeat the same errors as the past.
The third section discusses the rulers of secular society and their flaws. The fourth, which is a formal section, deploys a series of Baroque paradoxes in the context of the Good Friday mass. This past manner is regarded ironically by the poet in the fifth section as he looks back on his period of experimentation in 'the years of l'entre deux guerres as 'largely wasted'. He welcomes approaching old age as a new opportunity to find renewal, although it might only be a rediscovery of 'what has been lost and found and lost again'.
Despite the poem's doubt and darkness, a note of hope is struck by the first line of the fifth section, 'So here I am in the middle way'. This refers to the first line of Dante
's Inferno, 'Midway in our life's journey, I went astray'. Although the descent is predicated on going astray, so also is persevering beyond it into the light.
claimed that "the war modified [Eliot's] attitude by convincing him that there was a Western cause to be positively defended. And after the war there was a Germany to be brought back within the Western tradition".
The poem served as a sort of opposite to popular idea that The Waste Land
served as an expression of disillusionment after World War I, even though Eliot never accepted this interpretation. World War II itself has a direct mention in only a few of Eliot's writings. However, World War II does affect the poem, especially with the disruption caused by the war being reflected within the poem as a disruption of nature and heaven. The poem describes society in ways similar to The Waste Land, especially with its emphasis on death and dying. The place is connected to where Eliot's family originates, and, as such, is also the place where his family will symbolically end. In the second part of the poem, nature is experiencing disorder, and it is suggested that humans too may burn, and also that reason, knowledge, and science cannot save people. The errors of our past become the reasons for war and conflict and we need to become humble in order to escape the destruction. However, darkness consumes the rulers of the world and society. This is, in part, due to Adam's fall, and the resulting concept of original sin. Christ is our savior and we need to seek redemption to overcome our human failings. Eliot states that he has been involved with fighting for humanity and trying to help mankind learn what is important. Only through Christ is man able to be redeemed.
In a twist from expectation, Eliot's poem suggests that old men should go out and explore. He warns that people should trade wisdom for pointless experience and argues that men should explore human experience itself. This concept is hinted of in The Waste Land and draws from the ideas within Dante
's Convivio
. Dante argues that old men are supposed to return to God and describes the process in a way similar to the travels of Odysseus
. Unlike Homer's hero, Dante argues that men should not travel in the material world but in the spiritual world. Both Dante and Eliot put forth a similar view to St. Augustine
when they focus on internal travels. Through these travels, mankind is able to have faith in salvation and able to see that there is more to the world than darkness. Eliot explains within the poem that we are all interconnected through time and that we must realize this. Only through this realization is mankind able to understand the truth of the universe. This, in turn, would allow humanity to break free from the burden of time. As Russel Kirk explains: "That end, for those who apprehend a reality superior to 'birth, copulation, and death'—a reality transcending the rhythms of physical nature—is to know God and enjoy Him forever."
Family and family history also plays an important role in the poem. Eliot found information on his family from Sketch of the Eliot Family, which described how Eliot's family lived in East Coker for 200 years. When Andrew Eliott left, he disrupted the family history. Similarly, Eliot broke from his own family when he travelled away from his family, a family that he saw was declining. Within the poem, Eliot emphasizes the need for a journey and the need for inward change.
, Edward Benlowes
, William Blake
, and William Butler Yeats
's early work. Additionally, many of the images are connected to the poetry of Stéphane Mallarmé
. In terms of theology, Eliot is orthodox in his theory and relies primarily on the writings of St Augustine. There are some additional influences from the works of Thomas Browne
and Saint John of the Cross
. In applying these views upon society, Eliot was heavily influenced by the writings of Christopher Dawson
and Dawson's reliance on understanding God as the first step to a better society.
Besides the many literary sources, Eliot also draws on his personal feelings and experience, especially on the great stress that he felt while composing the poem. Similarly, Eliot used the image of pilgrims coming to America and the stories of them that were common throughout his childhood. In particular, his mother wrote poems about the pilgrims arriving to New England, and Eliot found information related to his family's history in a book called Sketch of the Eliot Family. The location, East Coker, was where Andrew Eliott, T. S. Eliot's ancestor, left when joining the pilgrimage.
T. S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...
's Four Quartets
Four Quartets
Four Quartets is a set of four poems written by T. S. Eliot that were published individually over a six-year period. The first poem, "Burnt Norton", was written and published with a collection of his early works following the production of Eliot's play Murder in the Cathedral...
. It was started as a way for Eliot to get back into writing poetry and was modeled after Burnt Norton
Burnt Norton
"Burnt Norton" is the first poem of T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets. He created it while working on his play Murder in the Cathedral and it was first published in his Collected Poems 1909–1935 . The poem's title refers to a Cotswolds manor house Eliot visited. The manor's garden served as an important...
. It was finished during early 1940 and printed for the Easter edition of the 1940 New English Weekly
New English Weekly
The New English Weekly was a leading review of "Public Affairs, Literature and the Arts."It was founded in April 1932 by Alfred Richard Orage shortly after his return from Paris...
. The title refers to a small community
East Coker
East Coker is a village and civil parish in the South Somerset district of Somerset, England. Its nearest town is Yeovil, which is situated two miles north from the village. The village has a population of 1,781...
that was directly connected to Eliot's ancestry and was home to a church that was later to house Eliot's ashes.
The poem discusses time and disorder within nature that is the result of humanity following only science and not the divine. Leaders are described as materialistic and unable to understand reality. The only way for mankind to find salvation is through pursuing the divine by looking inwards and realizing that humanity is interconnected. Only then can people understand the universe.
Background
During 1939 Eliot thought that he would be unable to continue writing poetry. In an attempt to see if he could still, he started copying aspects of Burnt Norton and substituted another place: East Coker, a place that Eliot visited in 1937 with the St Michael's Church, where his ashes were later kept. The place held a particular importance to Eliot and his family because Andrew Eliott, Eliot's ancestor, left the town to travel to America in 1669. A plaque dedicated to Eliot and his ashes reads "In my beginning is my end. Of your kindness, pray for the soul of Thomas Stearns Eliot, poet. In my end is my beginning."He managed to complete two sections by February 1940, but finished the rest during that month. John Davy Hayward
John Davy Hayward
John Davy Hayward was an English editor, critic, anthologist and bibliophile.-Early life:Hayward was educated at Gresham's School and in France before going up to King's College, Cambridge in 1923 to read English and modern languages...
, Herbert Read
Herbert Read
Sir Herbert Edward Read, DSO, MC was an English anarchist, poet, and critic of literature and art. He was one of the earliest English writers to take notice of existentialism, and was strongly influenced by proto-existentialist thinker Max Stirner....
and others helped review and edit it. East Coker was published in the March 1940 New English Weekly for its Easter edition. It was later reprinted May and June, and it was published on its own by Faber and Faber
Faber and Faber
Faber and Faber Limited, often abbreviated to Faber, is an independent publishing house in the UK, notable in particular for publishing a great deal of poetry and for its former editor T. S. Eliot. Faber has a rich tradition of publishing a wide range of fiction, non fiction, drama, film and music...
in September. With the completion of the poem, Eliot began creating the Four Quartets as series of four poems based on the same theme with Burnt Norton as the first in the series and East Coker as the second.
Poem
East Coker is described as a poem of late summer, earth, and faith. As in the other poems of the Four Quartets, each of the five sections holds a theme that is common to each of the poems: time, experience, purgation, prayer, and wholeness. The time theme is stated in the first section as 'In my beginning is my end' which, given proper attention, might prove to lead into the eternal moment.The second section discusses disorder within nature, which is opposite to the discussion of order within nature found in the second section of Burnt Norton. Also, rational knowledge itself is described as being inadequate for explaining reality. Those who pursue only reason and science are ignorant. Even our progress is not progress as we continue to repeat the same errors as the past.
The third section discusses the rulers of secular society and their flaws. The fourth, which is a formal section, deploys a series of Baroque paradoxes in the context of the Good Friday mass. This past manner is regarded ironically by the poet in the fifth section as he looks back on his period of experimentation in 'the years of l'entre deux guerres as 'largely wasted'. He welcomes approaching old age as a new opportunity to find renewal, although it might only be a rediscovery of 'what has been lost and found and lost again'.
Despite the poem's doubt and darkness, a note of hope is struck by the first line of the fifth section, 'So here I am in the middle way'. This refers to the first line of Dante
DANTE
Delivery of Advanced Network Technology to Europe is a not-for-profit organisation that plans, builds and operates the international networks that interconnect the various national research and education networks in Europe and surrounding regions...
's Inferno, 'Midway in our life's journey, I went astray'. Although the descent is predicated on going astray, so also is persevering beyond it into the light.
Themes
East Coker gives a message of hope that the English communities would survive through World War II. In a letter dated 9 February 1940, Eliot stated, "We can have very little hope of contributing to any immediate social change; and we are more disposed to see our hope in modest and local beginnings, than in transforming the whole world at once... We must keep alive aspirations which can remain valid throughout the longest and darkest period of universal calamity and degradation." The poem also relied on the war as a way to connect to Eliot's idea that there was a united humanity. In particular, Stephen SpenderStephen Spender
Sir Stephen Harold Spender CBE was an English poet, novelist and essayist who concentrated on themes of social injustice and the class struggle in his work...
claimed that "the war modified [Eliot's] attitude by convincing him that there was a Western cause to be positively defended. And after the war there was a Germany to be brought back within the Western tradition".
The poem served as a sort of opposite to popular idea that The Waste Land
The Waste Land
The Waste Land[A] is a 434-line[B] modernist poem by T. S. Eliot published in 1922. It has been called "one of the most important poems of the 20th century." Despite the poem's obscurity—its shifts between satire and prophecy, its abrupt and unannounced changes of speaker, location and time, its...
served as an expression of disillusionment after World War I, even though Eliot never accepted this interpretation. World War II itself has a direct mention in only a few of Eliot's writings. However, World War II does affect the poem, especially with the disruption caused by the war being reflected within the poem as a disruption of nature and heaven. The poem describes society in ways similar to The Waste Land, especially with its emphasis on death and dying. The place is connected to where Eliot's family originates, and, as such, is also the place where his family will symbolically end. In the second part of the poem, nature is experiencing disorder, and it is suggested that humans too may burn, and also that reason, knowledge, and science cannot save people. The errors of our past become the reasons for war and conflict and we need to become humble in order to escape the destruction. However, darkness consumes the rulers of the world and society. This is, in part, due to Adam's fall, and the resulting concept of original sin. Christ is our savior and we need to seek redemption to overcome our human failings. Eliot states that he has been involved with fighting for humanity and trying to help mankind learn what is important. Only through Christ is man able to be redeemed.
In a twist from expectation, Eliot's poem suggests that old men should go out and explore. He warns that people should trade wisdom for pointless experience and argues that men should explore human experience itself. This concept is hinted of in The Waste Land and draws from the ideas within Dante
DANTE
Delivery of Advanced Network Technology to Europe is a not-for-profit organisation that plans, builds and operates the international networks that interconnect the various national research and education networks in Europe and surrounding regions...
's Convivio
Convivio
Convivio is a work written by Dante Alighieri roughly between 1304 and 1307. It contains details of the author's growing interest in philosophy, particularly in reference to the works of Cicero and Boethius...
. Dante argues that old men are supposed to return to God and describes the process in a way similar to the travels of Odysseus
Odysseus
Odysseus or Ulysses was a legendary Greek king of Ithaca and the hero of Homer's epic poem the Odyssey. Odysseus also plays a key role in Homer's Iliad and other works in the Epic Cycle....
. Unlike Homer's hero, Dante argues that men should not travel in the material world but in the spiritual world. Both Dante and Eliot put forth a similar view to St. Augustine
St. Augustine
-People:* Augustine of Hippo or Augustine of Hippo , father of the Latin church* Augustine of Canterbury , first Archbishop of Canterbury* Augustine Webster, an English Catholic martyr.-Places:*St. Augustine, Florida, United States...
when they focus on internal travels. Through these travels, mankind is able to have faith in salvation and able to see that there is more to the world than darkness. Eliot explains within the poem that we are all interconnected through time and that we must realize this. Only through this realization is mankind able to understand the truth of the universe. This, in turn, would allow humanity to break free from the burden of time. As Russel Kirk explains: "That end, for those who apprehend a reality superior to 'birth, copulation, and death'—a reality transcending the rhythms of physical nature—is to know God and enjoy Him forever."
Family and family history also plays an important role in the poem. Eliot found information on his family from Sketch of the Eliot Family, which described how Eliot's family lived in East Coker for 200 years. When Andrew Eliott left, he disrupted the family history. Similarly, Eliot broke from his own family when he travelled away from his family, a family that he saw was declining. Within the poem, Eliot emphasizes the need for a journey and the need for inward change.
Source
The poetic aspects of the poem are grounded in, according to Eliot, the tradition of John ClevelandJohn Cleveland
John Cleveland was an English poet.The son of an usher in a charity school, Cleveland was born in Loughborough, and educated at Hinckley Grammar School. Admitted to Christ's College, Cambridge, he graduated BA in 1632 and became a fellow of St John's College in 1634...
, Edward Benlowes
Edward Benlowes
Edward Benlowes was an English poet, son of Andrew Benlowes of Brent Hall, Essex. He matriculated at St Johns College, Cambridge, in 1620, and on leaving the university he made a prolonged tour on the continent of Europe. He was a Roman Catholic in middle life, but became a convert to...
, William Blake
William Blake
William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age...
, and William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet and playwright, and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, in his later years he served as an Irish Senator for two terms...
's early work. Additionally, many of the images are connected to the poetry of Stéphane Mallarmé
Stéphane Mallarmé
Stéphane Mallarmé , whose real name was Étienne Mallarmé, was a French poet and critic. He was a major French symbolist poet, and his work anticipated and inspired several revolutionary artistic schools of the early 20th century, such as Dadaism, Surrealism, and Futurism.-Biography:Stéphane...
. In terms of theology, Eliot is orthodox in his theory and relies primarily on the writings of St Augustine. There are some additional influences from the works of Thomas Browne
Thomas Browne
Sir Thomas Browne was an English author of varied works which reveal his wide learning in diverse fields including medicine, religion, science and the esoteric....
and Saint John of the Cross
John of the Cross
John of the Cross , born Juan de Yepes Álvarez, was a major figure of the Counter-Reformation, a Spanish mystic, Catholic saint, Carmelite friar and priest, born at Fontiveros, Old Castile....
. In applying these views upon society, Eliot was heavily influenced by the writings of Christopher Dawson
Christopher Dawson
Christopher Henry Dawson was a British independent scholar, who wrote many books on cultural history and Christendom. Christopher H. Dawson has been called "the greatest English-speaking Catholic historian of the twentieth century".-Life:...
and Dawson's reliance on understanding God as the first step to a better society.
Besides the many literary sources, Eliot also draws on his personal feelings and experience, especially on the great stress that he felt while composing the poem. Similarly, Eliot used the image of pilgrims coming to America and the stories of them that were common throughout his childhood. In particular, his mother wrote poems about the pilgrims arriving to New England, and Eliot found information related to his family's history in a book called Sketch of the Eliot Family. The location, East Coker, was where Andrew Eliott, T. S. Eliot's ancestor, left when joining the pilgrimage.