THE MUSICAL ELEMENTS OF T. S. ELIOT’S FOUR QUARTETS Thesis for the Degree of Ph. 0‘ MICHIGAN; STATE UNIVERSITY KENNETH WARREN RHOADS 1969 rants a-mWé _ This is to certify that the thesis entitled The Musical Elements of T.S.Eliot's Four Quartets presented by Kenneth w. Rhoads has been accepted towards fulfillment of the requirements for Ph.D. degree in E11811 Sh SMSRfiW Major professor DmeAugust 1, 1969 0-169 L I B R A I? Y itcliigan State E University {a :. in l ”Ir—- —" :NE \‘ T ‘7 surname or 3" 1 L, H0“ & SUNS' ' 300K BIKE!" INC. - ‘ unmv amazes TEE MUSICAI Bath his 6T1“ JETS. Eliot's 3L eig'icitly design? :generating W.“ izonstrabiy foil 1 isxctof Eliot's 1" :rit‘tal analysis. 26315 in Eliot's p 3m nominated vzi 390% primarily Ct; Waugh some of 1 it“: been 1 imited ’éCtd on professio ABSTRACT THE MUSICAL ELEMENTS OF T. s. ELIOT'S FOUR QUARTETS By Kenneth W. Rhoads Both his critical writing and his poetry give continuing evidence of T.S. Eliot's acute awareness of the musical aspects of poetry. He explicitly designated the musical impulse as a fundamental element in generating both the form and substance of the poetic structure, and demonstrably followed this belief in his own poetic practice. This aspect of Eliot's poetry would thus seem to be a central area for critical analysis. Some investigation has been made of musical ele— ments in Eliot's poetic work; more particularly, a number of critics have nominated various musical models for Four Quartets--these being primarily certain of the late string quartets of Beethoven. Although some of these discussions are perceptive, they have most Often been limited in scope, highly generalized, and insufficiently based on professional musical knowledge. Accordingly, I propose in this study to undertake a comprehensive analysis and assessment 0f the elements of musical analogy in Eliot's poetry, with primary hens on his most mature work, the religious-philosophical poem cycle agizs contributin its purpose: d' Eiiot’s earlie E poet's intuitin 35m, style, 11' 35:5 as "Prelud l-EZC imitation Oil 23:5 and stylist; 312:», and simil Izsixteenth- and 5 12:73 i » ‘9‘ is: - w incorp and rhythm. Elli'aient 0i musi' «treble exim; ’1“ I mac [1595" and 0th “mmW1mh. ~L w 55%, , do ( . i “it - .w mflmmmu :7; u r—_—_— ...p — -,_. unaw- Kenneth W. Rhoads Four Quartets. I believe that such an investigation will provide in— sights contributing substantially to a full and satisfying understanding of the purpose, design, and method of Eliot's work. Eliot's earlier poetry exhibits both overt musical analogy and the poet's intuitive use of musical elements in the various aspects of form, style, linear construction, and musical devices. Such poems as "Preludes" and "Rhapsody on a Windy Night" attempt poetic imitation of musical counterparts through structural ele- ments and stylistic devices; in addition to analogies with prelude, fantasy, and similar forms in music there are striking similarities to sixteenth- and seventeenth- century contrapuntal forms such as intonazione and ricercare, as well as later free fugal forms. 1h}: Waste Land incorporates notable developments in the areas of struc- ture and rhythm. The Hollow Men effectively uses a close poetic equivalent of musical counterpoint. Sweeney Agonistes embodies remarkable experimentation with jazz rhythms. "Five—Finger Exercises" and other poems utilize such classical musical forms and styles as the rondo and the toccata. The furthest development of musically-analogous techniques prior to Four Quartets occurs in Ash Wednesday, which closely integrates musical elements of form, rhythmic contrast, and various structural devices. The structure of Four Quartets provides the poem cycle's broad- est analogy with music. Each of the four poems is organized into five "movements, " each with its own well-defined inner structure, and A gazerally furnish. Epic. The ml: to: :ithin and be aifarm, and all nitrate and :: :aterials. More: sense of form a In :he linear { 22.121365 close};- 213, proxiding f”— :raization, and :zzzhe concept "‘9 Elite poem evol“ :rrem unity and T exiierpoint, an (" izhevesa corresp Statement, deve; 11' Secondary then Rhythm-for E MT NE ’CIOSEIY coir E 7 Kenneth W. Rhoads generally furnishes the poetic equivalent of the classical sonata in music. The multiple-movement structure provides for contrast, both within and between movements, of mood, tempo, rhythm, metre, and form, and allows each movement to be most suitably adapted, in structure and texture, to the individual treatment of its thematic materials. Movement-by-movement analysis shows a close con- gruence of form and content. In the linear development of his thematic materials Eliot uses techniques closely analogous to those of music. Motivic deve10p- ment, providing for the evolution of themes, imparts coherence, organization, and unity to each poem and to the cycle; in this connec— tion the concept "time" is seen as the germ-motive from which the entire poem evolves. Thematic metamorphosis provides for con- current unity and contrast. Both devices are basic to Eliot's poetic counterpoint, an essential element of Four Quartets, by which Eliot achieves a correspondence to musical counterpoint through statement, restatement, development, juxtaposition, and combining of primary ,' and secondary themes. Rhythm--for Eliot a primal element—-operates in Four Quartets ' on several structural levels. The overall rhythmic pattern of the ’ cycle, closely coinciding with its formal structure, derives from repetition of the pattern of rhythmic alternation between poems of the cycle, between corresponding movements, and between sections within movements. The discrete aspects of rhythmic construction, now highly 's- - reloped from 1 ages, draw on :‘zymic displac. iE'i'ot’s mature. 2i syllable rhy: : ire for poem" :LEIS is diI'EC :s anticipation -' intent to Four \ l‘nh regard : as prototypes for 321% does not he trite largely fro. Eagles, and CL. lifters shows the aEllie musical [)2 26Silent affinity n 3213315 strongly 1 ”my the 1 in; ‘I ate n that in F Our . 2:1; \QL I 7 Kenneth W. Rhoads developed from the earlier experiments in jazz and other overt tech- niques, draw on such musical devices as frequently changing metres, rhythmic displacement, polyrhythms, and polymetres. A hallmark of Eliot's mature style is a rhythmical counterpointing of accentual and syllabic rhythms. Eliot also conceived of rhythm as a generative force for poetry, and much of the substance and structure of £103 Quartets is directly derived from the rhythmic impulse. A further manifestation of Eliot's comprehensive concept of rhythm occurs in his anticipation of the science of biological rhythm, which is also pertinent to Four Quartets. With regard to critical proposals for specific musical models as prototypes for Four Quartets, the case for isolated quartets of Bee- thoven does not hold up. The close musical analogies in Four Quartets derive largely from Eliot's broad background of music of diverse periods and styles, and careful comparison of the poems with the Beethoven quartets shows that he was not attempting a direct structural analogy with any one musical prototype. At the same time, Eliot's close spiritual and aesthetic affinity with Beethoven is clearly apparent. Detailed musical analysis strongly indicates that Eliot's principal inspiration was very probably the late music of Beethoven, even largely the string quartets, f and that in Four Quartets he attempted to emulate Beethoven's artistic aChievement in the string quartet idiom by writing poetry of such immediacy and transparency that it tended to transcend its medium iii a perfect itlsion of form and content--an attempt in which he was eminently successful. TiiE MUSICAL in p- THE MUSICAL ELEMENTS OF T. s. ELIOT'S FOUR QUARTETS By Kenneth Warren Rhoads A THESIS Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOC TOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of English 1969 J 92311351.;- fi‘ (Rudy if y .3“ Xi triadic : ‘ To my mother and father, with my love and deepest appreciation: For their understanding, encouragement, and faith; for the tangible example of their own lives and those essential ideals of the higher life they have imparted to me; but most of all, for just being them- selves. a R r ' Flpal rebmao .. ‘artation ml” aaristine singie: atezt that no d1 3 mo subset” isostantial £15424 :12; is no except modicum of th0> :eaSire mung t0 li-nention all tho legible here; thei Knowledge. And 2.5;; pleasurable l I ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Final responsibility for the quality and content of any doctoral dissertation must ultimately rest with its author, whose name stands in pristine singleness on the title page. At the same time, it will be patent that no dissertation rightfully claiming some portion of ori- ginality, substance, and style has been without the benefit to its author of substantial assistance, both direct and indirect. Certainly this study is no exception; and if, as I sincerely hope, it exhibits at least a modicum of those qualities of excellence, the credit is in no small measure owing to the interest and encouragement of many others. To mention all those who have had some influence on my work is not possible here; there are some, however, whom I decidedly must acknowledge. And, while the obligation is a traditional one, I find it also a Pleasurable opportunity. I Want to express my sincere gratitude to the members of my Enidance committee, who have given me the most direct and imme- diate asSistance. Professor Joseph H. Summers' insistence on “hob“? meticulousness has been most salutary and his suggestions invaluable. Professor Clyde Henson has long been interested in the “hie“ Of this study and convinced of its need, and his knowledge and enthusiasm have been highly stimulating. Primarily, I am indebted iii '1, :0 at dissertatli them- I was fit 3:. Baskett's en responsible for t. azizizial paper 0 fecourse of my :irea'; help to me :rzngress of the p 3: Baskett has i lzse adu‘ce and 331C matters ge- 353513‘ indebted tc Neatl must c =5:er of the E it tonside ration ‘7 91%: ~ , . IhOU-ght It, a a: at are a few I r is 4“ YUM: w in: ice 3’ .. and William fl. If: . Sac in hel Ding r to my dissertation director, Professor Sam S. Baskett, under whose tutelage I was first introduced to the profound wonders of T.S. Eliot. Dr. Baskett's encouragement and enthusiasm were, in fact, directly responsible for the choice of this thesis, and for the decision to expand an initial paper on the t0pic into a full- scale dissertation. Throughout the course of my work his perceptive guidance and counsel have been of real help to me; and his continuing confidence in the worth and the progress of the project has greatly sustained my own convictions. Dr. Baskett has been not only a patient mentor, but a sincere friend whose advice and assistance, both in this specific effort and in aca- demic matters generally, have been of inestimable value. I am sin- cerely indebted to him. Next I must offer my very real appreciation to the collective members of the English faculty of Michigan State University for the consideration they have shown me over the past several years. They have unstintingly given of both their time and knowledge when- ever I Sought it, and have been a considerable stimulus to me in the search for scholarly achievement. At the usual risk of oversight, there are a few I must single out. Professor Elwood Lawrence has been a continuing source of advice and encouragement. Professor JOhn Yunck was largely responsible initially for my choice of univer- Sity f°r graduate study, and he steered me well. Professors George Price and William Heist have always been most generous and enthu- siastic in helping resolve even the most obscure problems of research iv ‘5 Izight have post have long maintap abject-lesson in ] sets Russel Nye, :tigcrating exair :t‘assroom per: are which have mantle to Proie 5395 Pickering, 1:1,qu , the 1‘: -‘A~. 6 rrohon, encoura at later age tha «eased careers i; sinus program ; :93 source of re; “91 tint her 0., .4 1 might have posed. Professors Lawrence Babb and Arnold Williams have long maintained standards of literary scholarship which are an object-lesson in professional excellence to a younger colleague. Profes- sors Russel Nye, Joseph Waldmeir, and Virgil Scott have provided invigorating examples for an aspiring teacher of what may be achieved in classroom performance. Also, for their individual help and gui- dance which have been of benefit to me in diverse ways, I express my gratitude to Professors Arthur Sherbo, John Waite, C. David Mead, James Pickering, E. Fred Carlisle, James Hill, and Mary Devine. Finally, there is one to whom I must surely offer my deepest measure of gratefulness--my wife, Mary. Certainly without her devotion, encouragement, and enthusiasm I would never, at a some- what later age than most students enter upon graduate studies, have Changed careers in mid- stream and undertaken the long and sometimes arduous program requisite to the doctoral degree. She has been for me a Source of real inspiration. And, while concurrently teaching, completing her own doctoral dissertation in music, and admirably fulfilling the functions of wife, mother, and homemaker, she has Still f011116;! time to give me substantial direct assistance and encour- agement in this endeavor of my own. I can say in all sincerity that at no point has this dissertation be°°me a disagreeable task or a routine chore, but from first to last has continued as an enjoyable and satisfying undertaking. I am grateful to all thOSe who have helped make it possible. V ‘ ETRODL'CTION CEtPTER L THEILiRL II. THE 5m UL THE LIKE. Monnc 1 ThEmatiL POQUC Ct R AspECTS < Rhythmic JaZz } Chan; Eliot's M Rhl'thr Chan; Rhythx hotand PSYCh The R. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION CHAPTER I. THE EARLIER POETRY: THE MUSICAL ELEMENTS II. THE STRUCTURAL FORM OF FOUR QUARTETS III. THE LINEAR ELEMENTS OF FOUR QUARTETS Motivic Development Thematic Metamorphosis Poetic Counterpoint . IV. ASPECTS OF T.S. ELIOT'S RHYTHM Rhythmic Elements and the Earlier Experiments . Jazz Rhythms Changing Metres and Rhythmic Displacement Eliot' 5 Mature Rhythmic Structure Rhythmic Counterpoint: Polyrhythm and Polymetre. Changing Metres . Rhythmic Displacement. . . Eliot and the Generative Nature of Rhythm. Psychic and Biological Aspects . The Rhythmic Genesis of Four Quartets V- THE MUSICAL MODELS FOR FOUR QUARTETS . The Critical Background: Survey and Evaluation . The Beethoven Late String Quartets Considered The Other Musical Influences , . , . . CONCLUSIONS . BIBLIOGRAPHY 1“” 5—1 Page 30 64 65 7O 78 97 . 103 . 1 10 . 126 . 134 138 157 160 165 165 179 . 196 196 . 223 . 239 253 . 259 1.131}? OF CON APPENDICES A. SCHEMA". B.MU$CAL! "Burnt? C. THE STR'. D. CONTRA? E. THE RHY' Y'- TABLE OF CONTENTS - Continued APPENDICES A. B. C. D. E. "Ik’k. SCHEMA'I‘IC DIAGRAM: "Rhapsody on a Windy Night". MUSICAL ANALOGY: SONATA ALLEGRO FORM: "Burnt Norton, " I. . . ...... THE STRUCTURAL FORM OF FOUR QUARTETS CONTRAPUNTAL VOICING: The Hollow Men v . __—_2 THE RHYTHMIC STRUCTURE OF FOUR QUARTETS . Page . 272 273 . 275 . 277 . 278 33' entity! £15, ‘1‘.S :;li£‘it, testi: iffCI‘u and S 9:19.919. Whil 2;;ij: to divers 12.39 acquire iagrazing a b Trimming ens :59 of language fE-‘tainly a sigr 9 - ...9d to shape «menus a~ an itch . maybe fc INTRODUCTION By entitling his tetralogy of religious—philosophical poems _Fo_ur Quartets, T.S. Eliot has given unmistakable, even though largely implicit, testimony to the concepts of musical analogy which underlie the form and structure Of both the individual poems and the cycle as a whole. While the term "quartet, " by dictionary definition, may apply to diverse groups of four persons or things, it has, by common usage, acquired an almost exclusively musical connotation broadly designating a basic structure of composition as well as the format of Performing ensemble, be it instrumental or vocal. Since Eliot's use of language was anything but haphazard, his use of the term is certainly a significant indication of the musical influences which helped to shape the basic concept of the poems, and of the author's conscious awareness of the elements Of musical correspondence WhiCh may be found to form a comprehensive and all-pervading com- ponent of the work. HoWever, the title is by no means the sole evidence of such musi- cal mmlence in this, his most mature and profound poetry; for, while apparently Eliot never, in any of his published lectures or criticism, specifically commented on the relation of musical and poetic elements 1 3:959. partial and occupied hi:- 5:32 1915 earlie> :“L'Is awarene s .- 112' of his tender 9:91:11 certain of 2 in these particular poems, the general subject was one which intrigued and occupied him through all his creative life. His critical writings, from his earliest to his most mature period, give constant evidence of his awareness of certain basic analogies between the two art forms, and of his tendency to think of poetry in terms of musical elements; and in certain of his writings he has been most explicit in discussing his ideas. Clearly, Eliot felt the musical impulse to be an inextric- able, even motivating, aspect of poetry; and even further, he viewed it as a fundamental element capable of generating the whole poetic structure in respect to both form and substance. For Eliot, the "music of poetry" becomes much more than a convenient but ill- defined rubric; it embodies a whole way of looking at his art, and there is implicit in it a depth of interrelation between music and Poetry which returns to the primitive origins of man's aesthetic expressions. Eliot's own creative work, from his first poems, contains abun- dant eVidence of the extent to which he was influenced, consciously and subconsciously, by the qualities of musical form and structure. In varying degree, most of his poetry is readily accessible to analysis Whm‘ discloses close parallels with musical elements and the use of poetic devices and techniques bearing a close correspondence to those 0f musical composition. In the early experimental work this is frequently obvious and of a manifest virtuosity, while in the later and more mature poetry the exploitation of the musical elements becomes A :CjeaSN‘bi-tly ,:219d'i3‘h t Consequ‘ 1159603195 W 313%1 3 Comp 33059, met ridentifiv' 113‘ azleast com 1»:- mazure am 111 poetic It is my 1 2:31.11 elem mfunction; : ~11>of te< than and cc 9:15 wit hin t Considera *‘fi’td to the 1., *9 ugh " 1y, beca £11951 of crit 111:1 insights 1 1111125 and E 1.1: ~ 15 therefor 311.11- 3 increasingly subservient to the total poetic purpose and ever more inte- grated with the poetic and philosophic idea. Consequently, with the provocative hint of the title as talisman, it becomes not only a valid inquiry, but an obligatory study, in pur- suing a comprehensive and satisfying understanding of the genesis, purpose, method, and the design and structure of Four Quartets, to identify those elements and devices of a musical equivalence—-or at least correspondence--which exist in the tetralogy and to assess the nature and extent of their contribution to the author's highly indi- vidual poetic expression. It is my purpose in this study to make such an analysis of Eliot's musical elements and to attempt such an assessment Of their nature and function; and further, going well beyond mere identification and analysis of technique and structure, to establish the relationship of form and content and consider the function of the musical ele- ments within the total, integrated work. Considerable critical attention has, of course, been previously devoted to the musical aspects of Eliot's verse; Four Quartets par- ticularly, because of the implications of its title, has engaged the interest of critics. Some of this work is perceptive and has yielded Valid insights into Eliot's poetry; but most of it, unfortunately, is by critics and scholars lacking an intimate knowledge of music. Much of it is therefore highly generalized, and usually deals with the more ObVious and superficial similarities of music and poetry. Posfibly the greaest defici- Exemcom; 11.41.39 Of hi 1%... almost er :::s:i-3usly aw aired bOth th ~~$bC0nscio 13335 that thrc 133' by Examim I'EliOt's musi 1333' remedy : Subsmntia] 105511319 use of ”‘7" gartets. .1313, ce rtai: mm“ as p; 1:19 on the Su ”5:91. . ~45 “1.1%? I ivy-1'1] '1’. News on F1 \ ‘1 8691110 "en ‘ 4 greatest deficiency of such criticism has been its limited scope and a failure to comprehend the full magnitude of Elio '5 concepts and the full range of his musical elements. Also, past consideration has dealt almost entirely with those elements which Eliot would have been consciously aware of and would have purposely used, and has largely ignored both the inherent analogies and those deriving unconsciously and subconsciously from Elliot's whole poetic orientation and method. I hope that through investigating some previously unexplored areas, and by examining in greater depth and more detail certain aspects A . - J of Eliot's musical elements already considered by other critics, Imay remedy some of those existing deficiencies. Substantial critical speculation has particularly dealt with Eliot's possible use of musical models as specific prototypes in composing Four Quartets. A number of critics have proposed various individual models, certain of the late string quartets of Beethoven being primarily nominated as prototypes. In the absence of conclusive external evi- dence on the subject, such discussions have been for the most part highly conjectural and sometimes irresponsible. As a final task in this study I will consider the nature and extent of specific musical influences on Four Quartets; and in this connection will examine the late Beethoven string quartets in some detail. While the primary focus of this paper is on Four Quartets, it Should be apparent that a full appreciation of the musical aspects of these last works must necessarily involve a consideration of Eliot's sexier 9X99 1' in: 2:39 of his eVC Ls: chapter {0 E 291:5 of the ear :2 also bring 51 12191:. The s ,1." 21:1 Tariou 52:, linear eler 11:95 and aspe: 37d treat the su 15ml influence ‘ I I‘- s‘i'F’M‘T‘ ~va11. 5 earlier experiments with musical analogy as well as the direction and nature of his evolving musical techniques. I will therefore devote the first chapter to a general background discussion of the musical ele- ments Of the early poetry and the work preceding Four Quartets, and will also bring such consideration into the other chapters where it is pertinent. The second, third, and fourth chapters will deal princi- pally with various fundamental musico- poetic elements-—structural form, linear elements, rhythm--but will encompass other musical devices and aspects of musical construction. In the final chapter I will treat the subject of Eliot's possible musical models and general musical influence, and will also consider Eliot's debt to Ludwig van Beethoven. [-- TH Much of E11 31;: in substant 91551116. " 71 19112110: was CHAPTER I THE EARLIER POETRY: THE MUSICAL ELEMENTS Much of Eliot's earliest verse shows the influence of music, not only in substantive content, but in the general concept underlying form and style. "Zr—A Lyric7" (1905), written in imitation of Ben Jonson when Eliot was 16, and its variant version "Song" (1907) reveal, besides the musical suggestion Of their titles, an intuitive, if embryonic, feeling for musical binary form which Eliot was to develop and employ for such powerful expression in his later work. In each poem the second of the two structurally identical stanzas takes its material from the first stanza, completing the idea and resolving the expressed dilemma in a statement Of hopeful optimism. Though the poems are Short and the idea condensed, the movement of mood loosely corres- ponds tO a modulation in music from the tonic to a related--possibly the dominant--key in the first stanza, then returns in the second from the related key back to the tonic, where the resolution occurs. This may be more readily noted in "Song" (and in fact the revisions made in this variant version reveal the young poet's emerging feeling f0? the form): A If space Are t The fly 1 Has 1 But let ‘4 With:- For time Thou:I The flonl Was I Were 11“.: To 5:; But let u. Nor 1:: And thouE Yet le 1;": Other "SOnfl 2 him . med the Poet. Among \‘Q \ 1 F1: Fr0m 7 If space and time, as sages say, Are things that cannot be, The fly that lives a single day Has lived as long as we. But let us live while yet we may, While love and life are free, For time is time, and runs away, Though sages disagree. The flowers I sent thee when the dew Was trembling on the vine Were withered ere the wild bee flew To suck the eglantine. But let us haste to pluck anew Nor mourn to see them pine, And though the flowers of life be few Yet let them be divine. Two other "Songs" (1907 and 1909), "Nocturne" (1909)--in classical sonnet form, "Humouresque" (1910), and several unpublished "bal- lades"2 give further indication of the musical influences which moti- vated the poet. "Portrait of a Lady" (1909— 10), where ". . .the conversation slips/ Among velleities and carefully caught regrets/ Through attenuated tones of violins/ Minglcd with remote corncts, "3 is rich 1 From T.S. Eliot, Poems Written in Early Youth (London: Faber and Faber, 1967). 2 Grover Smith, in T .S. Eliot's Poetry and Plays (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956), discussing some unpublished and inaccessible drafts of verse from the period 1909- 1917, says, "About 1913 a piece called 'The Ballade of the Outlook' was seen by Conrad Aiken. The trifling 'Ballade of the Fox Dinner' dates from 1909" (p. 30). 3 All quotations from Eliot's poetry cited in this paper, when not otherwise noted, are from the poems as they appear in The Complete 11’ng and Plays: 1909- 1950 (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, nc. , A 2:951:31 refe. 19.119 of the we .. from the 9 2'9 Preludes "tl' 1:92.09 song" 9 9999:, the pa: h anusical ins tint-tune Of; gettte orientatit’ 299:1 heightened hating-~01 the t 9:19:95" Of crac immersed preluc :JI‘; n . . 3l0ne’ mSld 3‘s“, n . ° “SUCH in“ this multi 1°": Of 8.9 9 t s q%% C "w ‘13 1111113in 1111' The four 19 8 in musical reference and music imagery. Here Eliot has woven into the tissue of the work a background of diverse musical experience--every- thing from the concert-hall Chopin of "the latest Pole, " who transmits the Preludes "through his hair and fingertips, " to the "worn-out common song" of the tired mechanical street piano. In characterizing the lady, the poet suggests a literal comparison of her voice to cer- tain musical instruments, as when "The voice returns like the insistent out-Of-tune/ Of a broken violin on an August afternoon. " The sub- jective orientation of the poem is emphasized, and the impressionistic mood heightened, by the juxtaposition--in a form of poetic counter- pointing--of the out-Of—tune ". . .windings of the violins/ And the ariettes/ Of cracked cornets" of the lady's voice and the absurdly- hammered prelude of the dull tom-tom, in its false-noted "capricious monotone, " inside the brain of the narrator. Finally, in the closing lines, the narrator suggests that the entire poem has been music-- music ". . . successful with a 'dying fa11'/ Now that we talk of dying-—"; and in this multi-level allusion to the neurotic and self-indulgent fantasy-love of Shakespeare's Duke Orsino, the withering October days Of the protagonist's nearly- completed year, the narrator's sterile non-involvement and emotional incapacity for love, and the 1ady's pathetic futility and verbal grotesqueries, the substance and movement of the entire poem are distilled and summed up through a deft musical image. The four "Preludes," two of which were written in 1909-10 and I11 ' h- ’ 7.9.1111- two in L: senstruction :9tjzerparts. Each of the 2:79 anticipato 99 corresponde 23:: originated j function in 39' 3t more othe s Same time, Q '9 sketch, 1; 15195999: the 9 3-13ng alone as is 3109111 and De ' 1“ tllat 1 9 the final two in 1911, and "Rhapsody on a Windy Night" (1911) suggest in construction and mood an attempt at poetic imitation of their musical counterparts. Each of the "Preludes" presents an image, a suggestive and ten- tative anticipatory scene presaging something to follow. Thus there is a correspondence with the initial form Of the prelude, the intonazione, as it originated in sixteenth- century lute music, as well as with its later function in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries of introducing . . 4 one or more other pieces, such as a fugue or a suite of dances. At 1: I'V- the same time, each "Prelude" creates the effect of a cameo piece, a brief sketch, in its evocation of an intense and individual mood. In this respect the group is imitative of the series of preludes, each standing alone as an individual piece, written by such later composers as Chopin and Debussy. There is a deeper point Of interest here, however, in that these "Preludes" carry an aura of fantasy in both style and mood, with their kaleidoscopic succession of evocative . images and metaphors, and could as well have been titled "Fantasies. " Now, the fantasy is normally a freely- structured instrumental piece 4 Andr€Hodeir, in The Forms of Music (New York: Walker and Company, 1966), notes, "The Italians gave the name intonazione to the few phrases the instrumentalist improvised before performing a musical selection, thereby establishing the composition's key, and at the same time making sure his instrument was tuned. As it was handed down from the lute to the harpsichord and the organ in the seventeenth century, the intonazione became the prelude, which grew steadily in importance right up to Bach. All the leading English, German and French polyphonists cultivated this form" (p. 102). A 7.4-3, origin; 3x213: "tXDr :cgcar‘e, p: seventeenth C :15: the rice! 3,115 EJOIQE 153 Mid COd 7,1 :99 State:- 9959 imageS, 999: fortuitOU 2911910115 or i :is embedded 39995 to the ta 6 ff D /.9" It is in "R 9.1.1.9: in moo c1311 9-9 ~6an cc \,5\_Et. F" 9:: lrstc Form ~ 10 which originated in the sixteenth century and, according to Andre’ Hodeir, "borrowed the structure, if not the spirit, of a related form: ricercare, prelude or sonata, according to the period. "5 In the seventeenth century the English virginalists identified the fantasy with the ricercare and adopted it under the name m. It is interesting that in Eliot's "Preludes" the two short stanzas which seem to act as a brief coda section, uniting and resolving all four pieces, begin with the statement "I am moved by fancies that are curled/ Around these images, and cling. " Eliot's use of the term fancies may have _ . g been fortuitous in specific relation to the musical form; but whether conscious or intuitive, its contextual position and the locution in which it is embedded does reinforce the close kinship which the entire poem bears to the fantasy and, even further, to the closely- related ri_cgr- &- 6 It is in "Rhapsody on a Windy Night" (1911), a poem closely similar in mood and style to the "Preludes," that poetic analogy 509. cit., p. 47. 6 "The ricercare (literally 'to search'), " states Hodeir, "is an instrumental composition of very free structure that imitates the vocal motet. First conceived for the lute, then for the organ or the harpsichord, this form, whose character is more austere than that of the canzone, made its appearance at the beginning of the sixteenth century. The Italians called it ricercare, fantasia or camccio; the English called it fancy; but the form also existed in Spain, Germany and France. In the seventeenth century the ricercare became a set form; under the impetus of Titelouze, Sweelinck, Frescobaldi and Froberger it evolved in the direction of the fugue, to which it ultimately gave birth. By the eighteenth century the word ricercare was hardly ever used, except to designate, paradoxically, a sort of specially constructed fugue" (Op. cit. , pp. 110-111). .11 7.2: the ricerc. fissurse, ems :: is essentially interrupted 5 tested to a cez‘f 335a strong af;' 3! at least rela: main” use 1‘9 framed in t: 71rd, the cat in 33111151116115 1 “° imagtES. M m and mum 11 with the ricercare becomes particularly well- defined. The poem does, of course, embody the characteristics of the musical rhapsody in that it is essentially a fantasy in a rather free style and consists of an uninterrupted succession of relatively short, contrasting episodes related to a central, or basic, theme. And, where the musical rhapsody has a strong affinity with folk music and is usually based on folk songs, or at least relatively simple themes in a folk idiom, Eliot's poetic counterpart uses vernacular elements--the street-lamp, the prosti- tute framed in the doorway, the rusted broken spring in the factory ' - 7e yard, the cat in the gutter, the ". . . cigarettes in corridors/ And ' cocktail smells in bars, " the tooth-brush on the wall--for its anal- ogous images. But Eliot's "Rhapsody" further displays a tightness of form and unity of structure which derive from elements more parallel to the (later) ricercare. The basic element of the ricercare, as in the vocal motet from which it stems, is imitative contrapuntal writing. Normally, the form consists of several episodes (anywhere from three to nine), in each of which a different motif is brought into play. The primary sources of unity are the tempo and key, although some of the later ricercares by the- Gabrielis, by Frescobaldi, and by Froberger were monothematic and were more formally complex and disciplined; thus, they were already closely allied to the eighteenth- century fugue. "Rhapsody on a Windy Night" exhibits striking unity of both tempo and key, or mood. The tempo throughout is one of restless and gistenl for“ It East)? “0ch 1;: one 901““ the child on 5133's to an ad's iii-Led up at th ties: of a term @511; gathers The key effect, 2:13; in the one .- 5:21,» the unit," In one sens 1.31% present: Stat of "memc «. the subject 1 fiuide and re pe 3336mm re~ex 13316 detailed 2 "mmntally c0: 12 insistent forward movement, eliciting a psychological correspondence with the gusty nocturnal context of the poem. This allegro tempo abates at only one point- -in the last half of the third episode where the memory of the child on the quay motivates a brief contemplative passage which slows to an adagio tempo. The original tempo is then immediately picked up at the beginning of episode four. There is thus created the effect of a temporary lull in the whirling gusts, during which the wind quietly gathers its force, to return suddenly with renewed strength. The key effect, or mood, is closely equivalent to the tempo, varying only in the one slower section, and consequently contributes to estab- lishing the unity of the piece. In one sense, the "Rhapsody" is monothematic, even though each episode presents a different situation or image. The basic context is that of "memory": each episode occurs within the poet's memory, and the subject is specifically stated near the beginning of the first episode and repeatedly returns throughout the poem; the effect is one of thematic re-entrance, though with a modification at each return. A more detailed analysis, however, shows the poem to be much more contrapuntally complex. There are several dominant themes which recur either in all or most of the episodes; these have a close rela- tionship within the context of the poem, and are re-introduced in varying order, much as the themes in a free fugue return in the differ- ent sections. The first theme is that of the clock-time device which introduces each episode as the night progresses from midnight to four A _ I} teleck. The 5‘ with is basic 1" :en: in the thir nerms of . L.:‘ :his thematL ten personifie 2;;tasition with 1! 33.30551ny the 1.: sciatic element 31' the Original n; .‘ELationships, TALE first thy we: 0f the [Dem 5596cifically St; “’5‘ then aPDezt “[10 element I ‘VL‘U 11, bUt, as a $313119, 31 1 3 o'clock. The second theme to be introduced is that of the "street, " which is basic to all of the episodes and returns in specific state- ment in the third and fourth sections. The moon is next introduced in terms 0 ". . .lunar synthesis,/ Whispering lunar incantations, " and this thematic element reappears in the fourth episode with the moon personified; the use of the French nominative "La lune" in apposition with its English equivalent effects a brief ornamentation, or possibly the poetic parallel of a harmonic change on the same melodic element, and establishes the theme as a specific re-entrance _ ' , I} of the original not only in terms of idea but also through the verbal ' . 1 relationships. ' The first three themes are all introduced within the first three lines of the poem. In the fifth line the underlying theme of memory is specifically stated and, as the primary subject of the poem, reappears in various contexts in each succeeding episode. The fifth and final theme then appears, that of the street-lamp; this is another primary thematic element, since it not only reappears in every succeeding section, but, as a personified object, it plays a vital role in each ePiSOde, also acting as a vehicle, or more properly perhaps a catalyst, for memory; as spokesman for the poet's subconscious, it brings to light (g9) and articulates the hidden and repressed memories which provide the ground for the poem. The fourth episode of the "Rhapsody" bears some resemblance to the development section of a fugue, since all themes reappear here L. £15311: except v.3 that they a I 131: a fugal d6 :‘rtn the next b; “it t'teme- Th“ ‘1 2.; dark, and h. factions, and 9 Li‘ $26306, element :6 concentratec idyllich remin seems to effect I rich the fugal d it tenth of the The final bri 9‘.- ,' no )3 lg section it meeting of the 1 4 and all, except the first one, are elaborated and developed in such a way that they appear to be undergoing a series of modulations. And, as in a fugal development section, each entry of a subject is separated from the next by short episodes, which are in fact the elaboration of the theme. Thus, the street-lamp not only sputters, it mutters in the dark, and hums; the moon, as the lamp relates, undergoes a series of actions, and has lost her memory; memory is modulated as remini- scence, elements of which are then elaborated. Finally, the sustained (. and concentrated catalogue of smells which pervade the moon's brain and which reminiscence calls forth in all their intense pungency seems to effect the poetic equivalent of dominant pedal-point with which the fugal development generally ends and which prepares for the return of the original key. 7 The final brief episode acts somewhat as a short str_ett9_ (a fugal closing section in which an increase of intensity is effected by the dovetailing of the subject with its closely succeeding imitation), 8 7 Pedal-point, or pedal, one of the earliest devices of polyphony—- Perhaps the earliest (its extended use is found in Oriental and primitive mllSic)--refers to a long-held note, usually in the bass, sounding against Changing harmonies in the other parts. A sustained pedal on the domi- nant (the fifth scale degree) tends to build tension which augments the feeling of resolution when the return to the tonic (first scale degree) occurs. _ 8 Hodeir considers that the stretto may be regarded as the "pero- l‘ahfm" of the fugue. "It comprises a series of canonical entries of the subJect and real answer, in increasingly close succession (stretto means "31°39, narrow'). All these canons or strette are usually truncated to some extent, except for one, called stretto maestrale, consisting of the complete subject and its answer in the original key" (Op. cit. , p. 51). I} :ith the three C 332ng back in shift-focused liscussing the rationale of :13 formed b; ralysis of Elio acidoscotiic ir; 'itors’ of which :‘Lsical constrt; :iearly fugue, .3 33931 of course i 3313:: Si'llthe Sis r iifihnuauy re cu: .tderlylng them: ‘eltes, from [llt‘ itelopment of t: tin of the conc WED form and lithe eijOdt )‘1 are graphe 1 5 with the three dominant themes of street- lamp, time, and memory coming back in quick succession and leading directly into the terse, tightly-focused coda-like resolution. Discussing the Bergsonian philosophy which may have influenced the rationale of the poem, and considering the pattern of subjective M formed by the imagery, Grover Smith, in his comprehensive analysis of Eliot's poetry, states, "Mingling as fluid perceptions, kaleidoscopic images pour into memory, the organ of time, the 'floors' of which break down to enable their total synthesis. "9 Eliot's musical construction, with its elements of later ricercare and devices of early fugue, accomplishes exactly this on the structural level (the poem of course talks about the "floors of memory" being dissolved); total synthesis results from the contrapuntal re-entrance of themes continually recurring throughout the several episodes, from the underlying thematic unity of the diversely-orientcd episodes them- selves, from the unity of key and tempo, and from the concentrated development of themes in the penultimate section leading to the reso- lution of the concluding episode. The structure is therefore closely correspondent to the poetic purpose and an intimate relationship exists between form and content. If the episodes and thematic entrances of "Rhapsody on a Windy Nigh " are graphed according to their musical structure, the 902. cit., p. 24. A taxman} Pa :f'he three the memory p051 :rtl entity, be train of the : gem is include It is surpri rtrresprindence vvi noted. Th “€741" llErtinent ‘43 the elemei PM “I or musical 1 6 contrapuntal pattern becomes immediately evident. Similarly, the dominance of the three themes of time, memory, and the street-lamp (the voice of memory posited in time), and their position in the total poetic struc- tural entity, become apparent, as well as the position and structural function of the subordinate themes. Such a structural graph of the poem is included herein as Appendix A. It is surprising, in view of the close analogies existing, that such correspondence with the earlier musical forms has not previously been noted. The implications for Eliot's later poetry are of course highly pertinent to a comprehensive view of his developing method. Over the years Eliot continued to utilize musical devices and adapt the elements of musical structure to poetry, so that an enlarge- me nt of musical concept and an increase in musical analogy'may be found in later works. Thus, Denis Avaor, who made a musical setting of The Hollow Men, 10 discusses the inherent musical aspects 0f the poem: . A remarkable feature, which must immediately strike a musi— c‘van, is the music- like mode of construction employed by the poet in The Hollow Men. The effect is not impressionistic, as, for inStance, are certain parts of Joyce's Finnegan's Wake, but the Mm employs, deliberately or unconsciously, musical devices-- In reality, variations on thematic fragments--which form the b38is of the art of composition. What a composer does in the way 1° The Hollow Men. The Poem by T.S. Eliot. Set for Bari- tone Solo, Male Voice Chorus and Orchestra by Denis Avaor (Oxford University Press, £19517). A no; Cf subtle ('aI‘i mirror'imag' method used I lost kingdom death's drew ltbecomes cl mmses its 0 he; to the m man Of “111;: 5:31 chant, 8 ti setting suc 11.0w Men, W ECLSII'UCUOD in .i; take up the Experiments wi Section specific he Structural f 3110 that of Fe :reteded by sor itth the considt 17 of subtle variation--augmentation, diminution, inversion, echoes, mirror-images and reappearances for dramatic effect--is the method used by Mr. Eliot in his theme of 'death's kingdom'; 'lost kingdom'; 'death's other kingdom' ; 'death's twilight kingdom'; 'death's dream kingdom'; and 'For Thine is the Kingdom'. . . . It becomes clear very quickly, therefore, that this kind of verse imposes its own musical form very precisely. . . . In fact, a key to the musical setting of the poem could be found in the combi- nation of vulgar secular (Jazz) rhythms with the solemnity of litur- gical chant, and this is the way which I approached the problem of setting such verse which is already half-way to music. 1 The Waste Land (1922), written some 3-4 years prior to 1‘32 Hollow Men, was notable for its incorporation of musical device and j construction in at least two of its aspects: rhythm and structure. I will take up these elements later in some detail: Eliot's continuing experiments with overtly musical rhythms will be analyzed in the seetion specifically devoted to rhythm; and the musical parallel of the structural form of The Waste Land, because of its close similar— ity to that of Four Quartets, whose first poem, "Burnt Norton, " it Preceded by some fourteen years, will be discussed in connection With the consideration of Eliot's use of specific musical models for “Four Quartets. Sweeney Agonistes (1924-25), Eliot's "Aristophanic Melodrama"-- Which Grover Smith calls "a melodrama in the sense that it is em- be“fished with songs among the dialogue, " and which he indicates Eliot 8e91118 at one time to have called "Wanna Go Home, Baby?"12 is 11 "Setting The Hollow Men to Music, " in T. S. Eliot: A Symposium for his Seventieth Birthda , edited by Neville Braybrooke (New York: Farrar, Straus 22 Cuahy, 1958), pp. 88-89. 12 02. cit. , p. 135. A men in 3 br it cultural anC irerse vernaC‘~ :zsic. His ex; Liszt of jazz Ti frzrz whatever - :ght not posse endpoint of rh; izegration of IT. :EZiOt's exper; Eeitly, except éfiect, he never e": Subject in f'. In the Five- \ ”5 as musical 1th" . me indulged 1LSlusi Cal poetic Mme‘3“the fiv ~3aYorkshire Tl 1 8 written in a broadly obvious music-hall style. In attempting to expose the cultural and spiritual vapidities of the age, Eliot drew heavily on diverse vernacular elements, chief among which was that of popular music. His experiments in rhythm in the work, specifically in the idiom of jazz rhythms, comprise its outstanding aspect; and aside from whatever other overall qualities Sweeney Agonistes might or might not possess, it may probably be justly stated that, from the standpoint of rhythm, this unfinished piece achieves a remarkable integration of medium and content. The work marked a high point I Has.“ '; in Eliot's experimentation with overtly musical rhythms; and subse- quently, except for isolated instances in which he desired a special effect, he never returned to the jazz experiments. I will consider this subject in further detail in the section on rhythm. In the Five- Finger Exercises (1933), whose title would seem t0 be as musically provocative as that of Four Quartets, Eliot appears to have indulged himself in a bit of poetic fun. Written as exercises in musical poetics--maybe, as the title implies, just to keep in practice-the five poems, brief as they are, display some intriguing pal‘allels with musical form apparently not previously noticed. "Lines t0 a. Yorkshire Terrier" would seem clearly to effect a poetic imi- t“not: of the musical toccata. More a style than a form, since it has “0 Precise form, the toccata (from the Italian £99219: "to touch," 01' "to play") is essentially a virtuoso instrumental composition written for a keyboard instrument; as such, its primary function is to A..- $331119 my“): :15 touch: and -a Sistiined r ifim¥toen :e'ijtely fast U at: ‘he some W‘f itiral disaste r Emegmm :cst outstanding cit-struction whi itch by means ( stints covering is.” I .snmmsau mdmmmgis imitation of tht semen In its cadenc 19 allow the performer to display the control, precision, and variety of his touch, and his brilliance of technique. It is normally a fast piece in a sustained rhythm which moves steadily and uninterruptedly from beginning to end. "Lines to a Yorkshire Terrier" similarly is in a relatively fast tempo; its brief three- and four- stress lines combine with the somewhat apprehensive mood and suggestion of impending natural disaster to impart a steady and insistent forward movement from the beginning right through to the final three-line cadence. Its most outstanding characteristic, however, is a syllabic and consonantal 3‘33“, " construction which effects a poetic counterpart of digital keyboard touch by means of a rapid and continuing contrast of vowels and con- sonants covering virtually the entire lingual range. In the brief fifteen lines all English consonants may be found and every vowel and diphthong is included except long closed 9 and long a; and the elimination of the latter two serves to maintain the regular, forward up—tempo. In its cadence lines "Yorkshire Terrier" also contains a most remarkable verbal analogy to the musical device of enharmonic change. In modern music theory the term enharmonic denotes tones which are actually one and the same degree of the chromatic scale, but are named and written differently, e. g. : C sharp and D flat, G and A double-flat, etc. , according to the key in which they occur. In an enharmonic change a note or a chord becomes a pivotal point in a change of key by being annotated in a new key while sounding the same A ei‘Li'aient occ; Here a Hean: Pause 1 the charts 1’1 we 9 .moiete mod»: rally. The an rhyming words itithe shift in 5Sect of the en aijacent words 5.50 creates :1 ml pause ii itiieting a pa‘ he % effe The last t ‘er 'i’hiCh is 5m ' Q‘s- «C- The r 20 as a differently-annotated note or chord in the original key. The poetic equivalent occurs in the closing lines of Eliot's poem: Here a little dog I pause Heaving up my prior paws, Pause, and sleep endlessly. In the change from flito we on the succeeding word there is a complete modulation of meaning, although the two words are identical orally. The analysis could be validly extended by considering the rhyming words pass and Mo provide an initial enharmonic change, and the shift from mg to was a return modulation. The fullest effect of the enharmonic device is given, however, by the change on adjacent words. This change, combined with the syntactic structure, also creates a sudden m (a momentary slowing of the tempo), an actual pause in fact, in the flow of the verse at this point, thus achieving a parallel between the oral structure and the idea. Finally, the rubato effect emparts a strong cadence feeling to the closing lines. The last two of the Five-Finger Exercises utilize a structural form which is very closely equivalent to the classical rondo form in music. The rondo is characterized by the alternation of the princi- pal theme--the subject--with a series of secondary episodes, with a resulting structural pattern of A B A C A D A and so on. The subject is usually fairly short; the episodes, generally of similar length, are 1O‘nger. They may derive more or less directly from the subject, though they may also differ from it completely. The episodes are A titer in the 5.“ here may be a ‘25 as a princi How del “an recur se ire, "How deli Lie subject (exc side of several izits and char: trite somewha the poem the] The mccee C‘iituscaraway 2'020‘1‘8 the 53m 3 meet Mr. Eli 21 either in the same key as the subject or in closely related keys, and there may be any number of them. "Lines to Ralph Hodgson Esqre. " has as a principal subject the lines How delightful to meet Mr. Hodgson! (Everyone wants to know in)" which recur several times (once in a modified, or A’ form of a single line, "How delightful to meet Mr. Hodgsonl"). Each appearance of the subject (except the closing one of course) is followed by an epi- SOde of several lines which presents a different aspect of Mr. Hodgson's ‘ ' ' i habits and characteristics; the episodes thus differ, though they all derive somewhat directly from the subject. The resultant structure Of the poem therefore becomes A B A’C A D A. The succeeding and final exercise of the group, "Lines for Cuscuscaraway and Mirza Murad Ali Beg, " though somewhat shorter, follows the same basic form. Its one- line subject--"How unpleasant to meet Mr. Eliot"--recurs twice; each of the first two appearances is followed by an episode of several lines which is a commentary, or exPlanation of the subject. The form of the piece thus becomes A B A C A. In this case there is a brief one-line coda following 1 the final appearance of the subject. 3 x 13 A coda (Italian, literally "tail") is a section of a composition “dad to the form proper as a conclusion. Nearly all fugues close with a coda (the length varies) frequently based on a pedal-point. A coda is ilorllnally found at the end of each movement of a sonata, symphony, etc. it 3 0" movements it usually functions as an epilogue, while in fast move- ments it frequently leads to the final climax, often combined with a quick- ‘V mher mus: "1:355 IO 3 Per scare, "to son :‘a reverse W" :‘ize vocal SW; :ezul form int :11" and "Line 5 size and contex :e two-line, rh' in $1321. The aim, shows ; Time pattern. Section is Symm scion rhymes c_ We» to the fir M L6 1836:? (to \W :23“ “3 mater 3M“ in so I” H1810“, a q 22 Other musical parallels may be found throughout the cycle. "Lines to a Persian Cat" reveals certain affinities with the classical instrumental canzone da sonar (from Italian canzona, "song, " and w "to sound," or "play" an instrument), though with something of a reverse twist; whereas the instrumental canzone were adaptations of the vocal style to instruments, Eliot is here transmuting the instru- mental form into a lyrical poetic expression. Both "Lines to a Persian Cat" and "Lines to a Duck in the Park" end with couplets which in Stl’le and context bear a resemblance to the ritornelle (ritornello, the two-line, rhyming final strophe--not a refrain) of the 14th- century madrigal. The latter exercise, if analyzed from the aspect of rhyme scheme, shows a perfectly-balanced musical ternary form in its rhyme pattern. The first, or A section, rhymes gag; the middle B section is symmetrical within itself with a scheme of a_cca; the last section rhymes c_id_eg, which is identical in pattern, though not in actual rhyme, to the first section, and constitutes a return of the first part. We miB‘ht therefore designate the form as A B A, or possibly A B A’. The tw0— line ritornello completes the structure with its _f_f rhyme. The Five-Finger Exercises are thus skillfully- constructed little can"308 in which Eliot has exploited certain musical forms and devices \ ened tempo (to which the term stretto is often applied). The coda usually derlves its material from the preceding themes of the movement. In "Twements in sonata form the coda frequently assumes considerable dlmensmn, and occasionally becomes a second development section; as note the first movement of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. . . rich, While 5‘ 5533115113 defi I farmat 0f the g islopment in This thematicé 1 Q. ' tears major :zch similarit? arm of music; became highly r lessobu'ous, m then, less of if? lave been e the total expr The Six Clo: 3’5 Substantially 2 3 which, while still essentially subservient to the matter of the pieces, establish a definite tone of technical inventiveness and set the whole format of the group within a framework of musical exercise. Ash Wednesday (1930) probably represents the furthest point of development in T.S. Eliot's music of poetry prior to Four Quartets. While thematically perhaps the most obscure and ambiguous of the author's major poems, Ash Wednesday in form and structure bears much similarity to musical construction, and reveals extensive utili- zation of musically-analogous techniques. In general, these have here become highly refined from the earlier experiments, so that they are less obvious, more subtly worked into the poetic fabric; there is, in Short, less of a virtuoso aspect to the use of musical devices and they have been effectively modulated to become integral components 0f the total expression. The six closely- related sections, or "movements, " of Ash Wednesday are substantially analogous, in their relationship and contrasts, to the movements of a musical sonata, which will be discussed more fully in considering the structural form, and the subject of musical models, for Four Quartets. In the opening three lines of the poem, Because I do not hope to turn again Because I do not nape Because I do not hope to turn i fire is an exc ti. miation l 13.: becomes .1 its: stanza-42' sizes of the i1 siritial grace reintroduced 1 tiqe opening L 2:5:qna differ :‘zhe thematic 350" that time :32 again," "B ”E33 series of sill is in form v I. ‘ «4,0? 53‘ With mu 24 there is an excellent poetic equivalent of melodic repetition in music, with variation in the length of the repeated fragments. The first line also becomes a motivic element upon which is built the theme of the first stanza-—the narrator's acceptance of the loss of desire for the values of the flesh, and inability as well to strive for the state of spiritual grace. This in fact is the theme of the entire section, and is re-introduced in each succeeding stanza by a modification, or variation, of the opening line. Each stanza elaborates the theme and approaches it from a different aspect. Thus the stanzas, introduced by variations of the thematic motif--"Because I do not hope to know again, " "Because I know that time is always time, " a repeat, "Because I do not hope to turn again, " "Because these wings are no longer wings to fly"--pre- sent a series of variations on the basic theme, and the opening move- ment is in form equivalent to a musical theme and variations. The analogy with music here is double— edged, since the variations are generated both in the verbal syntactic structure of the motivic altera- tions and in the substantive ideas of the sub- sections. The movement ends with two cadence-like lines taken from the Ave Maria of the Catholic liturgy, which act as a brief coda: Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death Pray for us now and at the hour of our death. This use Of coda is prevalent throughout Ash Wednesday, most of the sections ending with one-, two-, or three-line constructions which A traumas sh- Lord Lord,l 25 function as short codas: Lord, I am not worthy Lord, I am not worthy but speak the word only. (IH) Till the wind shake a thousand whispers from the yew And after this our exile (IV) In each case the coda serves to round off and neatly terminate the group of stanzas forming the movement; its cadence—like construc— tion imparts a feeling of finality which resolves the movement, setting it off from the one to follow and preparing for a change of mood and rhythm in the succeeding movement. Even in the second movement, which does not contain a stan— zaically separate coda section, the verbal and syntactic structure of the lines at the end of the final section is such as to render a coda effect: . ................ This is the land which ye Shall divide by lot. And neither division nor unity Matters. This is the land. We have our inheritance. Moveme nts five and six both employ very brief snatches of prayer as final cadence, that in the fifth movement having been prepared for by a 10Tiger coda-like line beginning with the same phrase-~"Oh my peo1’19"“:md appearing twice within the movement. The invocational mode Of all of the codas helps establish a sense of unity among the h; :3t‘enents of Citlml paSSC: cs apostmpht Ash Wed". :ts noteme nt s it second mot :tahges in a n: ’;.‘.’v~L " Must. more h, Filth Eliot was The sixth r int-e often for I"43-6.".qu orig; F'Ltther, the It. inWment is “filled or deq 3:113, 1? conta Fifi; are he“. ‘ifbal Cn311336: 2 6 movements of the poem, and this is further enhanced by similar invo- cational passages and snatches of prayer throughout the work, as in the "Sovegna vos" of Part IV and the whole second section of Part II, the apostrophe to the Lady of silences. Ash Wednesday displays a contrast of mood and rhythm between its movements, as well as between the middle and outer sections of the second movement, which is analogous to the modal and rhythmic Changes in a musical sonata; these constructions anticipate the similar, though more highly developed, rhythmic modulations and contrasts which Eliot was to incorporate in Four Quartets. The sixth movement of the poem makes use of another structural device often found in music--the restatement, in the final section, 0f themes originally introduced in the first, or a preceding, section. Further, the musical restatement of themes in a concluding section 01‘ movement is usually in a different mode or key, and often in mOdified or developed form, and the sixth section of Ash Wednesday SimilaI‘ly contains such transformations. The opening lines of the work are here repeated in the same metre, but with one significant verbal change: Although I do not hope to turn again Although I do not hope Although I do not hope to turn The Single modification in the change of the word because to although seems Simple, but it is sufficient to alter the entire feeling, as well A as meaning, it izcde or he: alteredznode t sets an enqe r. rich he enter ' boughout the scion. Such :lttlation fro: “SIC; 18 [‘91 “i he first n. 'CL?‘ 1. 27 as meaning, of the passage; it thus creates the same effect as a change of mode or key in music and makes the lines consonant with the whole altered mode of the movement. In essence this final movement repre- sents an emergence of the narrator from a dark night of the soul, which he entered in the first movement and through which he progressed throughout the work to the vision of grace finally achieved in the closing Section. Such change of spiritual orientation is implicit in the single modulation from the opening lines. Because is a determinate preposi- ' tion introducing a falling clause; what is to follow is purely a resultant ' . g situation based on a preceding condition, and therefore determined and unalterable; this represents the poet's mood and outlook at the opening, But although implies and introduces a situation, condition, or result contrary to what might be anticipated or expected as a result Of a given set of facts; it thus creates a rising poetic expression which, in the context of the work, is optimistic and hopeful. This modal modulation, analogous to one from minor to major in muSic, is reinforced by the same alteration in restatement of ideas from the first movement throughout the final one. In the opening section the aged eagle saw no reason to stretch his wings; in fact, his wings were ". . . no longer wings to fly/ But merely vans to beat the air. " Now, with the new vision, he has "unbroken wings" which "- . . still fly seaward, seaward flying." Initially he ". . . cannot drink/ There, Where trees flower, and springs flow, for there is nothing again"; now he rejoices and his spirit quickens in the "lost lilac" and A is ”Dent E101 ". . .renoun 5:363? to H made-599 r sterility and 2515651331 I: milu “In: :iiersiar‘diné :eLa-zionship ‘ Site Now] aziqer, SE31? j 231261” And ii he not 5621 hid how hi 5 E .2 to sit still' tent of theme its contextual Finail V .! Johns coda: 28 the "bent goldenrod. " At the beginning of the dark night he could only ". . .renounce the bless‘ed face/ And renounce the voice" and his entreaty to "Teach us to care and not to care/ Teach us to sit still" was a desperate imploring for release from a condition of seeming sterility and hopelessness; the modal and thematic transformation of the final movement embodies his newly-gained insight into the essential unity of the several manifestations of the Lady, his new Understanding of the beauty of the fleshly world and its integrated relationship with the spiritual one, and his pending attainment of , - , a grace. Now he can invoke the love of the "Blessed sister, holy mother, spirit of the fountain, spirit of the garden,/ . . .Sister, mother/ And spirit of the river, spirit of the sea," and ask that he be not separated from either the love of man or the love of God. And now his exhortation, "Teach us to care and not to care/ Teach us to sit still" is one of fervent supplication; here is another restate- ment of theme, syntactically identical but modally transformed by its contextual alteration. Finally, the modulated restatement is completed by the brief One-line coda; in contrast to the despairing and negative prayer which terminated the opening movement, the poet ends on a rising note of mm With the ardent and exalted "And let my cry come unto Thee. " ASh Wednesday, then, marks a high point in Eliot's development 0‘ a poetry whose form and structure bears inherent and close analogy to that Of musical composition; and a high point also in his continuing A - refinement an; sable of a p': match fuse; 29 refinement and elaboration of a musically-analogous poetic language capable of a philosophical and spiritual expression in which form is intimately fused with content. A Ehots n1 certain . .usic. :23; realize fr "The Music of . q I I ""';"H 7”.“ r. Mist-J“ W All \ n nm in ten X? .C.’ . hank that a such technic . 55W, for I h Delete that t 3:3 nearly, think tha CHAPTER II THE STRUCTURAL FORM OF FOUR QUARTETS Eliot's most cogent and detailed statement of the equivalence of certain musical and poetic elements, and the benefits which the poet may realize from a study of music, is to be found in his lecture "The Music of Poetry. "14 In discussing the period of musical elab- oration which he feels can follow the stabilization of the poetic medium in terms of a contemporary colloquial language idiom, he says: I think that a poet may gain much from the study of music: how much technical knowledge of musical form is desirable I do not know, for I have not that technical knowledge myself. But I believe that the properties in which music concerns the poet most nearly, are the sense of rhythm and the sense of structure. I think that it might be possible for a poet to work too closely to musical analogies: the result might be an effect of artificiality; but I know that a poem, or a passage of a poem, may tend to realize itself first as a particular rhythm before it reaches expres- sion in words, and that this rhythm may bring to birth the idea and the image; andI do not believe that this is an experience pecu- liar to myself. The use of recurrent themes is as natural to poetry as to music. There are possibilities for verse which bear some analogy to the development of a theme by different groups 14 The third W. P. Ker Memorial Lecture, delivered at Glas- gow University in 1942, and published by Glasgow University Press in the same year. 30 of instrtimel mgr-able gartet; the: srhject mat! Of the t‘ :qize poet in :izprehensit' zectrral aspec shots and sci poet‘s work he lie area with z SCRCEI‘IIEd. W 31 of instruments; there are possibilities of transitions in a poem comparable to the different movements of a symphony or a quartet; there arig possibilities of contrapuntal arrangement of subject matter. Of the two major properties which Eliot poses as of most concern to the poet in relation to music, the sense of structure is particularly comprehensive in its application since it involves the overall archi- tectural aspects of the work. This is, in fact, the area in which those critics and scholars who have discussed musical analogies in the . poet's work have most readily perceived parallels with music; and is _ i the area with which they have been primarily--often exclusively-- concerned. While regrettable, this is understandable; for, since music and poetry are both temporal arts, and further, temporal arts deriving from a common ancestor of which they were integral and equal components, it is natural that they possess inherently similar structural tendencies of unusually strong correspondence. The natural approximation in structural form exhibited by music and poetry will be found to be closer than with any other art forms, with the POSsible exception of the dance-~also a temporal form--which is intimately related to music and poetry in its origins, and in which total Pattern is also achieved through temporal progression. Both music and poetry depend upon the movement through time of thematic elements which, to be meaningful, must possess some type X 15 From "The Music of Poetry" as reprinted in Eliot's _Q_n L °et£x and Poets (New York: Noonday Press, 1961), p. 32. A fl ‘ Y 7" :1 intelligi“ pattern-4 P :r at least ft iqeforrn W11 .11: growth-- rich prOgl‘i :eshmion. L36 Aristote] iczamplexit haze a be g1 it sits: in tern] ieir SINCIU 1:1“?- ‘- ' ‘6 CHlEEQt‘. \ ain‘e' “tips. I i")- ‘ example ’ let, . t J 0 arc L: 21““ ‘4ch “‘hi 1 1‘ ‘0!“ h Li 3 2 of intelligible relationship and progress according to a coherent pattern--a pattern which in its resultant totality may be perceived, or at least felt, as unified. Because of its temporal orientation, the form will in large measure result from an organic generation and growth—-the inherent process of all time—oriented entities-- which progresses from its beginning through a development to a final resolution. Both music and poetry thus show an innate affinity for the Aristotelian aesthetic: regardless of structural detail and degree of complexity, both media of expression will in fundamental outline have a beginning, a middle, and an end, apprehended both as tran— sient in temporal progression and simultaneous and permanent in their structural and aesthetic totality. Just as a piece of sculpture or architecture is a form cut into space, so musical and poetic compositions are forms cut into time; and while perceived, via a different set of sensibilities, linearly in time rather than instantaneously in three-dimensional space, exist as aesthetic wholes just as com- pletely as the work of graphic or plastic art. Eliot was acutely aware of these structural and aesthetic rela- tionships. In his introduction to Paul Vale/ry's The Art of Poetry, for example, referring to Vale’ry's analogy of the structure of Poetry to architecture, and discussing the assimilation of poetry t0 music which was a Symbolist tenet, he says: For Music itself may be conceived as striving towards an unat- ttunable timelessness; and if the other arts may be thought of as Yearning for duration, so Music may be thought of as yearning ‘7' E ,7 ,7 r 4 A it the See: ethical Ir apieie 0f m at 13? mom’- ‘325 pricede 7 islet“ 11"“ r; mind at l t‘tc‘oetter “l action, Wear 15 our expe r' if qualitatit iiCCaIO: SUE ”Cf“! ‘ Mic. analo- geat divers" I 'heginning Irrileis of Now, it Iits length it. his ‘ . recto: thanent I"; Ru cal dE‘ 33 for the stillness of painting or sculpture. I speak as one with no technical training in music, but I find that I enjoy, and "understand," a piece of music better for knowing it well, simply because I have at any moment during its performance a memory of the part that has preceded and a memory of the part that is still to come. Ideally, I should like to be able to hold the whole of a great symphony in my mind at once. The same is true, surely, of a great tragedy: the better we know it, the more fully we hold in mind, during the action, what has preceded and what is to come, the more intense is our experience. Finally, since music and poetry are not only temporal arts but tonal as well, many of their basic elements and modes of expression .' , i. are closely similar: rhythm, metre, tonal values-~both quantitative . , ii " and qualitative--pitch, timbre, intensity, dynamic level, legato and ' staccato, su3pension and cadence. So, constructed from these funda- mental analogous building blocks, the two forms, while developing a great divergence of detail within the very general structural limits of "beginning, middle, and end, " will exhibit some remarkable inherent parallels of structural outline. Now, it is clear that Eliot conceived of a poetic work, regardless of its length, in terms of the overall musical structure of the whole. In his lecture on "The Music of Poetry" he considered this aspect of even an entire drama. "In the plays of Shakespeare," he says, "a musical design can be discovered in particular scenes, and in his more perfect plays as wholes. It is a music of imagery as well as 16 Paul Vale’ry, The Art of Poetry, translated from the French by Denise Folliot; Introduction by T.S. Eliot (New York: Vintage Books, Random House, September, 1961), p. xiv. L... i A _ sand: Mr. Vt teplajcs, ho‘ Z-‘Z‘j, through LE: prom 59 S :CJCTJI‘Q, a S .L'LQS such 35 is: Promund 34 sound: Mr. Wilson Knight has shown in his examination of several of the plays, how much the use of recurrent imagery and dominant ima— 17 Eliot gery, throughout one play, has to do with the total effect." then proposes that a play of Shakespeare is a very complex musical structure, as contrasted with the more easily grasped structures of forms such as the sonnet, the formal ode, the ballade, the villanelle, rondeau or sestina. Noting signs of a return to these forms, the poet then propounds the belief that the tendency to return to set, and even elaborate, patterns is as permanent as the need for a refrain or a chorus to a popular song. It is significant that although Eliot's major emphasis is on the structural entity of a work, he also speaks of a music of imagery and sound. And he would seem to see a psychological factor at work which relates to the temporal nature of both music and poetry and, in dictating similar tendencies in both art forms, contributes to their basic correSpondence. Certainly it is clearly evident that his concept of musical analogy in poetry far transcends the mere literal simulation in rhetorical terms of the discrete structural elements of musical composition; he is rather concerned with the comprehen- sive structure of the total work in its major outlines. At the same time, for Eliot the structure is not itself the end, but is essentially a vehicle for the expression of poetic imagery and sound in coherent 17 02. cit., p. 30. "I 32d meamn :4 meme ar 1:: hise 3 5 and meaningful patterns, a means to the most effective communication of theme and idea. In his essay "Poetry and Drama" Eliot analyzes the construction of the opening scene of Hamlet from the standpoint of its verse rhythms; he concludes that this is great poetry, and dramatic, but besides being poetic and dramatic, it is something more. "There emerges, when we analyze it, a kind of musical design also which reinforces and is one with the dramatic movement. It has checked and accelerated the pulse of our emotion without our knowing it. "18 He further considers the music of dramatic poetry as it determines dramatic construction, and conjectures, "It would be interesting to pursue, by a similar analy- sis, this problem of the double pattern in great poetic drama--the pattern which may be examined from the point of view of stagecraft or from that of the music."19 In his "Note to 'Poetry and Drama' " accompanying the essay, Eliot cites a note extracted from a lecture given some years previously at the University of Edinburgh, on the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet. The note contains the following analysis of the scene: . .one is aware, from the beginning of this scene, that there is a musical pattern coming, as surprising in its kind as that in the 18 "Poetry and Drama, " in On Poetry and Poets, pp. 80-81. This was originally the first Theodore Spencer Memorial Lecture delivered at Harvard University and published by Faber & Faber and by the Harvard University Press in 1951. 19 Ibid. , p. 81. ‘1 early work see single! need by he one feeis th her voice is til POUHL 1 me til '1 .s ' Le more And to Julie: lithe play, 351391” {Jessi~ T15 like I \ In Itds See: 3‘8in Perfec: ifticular p; ijfation, C Fitch is esse itch each I 'i h I, ‘4 ”he light IEEC form: 3T t might readi 33131 , . emDOd‘y t N :h. 5‘“ S 36 early work of Beethoven. The arrangement of voices--Juliet has three single lines, followed by Romeo's three, four and five, fol- lowed by her longer speech— -is very remarkable. In this pattern, one feels that it is Juliet's voice that has the leading part: to her voice is assigned the dominant phrase of the whole duet: My bounty is as boundless as the sea, My love as deep: the more I give to thee The more I have, for both are infinite. And to Juliet is given the key word 'lightning', which occurs again in the play, and is significant of the sudden and disastrous power of her passion, when she says 'Tis like the lightning, which doth cease to be Ere one can say 'it lightens'. In this scene, Shakespeare achieves a perfection of verse which, being perfection, neither he nor anyone else could excel-—for this particular purpose. The stiffness, the artificiality, the poetic decoration, of his early verse has finally given place to a simpli- fication of the language of natural speech, and this language of conversation again raised to great poetry, and to great poetry which is essentially dramatic: for the scene has a structure of which each line is an essential part. In the light of such a concept of the function of structure in a poetic form, and the essential musical equivalence of that structure, one might readily anticipate that T.S. Eliot's most mature work would embody these ideas as an integral part of its design and con- struction. And in fact it is precisely in this area that the broadest and most obvious analogy exists between the poems of Four Quartets and musical composition. Each poem is organized into five divisions, or "movements, " each with its own well-defined inner structure, and may be considered generally to provide the poetic equivalent of the 2° 0p. cit., pp. 94-95. Y. ,_ _; A~ V CADJILAL SOT. E" ‘n' A quarte ' .1 (in 2: eat“ poe n: pea, modul: ...' ~ ‘ A :Lsca; then 3 7 classical sonata structure in music as utilized in the symphony, the string quartet, and the instrumental sonata. Within each movement, in each poem, and over the total cycle, the themes are stated, devel- oped, modulated, and recapitulated much as a composer handles musical themes. By this means the author achieves a tight, coherent structural unity consonant with the thematic unity of the basic ideas with which he is working; and theme and structure become, in fact, integral and inseparable. At this point, a brief analysis of the general structure of the indi- vidual movements of each of the quartets—-"Burnt Norton, " "East Coker, " "The Dry Salvages, " and "Little Gidding"--may perhaps most effectively illustrate not only the internal form of each separ- ate movement but the relationship of the movements and the resultant structural totath of each quartet. This should not be construed as an attempt at detailed thematic explication of the poems--such consideration is outside the province of this study; however, since form and content are inseparable in these poems the interpretation of idea and meaning here presented is necessary to develop and clarify the musical analogies involved. Thus, the explication given will deal primarily with the essential philosophical or religious idea concerned. In each of the four poems the first movement contains two con- trasted but related general themes; the themes treated in each case have their direct origin, or motivation, in the specific place giving rise to the p‘ arr-.idenn'ca1 :ie3 01' [—mg’ .73 an?“ e at; :teutl'fit 15' ::e as 1min retresémed’ Since the 10C: ECJI‘E 0f the , A' 'z.‘ _kaT' ..e in eff ~ In eaCh “1 ere, after the“ tsexperiencti zerfinaili' m‘ sting theme ‘ Various ('1 .5: Sdb SeqU€‘3 ?I\. with” .uent and 3 I need by their 1| 3‘! I «am-1181C 1 .ed ‘ The i M, 15 a som‘; me so ( 3 8 rise to the poem, as reflected in the title. In essence these themes are identical in all four of the Quartets. Stemming from the basic idea of time, which is generic to the poem cycle, they comprise the two apparently conflicting and irreconcilable aspects of time: temporal time--that is, time as sequence or succession; and eternal time-- time as infinite and all-encompassing. In each poem the themes are represented, or treated, in terms of actual and abstract experience. Since the locus of each poem determines the appropriate and peculiar nature of the experience and the philosophical meditation, the themes become in effect metaphors for the two aspects of time. In each movement the two themes, or two forms of experience, are, after their initial exposition, combined and developed through the experience of viewing eternal time from the present moment, then finally modulated into an implicit resolution in which the con- flicting themes are, at least partially or tentatively, reconciled. Various critics have found in this exposition of theme 5, with their subsequent development and reconciliation, a similarity to the statement and counter- statement, or first and second subjects, fol- lowed by their modulation and development, and eventual resolution, of a musical movement in sonata allegro form (sonata-form). 21 k 21 The term sonata-form, though commonly accepted and used, is a somewhat inaccurate term which designates, not the form 0f the sonata (a composition consisting of several related but con- trasted and independent movements), but rather the specific struc- ture used frequently for the first movement of the sonata. As such, It refers to a form consisting of three major sections, called exposi- I] There is, 0 comparison apretic app 35.30% how: alegro but : In the f . i:d"Little 1 3:" thEir de x; n A iflmaai ”Sn. ,- . uJU fiectlon 39 There is, certainly, a general overall resemblance, and a cursory comparison might lead to the conclusion that Eliot was here attempting a poetic approximation of that musical form. A more careful exami- nation, however, discloses that, with the exception of "Burnt Norton, " which presents a somewhat special case, the form is not sonata allegro but is rather that of a modified binary song-form. In the first movements of "East Coker, " "The Dry Salvages, " and "Little Gidding, " the presentation of the two themes followed by their development and integration yields a loose approximation of sonata allegro form. However, there exists here no recapitula- tion section in which the themes return in their original form--a fundamental part of sonata allegro construction. Moreover, there is a great disparity between Eliot's poems and musical sonata allegro in length of themes and balance of sections. In sonata allegro both first and second subjects are stated and expounded within the eXposition section, which is the first of the three basic and roughly equivalent divisions of the structure; however, in the Eliot movements each of the two themes requires an entire section w.— tion, development, and recapitulation, in which the main and sub- themes are stated, developed, and restated (usually in inverse order and with some modification), respectively. The movement usually ends with a coda section. Within and between these sections there are repetitions, transitions, codettas, and other devices used to ela- borate, extend, and develop the basic themes. In the Harvard Dictionary of Music (Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1964) Willi Apel estimates that "80 per cent of all the movements found in the sonatas, symphonies, quartets, Concertos, trios, etc. from 1780 to the present day, are written in sonata-form, strictly or freely applied" (p. 696). Actually, this specific single-movement form is more accurately designated as sonata allegro. 35:29 more}? 373' SECUORE zlength and se:tions with '33:. combin‘; fzre esse ntia 21“.»:- sonata a basic structu tended to be . crooctors a: i'Tich was c1. 5‘5 an aesthet F‘Llrther, l.,‘ 40 of the movement for its statement and exposition, and the two exposi- tory sections and single development section are generally equivalent in length and complexity. The resultant form is thus one of three sections with a structure of A B C, in which the C section, derived by a combining of A and B, may be designated as A/ B. It is there- fore essentially binary; in this there is a certain similarity to the true sonata allegro, which is likewise a binary form, although its basic structure of A A B A has become obscured, and has even tended to be considered as ternary form, as a result of modern conductors and performers omitting the repetition of the exposition which was clearly prescribed by the masters of the classical sonata as an aesthetic feature of great importance. Further, in true binary form (which was, in fact, the progenitor of sonata allegro form) the same or similar material is used through- out and the form is a continuous one, as opposed to the sectional struc- ture of the ternary form, in which the middle section is derived from wholly new material. According to Willi Apel, "The binary form is essentially a stylistic and structural entity, a unified whole which, like many phrases in music, falls into two halves, the second of which forms the logical and necessary completion of the first. "22 Clearly, this is the structural and aesthetic form of Eliot's first movements, where the two major themes, both derived from the same 22 Harvard Dictionary of Music, p. 87. ll basic motif, 2:1." to each :3; be seen 13A and B; : find in the is harmonic. some secc in: each s- the same .13 let-~11 n) (I) izaot’s {1; 311111.13me m0115 and 41 basic motif, are--as eventually resolved-~necessary and complemen- tary to each other. At the same time, the A/ B section of Eliot's form may be seen as a completion, a resolution, of the themes presented in A and B; and in this there is a parallel to the harmonic scheme found in the binary musical forms. Each section in the binary form is harmonically "open, " i. e. the first leads from tonic to dominant and the second returns from dominant to tonic (whereas in ternary form each section is harmonically "closed, " beginning and ending in the same key, but often with a related key--dominant, relative, parallel--used for the middle section). Both of the thematic sections in Eliot's first movements are "open" in the sense that the aspect of time presented in each is left as an uncompleted proposition, tenuous and unresolved until the two are reconciled in the final sec- tion. The rhetorical and poetic effect is thus that of a movement from the tonic to the point of maximum suspension--the dominant-- with a return to tonic in the resolution. (We have already noted this structure. intuitively used in an embryonic form in certain of Eliot's earliest poems.) A more specific musical equivalent of Eliot's binary form is, appropriately, known as song-form, and designates a form which has been much more frequently applied to instrumental music than to songs. With the basic structure of A A B it is to be found in the early medieval music of the Eastern churches; in the _c__a_r_iz_9_ of the troubadors and the ballade of the trouv‘eres of ca. 12th— century France ;: ambushed 'JASiC form Of :3. frequefia PLssi’oly the G ie ancient GI angle (B)! The first gesents a uni :ezts oi the ( 2::respancient igrnch the 1 Kiting abstr; 122% past, pm ‘i; . w» cond th rv—r «Erie rose g4 42 it established itself in European music, and subsequently became the basic form of the later medieval German Bar (barform), by far the most frequent fOrm of the Minnesingers and Meistersingers. 23 Possibly the earliest origin of the form of which we have record is the ancient Greek ode, which consisted of strophe (A), antistrophe (A), and 929$ (B). The first movement of "Burnt Norton, " as previously indicated, presents a unique and highly interesting case among the opening move- ments of the cycle. It is possible to analyze it to show a rather general correspondence to the binary form of the other poems. From this approach the first theme, or section, would be constituted by the opening abstract speculation on the nature of time--the relationship of time past, present, and future, and the significance of the potential. The second theme would be the actual moment, or conscious experience, in the rose garden--which is the motivation for the meditation and the entire poem—-stimulated by the consideration of what might have been, or unrealized potential. With the interaction of the two themes in the subsequent development section, the application of the abstract 23 A _B_a_r consisted of two Stollen (section a) and the Abgesagg (section b). There is a humorously pretentious description in Richard Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Niirnberg, I, 3, where Kothner, reading from the Leges Tabulaturae, says, "Ein jedes Meistersanges Bar" . . .consists of . . ."unterschiedlichen Gesetzen" (sundry sections, strophes); "Ein Gesetz" . . .is composed of . . ."zweenen Stollen" (two stanzas) . . .and . . ."Abgesang" . . . (after- song). speculation mite realiz and eternal Within 1 mi. 3101"? :een pretiOI :fact be se {negro fort: ixtinze com are presente potential. 1 Slice a ne Sent mome n‘ E.'-‘.3't‘:tience i \ 1EVElOIJme nt 13 id: 51111" Doe Eici ,. ‘ns 0f the ti, R t'e i ' I181 no; {“9 Eterr Pas ,. “age them 43 speculation to the present moment and unrealized experience results in the realization of the potential as actual through its simultaneous and eternal existence as perpetual possibility. Within this somewhat general structure, however, there is a much more thoroughly defined musical form whose details have not been previously recognized to my knowledge; for this movement may in fact be seen to provide a remarkably literal rendering of sonata allegro form. The first section containing the abstract speculation on time comprises the exposition: within this section three themes are presented--time as progression, time as eternity, and time as potential. These themes are then combined, or modulated, to produce a new theme of the potential and actual resulting in the pre- sent moment. Beginning with the recollection of the past potential experience in the rose garden which remained unconsummated, a development section follows in which time and experience are treated, in highly poetic imagery, in terms of past, present, future, and poten- tial. The development reaches a tentative resolution in the experi- encing of the previously unrealized potential as actual through the intuitive insight into the simultaneity of past, present, and future, and the eternal nature of perpetual possibility. A brief transitional passage then leads back to a short recapitulation section in which the basic themes are restatedin condensed and modulated form and the movement is resolved with the articulation of the concept of past and future, potential and actual, existing simultaneously as an eternal progression c, This is (w attended mus ments are mu 2:. Eliot was sonata allegrc corresponden- n’the extent < intensity With it no small it tints has pr intensity of r The stri form in App. In“Eas plusalonge AB A ‘3 bit J birth) gr TEC“Fence basic th em. 8f the Expe DDmEm in . [inside of “i '1?! w. N31126 s 44 progression of present moments. This is certainly the most specific and literal analogy with an extended musical form to be found in Four Quartets; the other move- ments are much more general in structure. It is probably not likely that Eliot was consciously attempting any such precise imitation of sonata allegro form as this analysis reveals. Nevertheless, the correspondence exists and the parallel is striking; and, regardless of the extent of conscious analogy, the cogency and concentrated intensity which the poet achieves in a relatively short section derives in no small measure from its form--the same form which in musical terms has proved so fruitful for a corresponding concentration and intensity of musical expression. The structure of this unusual movement is presented in a graphic form in Appendix B. In "East Coker" the first movement, falling into three parts plus a longer than usual concluding coda section, follows Eliot's A B A/ B binary form. The first part presents the theme of the cycle of birth, growth, and death, looking at time as progression in cyclical recurrence--"In my beginning is my end"; the second restates the basic theme, but now treats of the time of the present timeless moment, of the experience of being outside time. The third section is a devel- opment in which the two themes are combined; the poet, standing outside of the cycle, and from the vantage point of eternal time, visualizes in concrete and graphic images the time of years and seasons andt reszates the; . , . I :‘re nosing n- anchcal re: tridenre oi i. The Sim; Isfound in "T Zimphors to: in Gill live 8- tation he 9', time 1‘63 mien?“ {mum it the gr JAE m0“ Tn. 45 seasons and the passing of generations of men and women. The coda restates the concept of timele ssness in terms of the eternal cycle; and the closing words, restating those which opened the movement, effect a cyclical return of the movement to its beginning in a perfect corres- pondence of form and idea. The Simplest, most direct treatment of the contrasting themes is found in "The Dry Salvages, " where the river and sea images are metaphors for two different kinds of time, the conscious time we feel in our lives--time as succession or progression--and eternal time without beginning or end which transcends our comprehension and which we can apprehend only in our imagination, or in our psychic under- standing. Each theme is expanded, or ornamented, within its section, and the second one presented in three levels, or "keys"--the sea as the land's edge, the variety of sea voices, and the eternal ground swell. A short transition leads into the final section where the first theme reappears transmuted, or modulated, into an image of the subjective, limited human perception of time, which is juxtaposed and contrasted with the eternal time of the ground swell. A restatement of the ground swell theme, integrated with its clanging bell, closes the movement in a brief coda. The first movement of "Little Gidding, "' set in Eliot's three— part binary form, againpresents the two contrasted aspects of time in imagery evoked by the experience giving rise to the poem. The first section treats of eternal time, the idea of eternity contained in infirm $1} the tentpor‘ the second it the flow oi in on the me nitintirne, : The thematic The See: Shirtsions "“435. The Iaetic and s The second reflection' lirsr mil . TEE Efftct 333.08 or F” ' 3"" ‘3 5i am Etrfik‘km a It?» “’3 a Th2,- We} be “tn. r 43:33". s‘bg \ “LQ\‘V\V x321 ‘\ ME 46 midwinter spring, when all movement, succession, and change seem to be temporarily suspended and the poet seems to be outside time. In the second section the poet is i_n_ time, experiencing a given moment in the flow of time, nature in May time. The third section combines the two themes, the poet in the chapel being outside time but also within time, at the intersection of time with the timeless moment. The thematic resolution is summed up in a short two-line coda. The second movement of each of the quartets comprises two general subdivisions which handle a single subject in two highly-contrasted Ways. The first section of the movement consists of a thoroughly poetic and symbolic lyrical passage in a traditional metrical form. The second section is an extremely colloquial passage of philosophical reflection in which the idea treated in symbol and metaphor in the first part is developed and enlarged on in a conversational manner. The effect is similar to the handling of a musical theme by different gr oups of instruments, or in contrasting harmonization or different keys, and, probably even more closely analogous, in an altered rhythm and tempo; such a change, for instance, as would be effected by a. rhythmic expansion where the same basic melodic progression would be spread out over a longer sequence of measures in altered rhythm and in a slower tempo. The second section, while it is struc- tura11y homogeneous, presents thematically a series of variations on the original subject by expounding on various aspects or elements of the condition, dilemma, or thesis stated in the opening section. Eliot's poetit heme and \‘E‘ tennisers ir and even into Viennese sch In "Burn H treats oi the ; Th5 second [1 reconcilemer Variation oi t mge and ll mfiation a] Edge of Ulti: $613QO E ‘01th rev. tree COncr ism I‘ecatli Era; WY; maiDRtes is ~ . “Sal's the 47 Eliot's poetic structure is therefore closely parallel to the musical theme and variations, which has been a favored form by the major composers in the history of We stern music from Bach through Franck and even into the twentieth century in the polyphonic revival of the Viennese school. In "Burnt Norton" the highly obscure and symbolic first section treats of the reconcilement in eternity of the apparent flux of life. The second then turns to a discursive statement which first considers re concilement in terms of stillness and movement; then in a second variation of the theme discusses ultimate resolution as the union of change and permanence implicit in the partial ecstasy of momentary revelation and the protection of man from the unendurable full know- ledge of ultimate reality by his enchainment in past and future. The movement ends with a coda section in which a brief abstract meditation on tirxle reverts thematically to the first movement; the mention of three concrete moments, including "the moment in the rose garden, " again recalls the first movement, thereby establishing a subtle struc— tural unity; and the "moment in the draughty church at smokefall" anticipates the final poem of the cycle. These closing lines, re-estab- fishing the idea of the oneness of time--past, present, and future-- and the intersection of time by the timeless moment, sum up the the 8is of the movement's opening section that time is the only medium 0f u:ltimate reconcilement. In "East Coker" the first section of the second movement is a Eric present ins which t.- ;.~:‘ the decez sec-ion, beg. tifficcln oi 1 plied iorm, tatasions in resenting th nine of knot . | ant; of man the imagery < ianility, wh ['3 acquire. In the fit Section)“ "T ire all gone 1 “than exi These final t' (it; . future”. im Ditty Short 1 hit the change mag“ Cadenc n. 24 in Smith) scal he Ahe E “‘Car mus 48 lyric presenting an apparent confusion in the seasons and constella- tions which embodies the theme of the uncertainty of human perception and the deception of human knowledge. The second, or variation, section, beginning with a transitional passage which expresses the difficulty of the poet's craft and restates the theme in brief and sim- plified form, turns to a highly prosaic discourse on the parallel confusions in the lives of men. These are enumerated in variations presenting the deception of knowledge taught by elders; the limited value of knowledge derived from experience; the blindness and uncer- tainty of man in the mortal world (this variation being enhanced by the imagery of the "grimpen"); and the deception of wisdom in old age. Humility, which is endless, is posed as the only wisdom we can hope to acquire. In the final two lines (which in effect comprise almost a separate section)-- "The houses are all gone under the sea. / The dancers are all gone under the hill"--there is a summing-up of the transience 0f hlll‘rian existence and an evocation of the entire first movement. ““538 final two lines may be considered as a brief coda. They very definitely impart a strong cadence effect; the repetition of the rela- tively short lines with their identical metrical structure, accompanied by the change in images, seems to effect the poetic equivalent of the mag-a1 cadence in music. 24 \ (f 24 The plagal cadence uses the chord based on the subdominant ofirth) scale degree preceding the tonic: IV-I. This is also known as :19 fimen— cadence because of its traditional use for the "Amen" at the “d of hymns. ln place 23E 583nm 0. fine form 0‘ a cyclical succ these ano “3'7 ocean of t as to where r: for the secon~ size variatior trough the 1: trough appr Scccinctly St ience is atta tie vehicle c at the close r; ..rst movem T5543 the eii itSIon oi the 49 In place of the symbolic lyrical strophe of the first two quartets, the sestina opening the second movement of "The Dry Salvages" takes the form of an anguished inquiry into the meaning of man's endless cyclical succession; in effect it becomes an elegy for all of mankind, whose anonymous individual lives leave little trace but wreckage on the ocean of time. The final stanza of the section, containing a hint as to where meaning may be found, provides the direct motivation for the second section of the movement, which develops, in its succes- sive variations, the idea of meaning attained through past experience, through the pain and suffering of others past, and experience restored through approach to the meaning. The final lines comprise a coda succinctly summarizing the movement's essential idea- -that perma- nence is attained in transience through the element of time, which is the vehicle of experience and the medium of reconcilement. Here again, at the close of the movement there is a return to the imagery of the first movement--the ragged rock, the waves, the restless waters. Thus the effort to find meaning has restored the original imaginative vision of the river and the sea. This movement seems to be particularly rich in musical elements: the full, rhythmic flow of the sestina, the germ-motive of the first section providing the theme for the second, whichdevelops it in a highly contrasting style and mood, then the restatement of the initial imagery of the quartet which both resolves the meaning and idea of the movement and provides a thematic bridge with the initial movement. In "Littl no." 1 worlc the poet sith london in it]: isspcally i be second p. it is metrica ..rrespondm 'i‘fh the whol contrasts are 30 middle 0] ill be discu he Setond s 1'me mantis he lessons c 50 In "Little Gidding" the richly symbolic lyric on the decay of the mortal world again leads into a contrasting section, the colloquy of the poet with the "dead master" after the air raid, on the streets of London in the early morning hours. Here, however, though the move is typically from the cosmic to the human and temporal, and while the second part is distinct in mood, style, and metre from the first, it is metrically formal25 and is shot through with imagery, unlike the corresponding sections of the first three quartets. This is consistent with the whole construction of "Little Gidding, " where the stylistic contrasts are less severe than in the other quartets, particularly the two middle ones, and where the "counterpointing" of themes (which will be discussed later in some detail) is more cumulatively complex. The second section presents first the picture of present decay resulting from mankind's willful destruction; then the colloquy elaborates on the lessons of experience, the continuing change and decay of individual human existence, and the futility of existence without the redemptive 25 In The Art of T.S. Eliot (London: The Cresset Press, 1949), Helen Gardner comments on the metre of this section: The metre is an original modification of terza rima. The 'want of like terminations' in an uninflected language such as English involves most translators and imitators of Dante in a loss of his colloquial terseness and austere nobility in an effort to pre- serve the rhyme. Mr Eliot has sacrificed rhyme, and by substituting for it alternate masculine and feminine endings, he has preserved the essential forward movement of the metre, without loss of directness of speech and naturalness (footnote to p. 40). power of 5 p13 the brief co introspe ctior As with :ions of the s for variation constant thrc rich in roma and stanza {._ E‘E'Ci‘itatii'e 13' Iii"31poenn, East Coker, 3'6 and mm- This StI‘i anajOr 918m my flirthe 1. 51 power of spiritual insight and the "fire"--purgation--of vocation. The brief coda operates functionally to effect an emergence from intrOSpection. As with the first movements, the relation of the contrasting sec- tions of the second movements, while sufficiently flexible to allow for variation with the individual character of each poem, is relatively constant throughout the cycle. Generally, the first section is lyrical, rich in romantic imagery and symbolism, and in traditional metre and stanza form; the second is colloquial and conversational in style, meditative in mood, and consonant with the character of the indi- vidual poem, being philos0phic in "Burnt Norton, " analytical in "East Coker, " reflective in "The Dry Salvages, " and more narra- tive and conversational in "Little Gidding. " This structural constancy between respective movements is a major element in establishing the unity of the Four Quartets, a unity further reinforced by the close relationship of theme and idea treated in the corresponding parts. Essentially all four second movements deal with the subject of permanence achieved through con— tinuous transience: continued change creates a pattern through which meaning is found; thus individual existence and experience are mean- ingless in themselves but achieve purpose as part of the eternal pattern. The second movements of the four poems illustrate particularly well the contrast of intensity to be obtained through juxtaposition of :‘ie poet: requisite even cac "in a poe o’ greaze essential 5 2 the poetic and prosaic, another structural element which Eliot thought requisite to poetry. Discussing the function of poetic dissonance, even cacophony, in his lecture "The Music of Poetry, " he states that "in a poem of any length, there must be transitions between passages of greater and less intensity, to give a rhythm of fluctuating emotion essential to the musical structure of the whole; and the passages of less intensity will be, in relation to the level on which the total poem operates, prosaic--so that, in the sense implied by that con- text, it may be said that no poet can write a poem of amplitude unless he is a master of the prosaic. "26 Certainly the application of Eliot's own criteria to Four Quartets provides ample evidence of the poet's mastery of the prosaic within the poetic context. . "The third movement, " observes Helen Gardner, "is the core of each poem, out of which reconcilement grows: it is an exploration with a twist of the ideas of the first two movements. "27 Musical analogies in the structure of the third movements are perhaps less apparent than in the other movements; nevertheless, the form follows a generally consistent pattern through the four poems. 26 Op. cit. , pp. 24-25. In a footnote to the passage cited, Eliot added, "This is the complementary doctrine to that of the 'touchstone' line or passage of Matthew Arnold: this test of the greatness of a poet is the way he writes his less intense, but struc- turally vital, matter" (p. 25). 27 Op. cit., p. 41. In its c i may be con.- ship, the co treatment. F movements mood. The rent the re teach poen. content as a he anticipa] {0 the [hema 573. e16mem I“ "Burr figuring as a 5 3 In its correspondence to musical structure, each third movement may be considered to be in two- part song form with an A B relation- ship, the contrast of the two sections being primarily one of thematic treatment. In the first section the themes presented in the first two movements are now explored in a deeply meditative, almost mystical mood. The second section stands in relation to the first almost as answer to question; however, the answer to the dilemma is not com- plete, but only hinted at, and in each case points to the final move- ment where the ultimate resolution occurs. Thus, the third movement of each poem, standing midway in the work, deriving its thematic content as a modulation of the themes of the preceding movements, and anticipating the final reconciliation of the last movement, is vital to the thematic development and progression of the poem and an inte- gral element of the structural and thematic unity of the quartet. In "Burnt Norton" the first part is symbolic, with the London tube figuring as an emblem of the time-bound human condition, while the second part poses the "downward way" through mystical experience as the release from the bondage of time. Here there is no radical change of rhythm between the two sections, though in the second part three-stress lines are interwoven with the basic four- stress pattern. The first section of the "East Coker" third movement considers the agonized wait for the mystical illumination, while the second out- lines the way to attain it through a series of ostensible paradoxes via the negative way of self-denial of St. John of the Cross. The first 4“... 54 section has a more complex structure than in any of the other poems, consisting of three main parts: the first considers how all mankind disappears into the dark, we with them; the second, in a series of three metaphorical variations, poses the necessity of submitting to the darkness of God; the third presents the necessity of waiting in faith, detached from hope, love, and thought. In this movement the two sections are separated by a transi- tional passage rich in imagery and conveying implicit intimations of immortality, which effects a smooth transition into the final section. There is no sharp break between sections; the break in metre occurs after the realization of the true approach to h0pe, love, and faith and the knowledge that ". . .the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing," with a change from the six- stress line of the first section to the five- stress of the transition, which in turn modu- lates into the four- stress rhythm of the Passion lyric. In "The Dry Salvages" the meditation of the movement's first part concerns the relationship of past, present, and future (the theme of the opening lines of "Burnt Norton"); the second part is an exhortation to action arising as the logical and necessary adjunct to the resultant existentially-conceived condition, an admonishment to "Fare forward" rather than "fare well, " inspired by Krishna's advice to Arjuna on the field of battle. Time here is seen as a succession of presentmoments, with the moment of experience existing only in the present; man's commitment therefore must be to present, real ' rt neitat the teat brief cc The 116 for: :rzaitic M zro 331M? r‘nulc 55 momentary action, from which his future will result and which will establish the pattern from which meaning is derived. There is no real break in this movement, rather a change in temper from the meditative to the hortatory, paralleled by a change of rhythm from the tentative six- stress line to the emphatic four- stress line. A brief coda reiterates the exhortation to action. The first part of the third movement of "Little Gidding, " taking the form of a disquisition on the uses of memory, considers three conditions arising from attachment and detachment, and offers libera- tion from both future and past through detachment, as opposed to attachment or indifference. The past, reclaimed by memory, is seen to be transfigured in freedom. The second section is a meditation on history which applies the previously- developed abstract thesis to specific men and events of the past. All the dead of history are found to be reconciled in death; and they become for us a symbol of action in the present moment and a model, perfected in death, for our emu- lation. The coda develops the most optimistic and positive conclusion to be found in any of the four third movements--"And all shall be well and/ All manner of thing shall be well/ By the purification of the motive/ In the ground of our beseeching. " Thus our redemption derives from our own action as that of the past dead derived from theirs, and as their motive and action is purified in the eternal. There is a definite break between sections in this movement, with the poet's change from the subjective to the historic, accompanied by a shift from the loose 3.32}; l ‘0 anfl 0A ‘ Qu'u .Uh '; b‘ .‘ .5 I w -h I? 9’ .E u .r 56 blank verse of the first section to the incisive, intermixed two-, three-, and four-stress (though predominantly three- stress trimeter) line of the second. Here again, in the third movements, it is to be noted that in each quartet the mood and style of the movement is consistent with the character of the whole poem. And again the unity of the poem cycle as a whole may be clearly observed, not only in the structural form of the corresponding movements, but in the thematic content as well. Each of the third movements deals with some aspect of commitment or action necessary to the attainment of spiritual tranquility. All four start from the dilemma of man in his earth-bound, mortal condition, subject to the limitations of time; but "Burnt Norton" and "East Coker" are concerned with the way to divine insight and mystical illumination, whereas "The Dry Salvages" and "Little Gidding" explore the means of achieving a sense of purpose and meaning in the everyday activi- ties of the worldly life, finding it in the affirmative commitment to present action. There is, then, a balance and symmetry in the variety of thematic treatment, as well as the element of thematic homogeneity, contributing to the structural unity of the cycle. The fourth movement of each poem is a brief invocational lyric essentially serving as a transitional device. The brevity of the move- ment, coupled with its sharply rhythmic metre, provides a very decided relief, a relaxation of tension, from the profound meditation of the third movement. This movement is in essence a prayer, addressed 3. IL . to, or ; he Fat Dim he firs it spec Th essenti. BCCIIOI] 57 to, or at least invoking the image of, in the four poems respectively, the Father, or Divine Spirit; the Son--God incarnate; Our Lady as Divine Intercessor; and the Holy Ghost, or Divine Grace. Thus for the first time the poet has given expression to the underlying ideas in specifically Christian terms. The transitional natureof the movement is emphasized by its essentially ‘unit form in each poem, with no contrast of themes or sections within itself. Another effect of the passage is one of a rather abrupt modulation to a related but highly contrasting key. Therefore this movement acts both as separation and contrast, and also as bridge between the momentous pivotal third movement and the final one. Here, certainly, we have an outstanding realization of Eliot's vision of the "possibilities of transition in a poem comparable to the differ- ent movements of a symphony or a quartet" of which he spoke. I In "Burnt Norton" the invocation is in highly symbolic imagery and poses the ultimate salvation of escape from the temporal world to the "still poin " of eternal time; this salvation, however, being only attainable through a knowledge of, and acceptance by, God the Father, whose grace is imaged in terms of the sunflower and the clem- atis. Since these flowers are associated with the Son and the Virgin there is a subtle preparation for the matching movements of the following quartets. This movement in fact establishes the ground of a thematic unity in all four of the fourth movements: since Father, Son, Virgin, and Holy Ghost are varying aspects, or conditions, of 5 8 man's redemption, rebirth, and salvation, expressing different mani- festations of the eternal Oneness with which the poet aspires to be reconciled, the four corresponding movements are interdependent and integrally related. Along among the four movements, this passage from "Burnt Norton" is composed of a single stanza of irregularly-rhyming, four- stress, syllabically-irregular lines. The "East Coker" movement, highly metaphorical, picturing Christ as the "wounded surgeon, " proposes the Church as the true guide to salvation, and acceptance of the Saviour and His sacrifice for man as the only means of redemption from the human condition. Each of the five rhyming, metrically-identical stanzas embodies a metaphor which is part of the complete, over- riding metaphor carrying the theme of the passage. Structurally the five stanzas may be considered to comprise a single strophe, with a form of a 21’ {5’34" In "The Dry Salvages" the prayer to the Virgin, who is also the patron saint of mariners, is for all voyagers, and, while in quite literal language, implicitly invokes the Lady's protection for all mankind. The three stanzas comprising this strophe, while five lines each and essentially four- stress, are unrhymed and syllabi- cally irregular. Thematically, they can be considered to present a form of a {XI The two- stanza transitional lyric of "Little Gidding" posits a 59 choice for mankind of two kinds of fire-~those of purgatory and hell-- which will determine his hope or despair. Both stanzas portray the Pentecost in symbolic terms; Divine Love, manifested in the two kinds of fire, and the origin of our purgatorial agony, is invoked as the uni- versal motivating force and man's true promise of salvation. The two seven-line stanzas, taking! an a a, relationship, are metrically and rhythmically formal, and with their rhyme scheme of ababacc they may be regarded as approximating--somewhat truncatedly--the form of the medieval French ballade. The fifth and final movement in each quartet provides a recapit- ulation and summation of all the basic themes of the poem and finally effects a resolution of the contradictions of the first movement which had achieved tentative and partial re conciliation in the pivotal third movement. The similarity of this construction to the restatement and resolution of themes in musical composition is here particularly striking, and is to be considered further in some detail. The movement in each quartet again falls into two parts, although the contrast is less marked than in the second movement, and is reversed, the colloquial passage occurring first. Here again the form is a binary one, with an A B structure and "open" harmonic construction. The two sections bear a relationship of question and answer, or dilemma and resolution, the second part deriving its immediate thematic motivation from the first; and, as in certain preceding movements of the cycle, there is a modulation of theme and mood equivalent to the harmonic movement sestion t ‘Rr‘.~ nivbe O 60 in the musical form: the effect is that of an initial modulation from tonic to dominant, the first section ending in a tenuous, suspended, unresolved state, with the return to the tonic occurring in the reso- lution of the concluding section. In "Burnt NOrton, " "East Coker, " and "Little Gidding" the first section of the movement treats of the problems of art, particularly those of the writer, regarded from the aspect of time and concerned with his struggle to master the tools of his craft and learn to use language effectively. In each case this subject serves as a point of focus for the re-introduction of themes and ideas from the preceding ,movements, and a nucleus around which they are organized and to which they are integrally related. In "The Dry Salvages" this first section consists of a considera- tion of man's futile attempts to penetrate the barrier of time and see into the past and the future, and contrasts this with the way of the mystic, who alone is capable of an apprehension of ultimate reality as opposed to the "half-hints and guesses" available to most of us. There is perhaps no completely logical reason for Eliot's deviating in this instance from the subject of the other three quartets, parti- cularly in view ofthe general consistency of the cycle in this regard. (There is of course an inherent and basic relationship between the attempts of mankind over the ages to divine the meaning of all human events past and future, and the individual poet's "raid on the inarticu- late" in an attempt to reach and establish meaning through the patterns :2 poetic e that 'he or primal mc .‘ver as g man, the “£3015, a archetype 0f the E3. 35M of iEIE‘ly m '53 Who The Quartets- [he first momma“ Some fix, hemmet mess 11 {16151.8 1 in "Lita 1.0036 tr is 33113} the sat, and the 61 of poetic expression.) A close consideration will, however, reveal that the orientation of "The Dry Salvages" is more deeply rooted in primal motivation and archetypal imagery than the other poems: the river as god, the sea as eternal and all-encompassing progenitor of man, the mythology of the Mahabharata, the worship of the Virgin-- who is, after all, the Christian manifestation of a mythological archetype which reaches back at least as far as the recorded origins of the Eastern religions. From this standpoint, the more universal aspect of the theme of this first section of the last movement is com- pletely consonant with the approach and mood of "The Dry Salvages" as a whole. The final sections of the last movements are similar in all the quartets; coincident with a fairly sharply-defined structural break with the first section (less well—defined in "East Coker"), a rhythmic modulation occurs from the verse of the first section (four- with some five- stress, syllabically irregular in "Burnt Norton"; loose hexameters and pentameters with varying four-, five-, and six- stress in "East Coker"; four- stress loose pentameters and hexa- meters in "The Dry Salvages"; four- stress irregular blank verse in "Little Gidding") to a predominantly three- stress line which is in loose trimeter in all quartets except "East Coker, " where the metre is syllabically irregular. The images from earlier movements of the same quartet, or preceding quartets, return in quick succession and the final resolution is in a highly poetic style of intense imagery, (including b0 and Spiritual Thus, ' E seillness, tin e: Love in its talities. "E htemporal 6 3f commitme the realizatic =3 end but a1 resolution th (Overs ho“, 1', main the su action, the I] he and Ollt "Little Giddi in Which all ( hm 1“Sign of the 62 concluding both the movement and the poem in a mood of deep communion and spiritual insight. Thus, "Burnt Norton" resolves the ambiguities of movement and stillness, time and timelessness, potentiality and actuality, in terms of Love in its highest form, the Incarnation, which realizes all poten- tialities. "East Coker" reconciles the meaning of the present moment of temporal existence with the eternal cycle, establishing the necessity of commitment to this life in a spirit of humility and detachment in the realization that each action, each stage of the journey, is not merely an end but also a beginning. "The Dry Salvages, " containing in its resolution thematic elements from both of the preceding poems, dis- covers how man may reconcile the apparent ambiguities of time and attain the still point not only through insight but through ordinary action, the Incarnation symbolizing the ultimate reconciliation within time and out of time available to man through Christ. Finally, in "Little Gidding" occurs the apotheosi’s, the quintessential resolution, in Which all of the themes of the four quartets are restated and inter- woven in a complete synthesis of idea and meaning. The pattern and design of the eternal cycle is understood; the redemption of time and tempol‘al existence through knowledge of the One in the many, the eternal in the temporal, is disclosed; God as the ultimate source, as beginning and end, is at last comprehended; the true nature of Diwne Love, as revealed in the Incarnation, is known. And there- for - e, "all shall be well" when the fire of life is merged in the "crowned hat of Fire"- :the the 5am Note: I a: Structural for is arranged cc at of each pc tithe four pm of the cycle, : its lolallty . E301 achieve Shollld thus b 63 knot of Fire"--the Trinity-knot--and when suffering and love are found to be the same--when "the fire and the rose are one. " Note: I am including as Appendix C a graphic presentation of the structural form of Four Quartets. I believe the manner in which this is arranged will clearly illustrate the internal form of each movement and of each poem, the correspondence between parallel movements of the four poems--and consequently between the individual poems of the cycle, and the resultant structural integration of the cycle in its totality. The coherence and unity, as well as the contrast, which Eliot achieves through the use of musically-analogous structural form should thus be readily apparent. P ‘? It is abu 10a remarks rent and Cl€1 Structural fc MW of hi and there 31— 13 musical C riled, by El Eh‘or closelj "I“ and th lctm IhEma 3r Mam. CHAPTER III THE LINEAR ELEMENTS OF FOUR QUARTETS It is abundantly evident that in Four Quartets Eliot has exploited to a remarkable degree the poetic equivalent of the musical state- ment and development of themes within a complex and integrated structural form. But the full range of Eliot's method and the com- PleXity of his linear development have so far never been realized; and there are techniques basic to his composition, closely analogous to musical devices, which have not been treated, or even fully recog- nized, by Eliot scholars. Among these, I would like to propose that Eli“ Closely approximated the musical techniques of motivic develop- ment and thematic metamorphosis in having built the entire magnif- icent thematic structure of the four poems from just one basic idea, or germ-motive. Further, both of these techniques are vital com- ponents of a poetic counterpoint which is a basic structural element 0f Eliot's mature poetry and which is closely correspondent, in cer- tain aspects of construction and in effect, to musical counterpoint. The whole texture and style of Four Quartets in fact largely inhere in Eliot's contrapuntal method. . 64 -4 '_. ' h ‘ bl In mus regent dell: or'a music: as few as t Beethoven err-hag flit he fouhda 333: from hearatic ( then, re modL‘icat: «Tlfllltres, mam c0: Ce“We 1S) as m; 65 Motivic Development In music, the motive (alt. _rr_l_ot_i.f_, G. 59291) is, according to one cogent definition, "the briefest intelligible and self- contained fragment of a musical theme or subject. "28 A motive may be constituted by as few as two notes, e. g. the descending fourth at the beginning of Beethoven's Piano Sonata in A major, Opus 2, No. 2, or the desc- ending fifth at the opening of his Ninth Symphony. The motives are the foundation blocks, or germinating cells, of a musical composi- tion, from which the themes them selves evolve and through which thematic development is accomplished by means of expansion, imi- tation, repetition in the same or other parts, transposition, rhythmic moclifications, modal change, contrapuntal combination with other “wave 8, and other devices. It is probably safe to say that all of the major composers from the classical period on, and most twentieth- century composers, have used this technique. Motivic development is, as may be readily inferred, a means of imparting coherence, organization, and unity to a musical work; and far from limiting the compo ser in inventiveness, it has, while imposing certain inherent diSciplines, provided the ground for a high degree of creative inge- Witty. As an instance in point, Richard Strauss' great symphonic t one Poem "Death and Transfiguration, " Opus 24, which is in a free \ W 28 Harvard Dictionary of Music, p. 462. errata form ‘ rhch 'ls moth hced in a re Exam U 0f the 1 hroughou is thus ge 66 sonata form with an extended coda, is entirely derived from a motive which is nothing more than a simple major third chord, first intro- duced in a repetitive rhythmic pattern by the violins and violas: Example 1 ‘0" 'O'J' P3 — F3 _ J _ - '1 ' V v All of the subsequent principal and sub—themes evolve from this basic interval and its parallel minor modal form, which remain implicit throughout all thematic transformation and development; the motive is thus generative of the entire 499-measure musical structure. The germ-motive of Four Quartets is the concept "time. " Time is, in fact, the first word of the first quartet, and it is from this one primal idea that every subsequent theme develops. However, time as a Single, unit, abstract concept without further differentiation would be equivalent to a single note of music, which would be incapable of development or evolution. The musical motive requires at least "”0 netes to provide, through their combined interval, pitch, rhythm, and Cillration a fundamental characteristic--an essential "personality"-- and a sequential relationship from which thematic development may “DIVE . Eliot finds this necessary motivic tension in the two primary and iuherent aspects attaching to the human concept of time: temporal ti me‘~that is, time as progression; and eternal time--time as infinite I I‘- W and all'enc alti'lrreco1 his dilemr Gm.“ Sm r; eternity Eliot': tezimal’ Visited ob; he presen he locus C the finite < i‘ferentia simultan€< hid future and prese ed past is y . star mig 67 and all-encompassing. The two aspects of time are ostensibly opposed and irreconcilable, thus giving rise to ambiguity and conflict. From this dilemma Eliot derives the central theme of Four Quartets, which Grover Smith defines as "the union of the flux of time with the stillness of eternity. "29 Eliot's continuing motivic development sees the emergence of temporal, or transient, time as a progression of present moments. Viewed objectively in their totality these moments constitute only the present in eternal succession; but looked. at subjectively, from the locus of a given present moment intersecting the timeless flow, the finite components of past, present, and future are seen in sharp differentiation. In eternal time, however, all present moments exist simUItaneously and eternally, so that no distinction of past, present, and future is possible. A further evolution from the motives of past and pre sent--stimulated by a present experience in which the unfulfill- ed past is contemplated--develops the theme of the potential event (what might have been), which leads to the concept of potential as continually existent in eternal time. This process may be seen in the exposition section of the first movement of "Burnt Norton. " The mofiVes of time present, past, and future give rise to the first theme-- Tune present and time past/ Are both perhaps present in time future. " \ V W 2 . defi . _ 9 O . cit., p. 253. This would seem, incidentally, almost a oppomtflve example of Coleridge's theory of the "dynamic tension of of Slte s" which he sees as fundamental and requisite to the generation poetic impulse. ,{R .h I; This theme 1 "Mid lime lll developed in present, All from the mo ment, "Wha- ‘rl‘t possibi' htle's basj “1611 are 11 30:1, and W hatic S‘tlbs SUch, maior and All derive. BEBE} mam tor the at 68 This theme is then condensed, or diminished, inverted, and restated—- "And time future contained in time past. " Next, the second theme is developed from the motive of eternal time-~"If all time is eternally present/ All time is unredeemable. " Then a third theme evolves from the motivic concept of the potential event in time with the state- ment, "What might have been is an abstraction/ Remaining a perpet- ual possibility/ Only in a world of Speculation. " Thus, from the cycle's basic motives three primary themes have been derived, which are modulated and combined at the end of the exposition sec- tion, and which become the underlying motivating material and the- matic substance for the development section to follow. Such, then, is the process of motivic development by which the major and minor thematic elements of Four Quartets are ultimately all derived from the single germ-motive of time. Essentially, each quartet deals with the basic dilemma of man's entrapment within the flux of temporal time as Opposed to his striving for the attainment of spiritual grace in the stillness of eternity, which he intuitively, but only partially, perceives. But each poem treats the therrle, and reconciles the ambiguity, from a different viewpoint, examihing and exploring a varied aspect in both its temporal and Spiritual implications; each poem is initially stimulated by a meaning- ful pre sent experience by the poet in a place rich in association with the historical past, or having some personal or family association, an ~ d slg‘nificant to the consideration of time. Thus, "Burnt Norton" ‘w _, originates u- tershire onc is prompted Eliot‘s ances century after Salt'ages' tal Emably E Am! Massa. mhiS childh miditatiOn i the Seat 0f 2 Nicholas FE 69 originates with a visit to a rose garden of a country house in Glouces- tershire once associated with an intensely poignant personal relation- ship in which some highly desired potential accomplishment or event was somehow frustrated and failed of consummation; "East Coker" is prompted by the village of that name in Somersetshire from which Eliot's ancestors had emigrated to America in the mid— seventeenth century after having lived there for some two centuries; "The Dry Salvages" takes its inspiration from a small group of rocks (pre- sumably Les Trois Sauvages), with a beacon, off the coast of Cape Ann, Massachusetts, remembered by Eliot from summer holidays in his childhood; "Little Gidding" finds its motivation in the poet's meditation in the historic chapel at Little Gidding, Huntingdonshire, the seat of an Anglican religious community established in 1625 by Nicholas Ferrar, visited several times by King Charles and subse- quently desecrated by the Roundheads. Thus, each poem's peculiar and individual treatment of the basic theme has grown as an organic development of the primary thematic motives originating in specific exPfi‘rience; the result is a complete consonance of thematic content and generating experience. The musical process of motivic develop- ment has therefore provided for variety of poetic expression through flexit3i1ity in development of thematic context, while retaining the ease ntial unity inherent in its method. So, each quartet, while pri- marily oriented to the basic theme of the cycle, explores within its movement the different levels of meaning inhering in its secondary themes of hi each quartet, . I from Its ther whole. Themath “1h motivic t D‘ALHEmatjc m i: die mOdific its "MSOW ion hue; ho‘ markedly fro 33:10:; of the , men‘aUOn or 70 themes of history, poetry, love, and faith. And so the structure of each quartet, and the four quartets as a group, grows, inseparable from its thematic motivation, as a completely integrated and unified whole . Thematic Metamorphosis Thematic metamorphosis, previously mentioned in connection with motivic development, is closely related to it in the evolution of thematic material within a musical composition. Metamorphosis is the modification of a musical subject or motive in order to change its "personality. " There is a kinship with classical theme and varia— tion here; however, metamorphosis is a 19th- century device differing markedly from earlier technical methods of alteration, as in ornamen- tation of the theme, variation in the accompanying voices, or aug- mentation or diminution of a fugal subject. Modification in thematic metamorphosis may be accomplished by transforming one or more elements, such as rhythmic pattern, melodic contour, or harmonic Structure, while maintaining sufficient of its basic characteristics to insure retention of its essential individuality. Applied to transfor- mation of a motive, the device is illustrated in Strauss' "Death and Tr ansfiguration" cited earlier, with the alteration of the major third interval to its parallel minor third, 30 both of which undergo subsequent \ fl A fl e. g. 30 Parallel keys are major and minor keys with the same tonic, a C major and C mlnor. nnnn'c dew ptnsis from maintains it: ! undergoes a 71 motivic development. In the following example of thematic metamor- phosis from Richard Wagner's Siegried, the horn- call Leitmotiv maintains its melodic contour, but is transposed down two keys and undergoes a rhythmic alteration: Example 2 A. Eliot makes use of motivic, as well as thematic, metamorphosis in flour Quartets. In the third movement of "Burnt Norton, " for in- Stance, with the shift of locale to the London tube--the "place of disaffection"--the time past and time future of the abstract specula- tion in the rose garden become "Time before and time after, " and men and bits of paper are whirled by the cold wind that blows ". . . before and after time. " Similarly, in the same movement, the motive of ". . .dim light: neither daylight/ . . .Nor darkness . , " ostensibly describing the London tube but also an implicit metaphor for the unenlightened human condition, becomes transformed to "Neither plenitude nor Vacancy . . ." 7 2 Motivic metamorphosis is not limited by Eliot in its span to a single movement or even poem, but occurs between different poems of the cycle. Thus, the "dust on a bowl of rose leaves" of "Burnt Norton, " I--the now-decayed, unrealized potentialities of the past--become s, in the lyric on the decay of the mortal world in "Little Gidding," II, the ". . in the air suspended. " In "East Coker, " IV, the motive appears .ash the burnt roses leave" on an old man's sleeve, and "Dust H as ". . .frigid purgatorial fires/ Of which the flame is roses . . . It might be logically considered that a further modification of the de- cayed roses motive occurs in "The Dry Salvages, " II, in "The silent withering of autumn flowers/ DrOpping their petals and remain- ing motionless." And the third movement of the same poem finds another transformation in the ". . .Royal Rose . . . / Of wistful I'eg’ret . . . / Pressed between yellow leaves of a book that has never been opened. " In "Little Gidding, " III, it undergoes a further Change in " . . .an incantation/ To summon the spectre of a Rose, " With reference to the chemical revival of a flower in metaphorical allusion to the resurrection of a dead past (and no doubt to the Fokine ballet as well); then, in the fifth movement of the last quartet, appears as "The moment of the rose . . . " which is of equal duration with that Of the yew-tree of immortality. Finally, it recurs in the last line of the poem and the cycle, now merged with the purgatorial fire of suf- fering and transformed into Divine Love. Another basic motive of Four Quartets is that of fire, and a similar metamorphh nnnty, the suffering an the fire of 0" imposed by formation in h, 1C, Ha! I The per onstantly de thematic me‘ theater insig Mm musical anai more quickl; rent imager 73 metamorphosis of fire as the fire of mortal decay, the fire of human vitality, the fire of apocalyptic destruction, the purgatorial fire of suffering and hell-fire of damnation, the fire of human self-destruction, the fire of commitment to action, and the Pentecostal fire of suffering imposed by Divine Love, could be traced through its continuing trans- formation in "East Coker," Ia, Ic, Ila, IV, and "Little Gidding, " Ia, Ic, Ila, IIb, IV, Va, and Vb. The perception of Eliot's use of recurring motives and themes, constantly developed and transformed, as the poetic equivalent of thematic metamorphosis in music leads, I believe, to a substantially greater insight into the author's method and into the design of Four @rtets than that provided by the traditional approaches. The musical analogy reveals the essential organic unity of the poems much more quickly and much more clearly than the typical view of recur- rent imagery. Most frequently critics discuss these metamorphosed 31 molives and themes as ornamentation or variation on a basic imagery. What happens is that they largely tend to treat each modified recurrence \_ F 31 Helen Gardner, for instance, has stated in connection with our Quartets, "One is constantly reminded of music by the treat- ment of images, which recur with constant modifications, from their context, or from their combination with other recurring images, as a phrase recurs with modifications in music" (The Art of T.S. Eliot, £1; (143 ). Miss Gardner is one of the most perceptive of Eliot scholars She Drone to think in musical terms more than most; here, however, va .a-ppears to view Eliot's treatment of imagery more as theme and r1altions, a fundamentally different technique from thematic meta- mo"1)hosis. asa separat context. Ba and the unify ghosts of the. earth the r. and are come embolism a tune love, . like, the Em" asElects. on traditional ll 01‘ Other mm muCh of the rEcurrem 33 ments 01‘ rm 10130th e: [01.th has iiiationshi; alum“ to :1 ch . ted, Slnc 7 4 as a separate image, the focus being on the imagery within its new context. Each recurrence therefore tends toward a certain isolation and the unifying connection is lost. Thus, with respect to the metamor- phosis of the burnt rose imagery just outlined, most critics see pri- marily the rose symbolism in its variety of age-old symbolic meanings and are concerned to explicate it in each instance in terms of its . symbolism as it relates, say, to the Virgin Mary, to sensual and divine love, as the emblem of the martyr, the emblem of Christ's love, the emblem of human love becoming divine, and from many other aspects. One consequence is that the concentration on the specific traditional imagery and the particular contextual position loses sight 0f other more subtle and less overt transformations-~again losing much of the unifying thematic continuity. Often, critics discuss the recurrent symbols or images in terms of allusion to preceding state- ments or modifications of the imagery; such an approach again tends to isolate each treatment as a separate statement only loosely related to What has gone before, and the full impact of the organic inter— I"’13'-1:J'.onship fails to be realized. This becomes most apparent when allu sion to imagery in Eliot's poems outside of Four Quartets is intro- duce d, since the organic relationship of the poem cycle then becomes even more remote. If, however, this constant transformation of basic motives and themes throughout Four Quartets is recognized for what it seems to me ‘10 be--the equivalent of thematic metamorphosis in music--the (5&1? nénm 510‘;th ‘9 ‘ \, ’ 9‘? |vv . .t. ~ OAbé' - 3.2.16 a no 7 5 close relationship of the various episodes is immediately apparent and approach to the meaning is greatly enhanced. Once the essential unity of certain thematic elements becomes clear, subtle thematic trans- formations and recombinations are more readily perceived and their relationship understood. The meaning emerging from the continuously evolving thematic materials throughout the cycle then becomes con- stantly expanding and incremental rather than episodic, and the inti— mate and integrated relationship between movement and movement, poem and poem, becomes much more thoroughly defined. In addition to motivic metamorphosis, the metamorphosis of both Principal and supporting themes is one of the major devices by which Eliot obtains unity between movements of a quartet and between all f0111‘ poems of the cycle, as well as a means of achieving the intense concentration which his philosophical inquiry demands. In illustration, we may cite the fundamental theme of the apparent contradiction of temporal time and eternal time. This theme is of course introduced at the very opening of the cycle in the first move- ment 0f "Burnt Norton"; and here, as has been discussed, temporal time is presented in terms of time as progression, involving the dis- parate aspects of past, present, future, and potential, while eternal time is comprehended as the simultaneous existence of all finite time particles in an infinity of concurrent present moments. In the first Section of the second movement this theme undergoes a transformation and is presented in terms of the flux of mortal life and the eternal nttern of c- the "dance 2 Whereas ete‘ the stars. In each ment and SH eternity and as“? in the form; in the Variation C tion 15 achie the Still D01: WWW ent the tempo” Ci‘iiatiOn "A nor mOVEm The en [TECSfOrma he London Empty and eternity is Wining, .. We WOr] 76 pattern of cosmic existence. Time as progression is now seen as the "dance along the artery" and the "circulation of the lymph, " whereas eternal time takes the form of the unchanging constancy of the stars. In each case the essence of the theme is the relationship of move- ment and stillness- -both progression and flux imply motion, while eternity and cosmic pattern connote arrest of motion. And it is pre- cisely in these terms that the next metamorphosis of the theme takes form; in the second section of the movement, in what is structurally a variation of the theme as presented in the first section, reconcilia- tion is achieved through the union of movement and stillness ". . . at the still point . . .Where past and future are gathered." Just as eternity enfolds progression, and the "drift of stars" encompasses the temporal pattern, the dance now becomes the symbol of recon- Ciliation "At the still point of the turning world, " which is not fixity, "01‘ movement from nor towards, nor ascent nor decline. The entire third movement of "Burnt Norton" is essentially a tr ansiormation of the same basic theme, whereby the metaphor of the London tube in the first section presents flux and movement as empty and purposeless mortal existence, while the stillness of eterllity is sought through spiritual union in the "world of perpetual solttllde, " where is the ". . . destitution of all property, / Desiccation Of the world of sense, / Evacuation of the world of fancy, " and the way to reconciliation lies ". . . not in movement/ But abstention from nntement . In the f: produces a and pattern independent ittg. This (it ‘he silence, ness", .3 From I] Seeh in the . 77 movement . . ." In the final movement, a continuing metamorphosis of the theme produces a contemplation of the poet's struggle to achieve the form and pattern through which poetic expression may attain a permanent, independent existence surviving change and carrying universal mean- ing. This derives from aconsideration of the nature of language: words move, as does music, in time, reaching, after speech, into the silence, attempting by the form, the pattern, to reach the still- ness ". . .as a Chinese jar still/ Moves perpetually in its stillness. " From this consideration of stillness and movement, partially seen in the "stillness of the violin, while the note lasts, " emerges another transformation of the theme in the concept of the co-existence 01' beginning and end--"Or say that the end precedes the beginning, / And the end and the beginning were always there/ Before the beginning and after the end. / And all is always now. " While this expression r etains the fundamental characteristics, the essential meaning, of the theme as it reconciles successive time and infinite time, movement and stillness, change and permanence, it introduces a related aspect-- the iClea of eternal cyclical recurrence. It is from this that the fonOVVing poem, "East Coker, " takes its opening motiv --"In my begillliing is my end"--and its first principal theme of the eternal cycle Of biIt‘th, growth, and death, experienced by man in his time-bound c - . . . . . . outh-inon as fimte and hmited temporal success1on, but seen as con- tumOllsly and simultaneously existent in eternal time . . WM In the afurther ' which is n cramming, undesiring non: Be heme of the cycle C10 Se ttts: is tt Elem 0f 51 XOW, - 78 In the closing section of the last movement of "Burnt Norton, " a further thematic evolution transforms finitude and infinity into desire, which is movement, "Not in itself desirable," andLove, ". . .itself unmoving, / Only the cause and end of movement, / Timeless, and undesiring/ Except in the aspect of time/ Caught in the form of limi- tation/ Between un—being and being. " In these terms the principal I theme of Four Quartets is prepared for its ultimate resolution which will only become fully realized in the final section of the last poem of the cycle and which will in the interim have undergone a continuing and expanding metamorphosis. Poetic Counterpoint Closely related to both motivic development and thematic meta- morphosis, and vital to the thematic and structural unity of the quar- tets, is the device, or structural element, of "contrapuntal arrange- ment of subject matter" of which Eliot spoke in "The Music of Poetry. " Now, in preceding sections of this paper, counterpoint has occasionally been mentioned rather obliquely, or referred to in somewhat general terms. However, any discussion of counterpoint as a specific poetic equivalent to its musical counterpart requires more exact definition of just what is intended. The term "counterpoint" seems to admit of flexible interpretation among Eliot scholars and has been applied in various ways, often with little regard for its precise musical defini- tion. A counterpoint of themes based on manifold levels of meaning of afifi‘fl words, ph- been prop tire, and considere ion of m: levels of i and anago dc- cycle. 79 words, phrases, images, symbols, and even of literary allusion has been proposed. 32 The symbolism of the four elements-~air, earth, fire, and water--which runs throughout Four Quartets is sometimes considered to provide a type of counterpoint in the simultaneous expres- sion of manifold levels of meaning and imagery; similarly, the multiple levels of interpretation inhering in the literal, tropological, allegorical, and anagogical modes are posited as functioning contrapuntally within the cycle. Approaches such as these, however, are somewhat remote from the more literal musically-analogous counterpoint obtained through syntax and prosody which I am proposing, and will not be pur- sued here. This subject of poetic counterpoint presents certain complexities not involved in the other aspects of structure so far discussed. Now, counterpoint literally means "point against point" and refers in music to the simultaneous movement of two or more independent melodic lines, or voices ("voice" being used in its general musical context referring to a vocal or instrumental line). 33 Therefore a literal counterpoint is patently impossible in a poem designed to be read or 2 For instance, see Grover Smith, Op. cit. , pp. 253-254. 33 The Harvard Dictionary of Music, defining counterpoint, states, "The term--derived from L. punctus contra punctum (note against note or, properly interpreted, succession of notes against succession of notes, i. e. , melody against melody)--means the com- bination into a single musical fabric of lines or parts which have distinctive melodic significance" (p. 189). b}. spoken by a ton of mult. speakers we assimilatior “h 34 R matter in th beaten and ( 33' 0f Toro. 80 spoken by a single individual. At the same time, any poetic construc- tion of multiple voices intended to be read simultaneously by several speakers would be obviously impractical due to the limitations of aural assimilation. 34 Nevertheless, by an adroit technique and an amazing 34 Reid MacCallum has considered certain implications of this matter in the essay "Time Lost and Regained" in the book Imitation and Design and Other Essays, edited by William Blissett (TorontoTUniver- sity of Toronto Press, 1953): Mr. Eliot is very exact in his language. When he calls his latest book of poems Four Quartets that is what he means. Now a quartet in music requires four instruments sounding together; in poetry, of course, only one line of sound at a time can be voiced. If these are called quartets, and not four solos, then, it means that they are not to be taken as four separate poems; as thought and memory may,- they are to be held together in the mind in wholeness. But then you should have one quartet resulting: one instru- ment to each poem--say first and second violin, viola, 'cello, each successively playing its part unaccompanied, but collected in the mind. If it is four quartets and not four solos or one quartet, the conclusion, which is alarm- ing, is that as you read each in turn, "Burnt Norton, " "East Coker, " "The Dry Salvages, " and "Little Gidding, " the three that you are not reading must be sounding in your mind at the same time, and sounding very nearly fully, to a unique and different result in each. A complexity faces us which calls for an almost unbelievable effort of concentration: these poems could not be read as quartets on the first reading; on the fifth, perhaps they might for the first time be so read (p. 132). While MacCallum's speculations are interesting, he does seem to belabour the implications of the title unnecessarily. There seems to be no reason not to accept Eliot's title literally as denoting each of the four poems a separate "quartet. " Since Eliot originally considered naming the four poems the South Kensington Quartets, there would seem to be little question of his intent. In the light of all available evidence, or lack of it, it seems most logical to consider that the poet was concerned pri- marily with the quartet in its general structural genre, and not attempt- ing a literal equivalent of the quartet as an instrumental ensemble. 81 facility in handling the line, Eliot is able to approach the condition of musical counterpoint and to create the impression of simultaneously- moving poetic voices. This construction may be found in some of his earlier works. Part V of The Hollow Men, for instance, provides a salient example: the first and last stanzas comprise the first voice; the second, third, and fourth stanzas make up the second voice; and the three lines of broken prayer following the second, third, and fourth stanzas respectively are that of the third voice. Here the counterpointing effect is accom- plished mainly by contrast--contrast of rhythm, mood, and idea; the two stanzas of the first voice--the first, the parody of "Here We Go 'Round the Mulberry Bush, " and the last, the grotesque parody of the parody--have a lilting, regular, immediately recognizable rhythm. The second voice, with its two- stress line and its agonized mood, provides an immediate and violent contrast, from which the effect of the new and separate voice derives. Similarly, the yet different con- trast of the snatches of prayer produces the effect of a third, entirely new, voice, and their brief interposition between stanzas of the second voice creates the suggestion of almost simultaneous movement. The brief broken fifth stanza, by its position and its content, seems to suggest a merging of the second and third voices in unison. 35 35 A strikingly similar, though much more extended, applica- tion of this same technique (which could very well have been directly inSpired by Eliot's work) may be found in Act III--The Exorcism--of Edward Albee's play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? During the cli- u r n . . v - M !" That 1 out of the die seconc through it ting at the non, howe graphic as COleapun- Verbal p0€ C’lE Oral l] lik‘OlVed 1 him nae re intent; the 3356 as tll and other In OI‘C L4- tilt: epiSOl 8 2 That this is Eliot's intention is emphasized by his mechanical lay- out of the verse; the first voice is differentiated by appearing in italics, the second being in regular Roman, while the third voice is set apart through its italicization combined with its position on the page, begin- ning at the center and running to the right margin. Such an observa- tion, however, should be quickly supplemented by pointing out that the graphic aspects are no more than gratuitous hints to the reader; the contrapuntal effect does not depend on them, and lies entirely in the verbal poetic elements. Eliot was a poet thoroughly immersed in the oral tradition. Mechanical arrangement and visual elements involved in transferring the poetry to the printed page surely are for him merely means to the end of more adequately conveying the oral ‘ intent; their function is annotational and serves the same basic pur- pose as the notative devices of music, with its staves, notes, rests, and other qualitative and quantitative symbols and expression markings. In order to more clearly illustrate Eliot's contrapuntal voicing in this episode, I am including a presentation of the fifth section of The mactic episode in which George destroys the imaginary son, he intones excerpts from the Requiem Mass, interposing snatches of the liturgy between lines of the other characters, thus giving the effect of a poetic counterpointing of lines. An actual counterpointing occurs when he delivers the whole of the "Libera me, Domine" simultaneously against an agonized lament by Martha. The rhetorical counterpoint is en- hanced not only by the lingual contrast of Latin against English, but also by the basic thematic contrast of Martha's pleading for the life of their "son" while George irrevocably establishes his death with the Mass for the Dead. Hallow It lite may also Barial o: proxide s bff'u't’emj till; the ”’0' She bedded, l5 reinfo an addiu lathe fin 13 achieV prielOr’ ITS TIMI Ln, but a The treqt ML. Want-‘98 1‘ Ina he 61time It” lam tente is t id x. -.. entiti'ln‘ ton of Co; 83 Hollow Men, with the voice entries indicated, as Appendix D. The poetic effect of contrapuntal voices derived from contrast may also be seen throughout The WastefLang. For example, in "The Burial of the Dead, " the quotation from Wagner's Tristan und Isolde provides the feeling of a concurrently moving voice by its interpolation between lines of the Tiresian narrator and the reproach of the hyacinth girl; the individuality of the voice lies in the rhythmic contrast of its two- stress lines opposed to the four- stress voice in which it is em- bedded, and in the contrast of the German against English. The effect is reinforced by the return of the voice at the end of the strophe with an additional line from the Wagner excerp --"Oed' und leer das Meer. " In the final section of "A Game of Chess" a neat contrapuntal voicing is achieved by sandwiching the cryptic and insistent call of the pro- prietor, announcing closing time for the pub-~"HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME"--not only between lines of the dialogue between May and Lil, but as interruption between clauses within the narration of May. The frequent recurrence of the line throughout the pub scene further enhances the contrapuntal impression. It may be seen that in the above examples, while it is primarily the element of contrast which imparts the contrapuntal sense, another A important feature is the restatement of themes; this element of recur- rence is fundamental to establishing the feeling of unity within a voice, identifying it as a separate voice, or theme, and inducing the sensa- tion of concurrent movement by its continued re- combination O x f" “ 7" “fl with 1"?“ Raul '51. 7.39 HIS ‘m- ‘ 11}le repetiti 84 with other voices, or themes. In the last section of The Hollow Men, the first voice is restated in terms of formal stanza construction and rhythm; the second voice utilizes syntactic repetition and thematic repetition in variation as well; and the third voice has a literal re- statement. In the pub scene from The Waste Land each re-entrance is a literal restatement. Now, in classical counterpoint, restatement of a theme, not only within a single voice, but as imitation at an interval by one or more other voices, is basic to the contrapuntal structure. Thus, in the fugue-~whether the strict scholastic fugue or the later free fugue-- both the subject and countersubject appear in alternate voices, in the dominant or sub— dominant key but otherwise identical, and of course entering in imitation subsequent to the entry in the originating voice. Thematic contrast exists between subject and countersubject, and both contrast and unity are imposed by thematic imitation and re- entrance in different voices. There is no evidence that Eliot was concerned with a literal imitation of classical counterpoint as form; no such direct analogies can be made in any of his work. His interest rather lay in counter- point as style, and in the concentration and particular effects which could be achieved by a general poetic equivalent of combined and con- currently moving voices. We have previously discussed the remark- able contrapuntal effects of "Rhapsody on a Windy Night, " which prob- ably represents Eliot's closest approximation of a formal contrapuntal structure. re-entrane several cc The i T.reatrnent Windy 1* lining of and more can fifth Tell-e of Here it E tints, S‘. tttlletlr: liflEr ll! of mom "the hOl tth so the ”Win t’i‘ ceu ‘t t in ‘hOSE (sappea 8 5 structure. In that poem the counterpointing lies in the patterned re-entrance and contextual integration in succeeding sections of several contrasting themes. The first four sections of The Hollow Men utilize a contrapuntal treatment much less formally structured than that of "Rhapsody on a Windy Nigh , " one which depends more on restatement and recom- bining of motives than on cOntrast, and is considerably less obvious t and more subtly interwoven into the verse than that of the poem's own fifth section. In this respect it moves a long way from the tech- nique of the earlier poetry and points closely toward Four Quartets. Here it appears more as a counterpointing of motives, since The Hollow Men seems to be composed of a series of brief, fragmented hints, symbols, and ideas, ostensibly disjunct and ambiguous, but achieving unity through mood, diction, rhythm, and structure, the latter determined in no small part by the contrapuntal re-entrance of motives. Section I serves primarily to introduce motivic images: "the hollow men . . .the stuffed men, " the image of the scarecrow with straw-filled headpiece, the "dried voices" whispering together, the "wind in dry grass, " rats' feet running over broken glass in the dry cellar; finally, "death's other Kingdom" and the "direct eyes" of those who have crossed over to it. The section ends with the first reappearance of a motive--". . . the hollow men/ The stuffed men"-- coming back almost as a brief recapitulation. Section II Opens with a recurrence of the "eyes" image, now coupled teams' which ur wash; the King eyes ar identiii mhmn {W0 :13 . in intir “9 ‘ Ir fading lOllom totple Rae "Supp; 86 coupled with a new motive of "dreams"--"Eyes I dare not meet in dreams"--followed immediately by "In death's dream kingdom, " which unites the new dream motive with the previously- stated, but now slightly-altered "death's other Kingdom" (and modulated from the Kingdom of salvation and grace to the dream kingdom where the eyes are but memory). Two lines later the eyes are re-introduced, identified metaphorically in a new image as "Sunlight on a broken column. " After statement of another motive, "a tree swinging, " two more motives from the first section, voices and the wind, return in intimate juxtaposition with a new motive, a star--"And voices are/ In the wind's singing/ More distant and more solemn/ Than a fading star. " In the following stanza "death's dream kingdom" reappears, followed by a return of the rats' feet now altered to "Rat's coat" coupled with images of "crowskin" and "crossed staves"-‘-the "delib- erate disguises" worn by the hollow men, which now make explicit the implied scarecrow of the first section. Then a "field" image is integrated with a return of the wind motive. The final brief stanza brings back the kingdom motive now modulated to "twilight kingdom"-- the purgatorial kingdom of actual death. In the third section the "dead land . . . cactus land" expresses motivically the environment already described (and the cactus may very well be a motivic transformation of the swinging tree); new thematic fragments introduce "stone images" which receive the "supplication of a dead man's hand, " linking them with restatement n.’ a pm The next ln'ngdom to broke 87 of a previous image, the fading star, in "the twinkle of a fading star." The next stanza re-introduces the principal motive of "death's other kingdom, " after which the lines "Lips that would kiss/ Form prayers to broken stone" effect a merging and counterpointing of two previous images, the broken column and the stone images. Section IV begins with'a restatement, in two succeeding lines, of the "eyes" motive; then a re-entrance of the star image, now modulated as "dying stars, " is related to a new motive of "this valley, " which is itself immediately restated in the next line as "this hollow valley, " thus incorporating the "hollow" motive in a closely- coupled counterpoint. The last line of the stanza--"This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms"--recalls the broken column and stone motives, thus combining several motivic elements in a seeming simultaneous movemen ; "jaw" relates both to the whispering together of the first section and the prayer-forming lips of the third; and the reappearance of the kingdoms is again in an altered form. In the second stanza, "This last of meeting places," where the hollow men " . . .grope together/ And avoid speech, " recalls their meeting in the field, the dead cactus land, the hollow valley, where they whisper together and where a broken jaw makes speech difficult or impossible. Multiple restatement in the final stanza finds the eyes reappearing as the "perpetual star, " now metaphorically transformed to "Multifoliate rOse" of "death's twilight kingdom, " which is the hope only of "empty men. 7' ”11.3 shdac various works c Frazer‘ the Gra mytholc 88 The Hollow Men is usually felt to depend for its coherent and satisfactory explication on a multiplicity of external sources, including various other poetry of Eliot himself, Conrad's Heart of Darkness, works of Kipling, James Thomson, Shakespeare, Paul Valé'ry, Yeats, Frazer's The Golden Bough, Dante's Purgatorio and Paradiso, Jung, the Grail legends, Pope's Dunciad, Aristotelian dialectic, Hindu mythology and metaphysics, British history, and sundry other mater- ials. It would be foolish to maintain that an exhaustive analysis and thorough investigation of all allusions and ramifications of thought and idea could be made without research into external sources; at the same time, however, it may be seen that without any outside reference whatever the poem possesses a tremendous textual and structural unity. It is a unity attained by a beautifully adept tech- nique of poetic counterpointing which achieves a tight integration of thematic materials and a closely-knit textual fabric through the use of the poetic counterpart of musical counterpoint. And the devices which Eliot uses to achieve his poetic counterpoint are directly anal- 0gous to those of music: the statement and restatement of principal and seconchry subjects, imitative re-entrance, thematic contrast, motivic transformation, and the combining and juxtaposition of motives and themes. The contrapuntal construction which invests the poetic texture Of Four Quartets represents a refinement and an extension of the techniqc quartet defined fact, the thematit contrast in the c( in much analogm for insu and the 1 Of Each ‘ Sthh 3.8 major a: groups c leVEme tat Elie ltleS for b3. differ as One 01 her tween in yo w Whole the 89 techniques used in the first four sections of The Hollow Men. In the quartet cycle there is nothing quite as literal or obvious as the distinctly- defined separate moving voices of Section V of The Hollow Men; in fact, the counterpointing in Four Quartets becomes primarily one of thematic materials rather than disparate voices. The element of contrast, essential to a differentiation of voices, is greatly minimized in the counterpoint, and in Four Quartets the contrasts are embodied in much broader structural units where they are more properly analogous to other musical devices. Such contrasts as are obtained, for instance, by the juxtaposition of the highly poetic, lyric section and the following prosaic, colloquial section of the second movement of each quartet correspond to the handling of a theme in different keys, such as tonic and dominant, or possibly more appropriately, in a major and minor key; or even as the handling of the theme by different groups of instruments. In fact we have already analyzed these second movements as essentially theme and variations, and it will be recalled that Eliot himself, in "The Music of Poetry, " talked of "the possibil- ities for verse which bear some analogy to the development of a theme by different groups of instruments. " In any event, the contrast exists as one of structural form, between sections, and in other cases between movements. The counterpOinting which Eliot has developed in Four Quartets is of a much subtler nature, and more complex even than that in the first four sections of The Hollow Men since it involves Whole thematic sequences as well as motives and thematic fragments. a L oi . . . . t . . , trhtrtulriirls .76..» octet.) tut... nit 90 In sum, it rests on the basic elements of motivic development, the- matic metamorphosis, and thematic imitation and restatement, and results from a skillful rearrangement, integration, and interweaving of thematic material. A complete and detailed analysis of the contrapuntal structure of Four Quartets would be, a monumental task beyond the sc0pe of this study; however, an examinationgof some characteristic sections of the cycle should provide salient and more than adequate illustration of the poet's technique and the importance of poetic counterpoint as a fundamental element of the poetry. The first movement of "Burnt Norton" opens with a statement of time as progression--"Time present and time past/ Are both per- haps present in time future, / And time future contained in time past. " Following statements of time as eternal and as potential (the second and third themes), the potential and actual are stated to result in the present moment--"What might have been and what has been/ Point to one end, which is always present." Thus the last statement has evolved as an interaction and integration of the three basic themes; its component motives of what might have been, what has been, and the eternally present posited as implicit future in past and potential, bring together in intimate counterpoint the "what might have been" as "perpetual possibility" of the third theme, the accomplished event implicit in time and the time past of the opening theme, the future of the opening theme, and the eternal present of theme two. The three primary their co Alto the rose elation “- te bet present. Ttart-Ines marital In t [‘3 be WC mm; m 91 primary themes are essentially contrasting, yet unity results from their contrapuntal integration. After the development of these themes through the experience in the rose garden, a short transitional passage leads back to the recapit- ulation which states that "Time past and time future/ .What might have been and what has been/ Point to one end, which is always present." Here there has occurred a combining and synthesis of themes previously separated--in other words, a counterpointing, or simultaneous restatement of themes. In the second movement, past, present, and future time continue to be woven into the discourse on the relation of stillness and move- ment; thus there is a counterpointing of already existing themes with a newly-introduced idea (which has, as we have previously discussed, evolved from the essential theme through a metamorphic process). The motive of the dance, first stated in the opening section of the movement, is brought back and elaborated in juxtaposition with the development of the stillness and movement theme. In the second section of the movement appears a statement of man's inability to endure the full revelation of reality; this recalls a theme initially introduced in the first movement during the episode in the rose garden, when "Go, go, go, said the bird; human kind/ Cannot bear very much reality. " Now, however, it is counterpointed with the recurring theme of past and future time, as well as that of movement and change--"Yet the enchainment of past and future/ ii'oren i heaven ; lines, it the firs basic th pointing 92 Woven in the weakness of the changing body, / Protects mankind from heaven and damnation/ Which flesh cannot endure." Then, in the final lines, with the re-introduction of the moment in the rose garden from the first movement, there occurs a synthesis, an integration of the basic themes of both movements, effected through a magnificent counter- pointing: Time past and time future Allow but a little consciousness. To be conscious is not to be in time But only in time can the moment in the rose-garden, The moment in the arbour where the rain beat, The moment in the draughty church at smokefall Be remembered; involved with past and future. Only through time time is conquered. The final section of the last movement of the poem is composed almost entirely of themes and motives previously introduced, now compacted by an adroit counterpointing into a summation of the basic themes of the entire poem. "The detail of the pattern is movement" restates and integrates the basic motive of movement 11 and the pattern idea first stated in II and developed in the first section of V in the con- sideration of the form and pattern of music and words. The figure of the ten stairs introduces a new motive which, however, coming from St. John of the Cross, recalls the descent into the Dark Night of the Soul in the third movement. Then the statement of desire as move- ment brings back the theme of "freedom from practical desire" orig- inally counterpointed with stillness and movement in II, and presented ‘L 9 3 in metamorphosed form in III as "Desiccation of the world of sense, / Evacuation of the world of fancy, " and "abstention from movement. " The subsequent introduction of Love as unmoving, as the "cause and end of movement, " and as timeless and undesiring, while pre- senting a new, or at least metamorphosed, theme, does effect a restatement of idea through the parallel of the incongruity of desire and Love with that, in the preceding section, of words and the Word-- words representing the medium by which the poet desires to attain the stillness through movement in pattern, and the Word in the desert, the Logos, being Divine Love. This is thematic restatement and contra- puntal movement of a highly sophisticated order; and while it does approach the counterpointing of manifold levels of meaning which were stated to be outside the scope of this study, it retains a firm footing in syntactic construction. Similarly, the aspect of time "Caught in the form of limitation/ Between un-being and being" restates the condition of suspension between new world and old in "partial ecstasy" and "partial horror" in movement II, as well as the "World not world, but that which is not world" of the Dark Night in the third movement. There follows then in close contrapuntal restatement a gathering of several images from the first movement--the shaft of sunlight, the moving dust, the hidden laughter of the children in the foliage--all combining to reaffirm the continuing and eternal existence of the unrealized past potential. Finally, with its implicit return in the quotation "Quick now, here, now, always--, " the bird again performs 1/ its tran time In: fiidi, m and aite In notite :hemati Lil’9, er £36319 5 going dj rial idez 906m 5. Gidding 01' all p] fiery D 901m th' fathom, he 9nd; and I“Eb: the ma the bEgj and t he 1 J 9 4 its transitional function in a return to the absurd world of temporal time incorporating motives from the third, and first section of the fifth, movements--"Ridiculous the waste sad time/ Stretching before and after. " In succeeding poems of the cycle, the counterpointing of restated motive and themes against metamorphosed themes and newly-introduced thematic material frequently tends to acquire a multiple, or cumula- tive, emphasis through repetition and continuing development of basic themes. This is particularly true, as may be seen from the fore- going discussion, in the final movements, which recapitulate the essen- tial ideas and resolve the apparent ambiguities of their respective poems. The culmination occurs in the fifth movement of "Little Gidding, " the final movement of the cycle, through the counterpointing of all primary themes of the four poems in explicit restatement from every poem and from most movements of each poem. Poetic counter- point thus becomes the vehicle for a synthesis of all thematic content embodied in symbol, image, idea, and meaning: the significance of the endless cycle of human existence, where every moment is death and rebirth and reconciliation is achieved in the totality of stillness; the meaning and function of poetry where, as in the eternal cycle, the beginning is the end and to make an end is to make a beginning and the poet finds the meaning of his calling and the significance of his existence in both creating and being an epitaph to the past; our communion with the dead, with whom we become reunited in both c l .4, J: ?A L.) in F u 95 death and rebirth; the realization of the coexistence of life and death in each moment; the knowledge that history may redeem a people from time, since history is a pattern of timeless moments--the reconciliation, again, of temporal and eternal time--so that history is always now and every moment; the necessity, therefore, of commitment to action in every present moment; and finally, the realization that all existence is an emanating from and returning to God, in whom exists the immaculate eternal potential--realized and made manifest in the Incarnation--and with whom, through detach- ment and complete acceptance of the suffering and conditions of this life, man may be ultimately reconciled in spiritual union. With the conclusion of this terminal movement it becomes un- mistakably clear that--regardless of the fact that Eliot had not envisioned the complete cycle when he wrote "Burnt Norton"--§_o_ur Quartets is truly cyclical in structure. Grover Smith notes that "The 'end' of the Quartets is implicit in the first movement of 'Burnt Norton' just as it is explicit in this conclusion toward which the poetry has all pointed as toward its final cause. "36 We might also proceed logically from this final movement of "Little Gidding" to the opening of "Burnt Norton" and find the beginning of the cycle 37 implicit in its final resolution. It should come as no surprise, 36 02. cit., p. 294. 37 In this respect Four Quartets bears a certain similarity to the ancient Chinese poems written in the revolving order, which 96 in fact, considering the amazing consonance of substantive content and structural form of the Quartets, to find that the beginning and the end are coincident and indistinguishable; the final and ultimate recon- ciliation achieved in its conclusion in effect comprises the unified and undifferentiated concept of time and existence from which the basic motives which initiated the cycle were derived and which gave rise to their germination. Thus, the cyclical nature of Four Quartets is generated by an organic process, closely parallel to that of music, and its total thematic construction largely inheres in the application of poetic techniques which are closely analogous to the musical devices of motivic development, thematic metamorphosis, and linear counter- point. may be read cyclically. The Hué‘i-w’én—t'ii, or the revolving chart, a love poem by Lady Su Huei of the Chin Dynasty (265-419), is com- posed of eight hundred characters which may be read from different ends in different directions and so form numerous poems, four hun- dred having already been found, some very long and some short. The Ch'ien—tzu-w’en, or thousand- character literature, by Chou Hsing- ssii (fifth century A.D. ), made of a thousand different characters, was a collection of stone inscriptions left by the master calligrapher Wang Hsi- chih; originally loose characters with no order and no con- nection, they were arranged and rhymed as a perfect poem by Chou Hsing- ssfi, and later have been made into poems by ten or more authors. ,(Cited by Kiang Kang-Hu in the Introduction to The Jade Mountain: A Chinese Anthology, Being Three Hundred Poems of the Tang Dynasty 618-906, translated by Witter Bynner from the texts of Kiang Kang-Hu (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1939), p. xxxvi.) CHAPTER IV - ASPECTS OF T.S. ELIOT'S RHYTHM As he stated in the passage from "The Music of Poetry" quoted ' previously, T.S. Eliot considered that in addition to structure, the musical property which most concerns the poet is that of rhythm. While he does not offer any precise definitions, it is clear that Eliot considered rhythm on at least two different structural levels; his con- cept embraced not only the rhythm of the line in reSpect to metre, stress, and tempo, but the much more comprehensive aspect of an overall rhythm of the entire work. "The music of verse," he said, "is not a line by line matter, but a question of the whole poem. "38 This aspect of rhythm is closely related to structure for Eliot. Thus, the alternation of contrasting sections, which has been discussed in connection with structural elements, is also a constituent of the poem's total rhythmic pattern. It will be recalled that in "The Music of Poetry" he stated that "in a poem of any length, there must be transitions between passages of greater and lesser intensity, to give a rhythm of fluctuating emotion essential to the musical structure 38 Op. cit., p. 30. 97 oi the xx": "Poetry of rhyt‘m as they . ’iih, [h “with its the fOuI Seweral quartet existirt "Grail mm t} 10 Win riii-Tm AnrJthe rhythm is {he and Co finer; ‘31. rhv 98 of the whole." We have previously noted Eliot's citation, in his essay "Poetry and Drama, " of the opening scene of Mt as a masterpiece of rhythmic construction, and his analysis of its alternations of rhythms as they develop an overall musical design which reinforces, and is one with, the dramatic movement. Four Quartets reveals a rhythmic structure coinciding closely with its formal structure; this becomes most fully apparent when the four poems are studied together, and may be seen to exist on several levels of structural organization. Considering all four quartets as a group, a fairly rigid pattern of rhythmic alternation existing between the individual movements of each poem imposes an overall rhythmic pattern on the total work. Essentially this derives from the repetition of the pattern with each succeeding poem, serving to reinforce and intensify the rhythmic effect. On this level the rhythmic construction serves to impart a unity to the four-poem cycle. Another level exists within each poem individually and consists of the rhythmic contrast between the movements. On a further level there is the pattern within the movements resulting from the alternation and contrast of the rhythms of the sections within each movement, generally coincident with the musical form. To analyze the pattern of rhythmic changes and contrast would be largely to duplicate the discussion of structure already presented, and herein lies evidence of the integration of rhythm and structure which Eliot achieved. Thus, for example, in the second movement of each poem, which, as we have 99 discussed, is structurally binary in form, the first section is in a highly lyrical and traditional metrical form (irregularly- rhyming, sharply four- stressed, generally octosyllabic lines in "Burnt Norton" and "East Coker, " a modified sestina in "The Dry Salvages, " and regularly- rhyming eight- line stanzas in "Little Gidding") paralleling the poetic lyricism of the passage. In each case the metre and tempo induce a feeling of urgency and movement in the verse, appro- priate to the mood of restless inquiry accompanying the question or paradox which this section poses. In the contrasting second section there is a completely altered rhythmic structure; regular metre and rhyme are here dropped entirely and the verse is highly prosaic in movement and rhythm, compatible with the conversational, discursive mood and colloquial treatment of the subject in this section. The second section in "Little Gidding" does depart somewhat from this pattern, since there is a fairly regular rhythm in the four-stressed line. Nevertheless, the total metrical structure of the line presents a marked contrast with that of the first section, and despite the four- stressed line, a narrative, conversational mood is maintained. Similarly, the brief transitional fourth movement of each poem, in its rapidly-moving, sharply rhythmic four- stress line (and the regular stanzaic form in the last three quartets), provides a rhythmic contrast with the slower, more involved rhythms of the closing section of the introspective and meditational third movement, and the irregular prosaic rhythm of the colloquial, conversational opening section of the arab ._i u: p.) 100 final movement. Rhythm and structure, then, may be seen to be integral and insep- arable in Four Quartets, and in its more comprehensive aSpect rhythm is a basic element of the total pattern of the whole work. (The pattern of rhythmic change and contrast within each move- ment and poem, and in the cycle as a whole, may be viewed most easily in graphic form; to this end a tabulation of metrical modes and rhythmic structure in Four Quartets has been included as Appendix E. If one compares this tabulation with the diagram on the structural form of the Quartets he will readily appreciate the consonance of pattern in form and rhythm.) Eliot's conception of the other structural level of rhythm, the metrical aspects of the line as opposed to the total rhythmic struc- ture of the work, was in much larger terms than those of a mere pedan- tic concern with scansion and a sterile preoccupation with foot and syllable. He in fact regarded the rules of scansion as an after-the-fact development, useful for the study and analysis of dead languages, but of little application in the poetry of a living tongue. "A study of anat- omy will not teach you how to make a hen lay eggs, " he said in dis- cussing the analytical study of metric and versification. 39 Eliot differentiated between "verse" and "poetry" and ascribed to poetry musical qualities lacking in verse considered merely in its formal 39 "The Music of Poetry, " op. cit., p. 19. 101 aspects. Discussing the poems of Rudyard Kipling in an es 3ay included in the edition of Kipling's verse selected by Eliot, he has elaborated on the subject: The late poems like the late stories with which they belong, are sometimes more obscure, because they are trying to express something more difficult than the early poems. They are the poems of a wiser and more mature writer. But they do not show any movement from 'verse' to 'poetry': they are ju 5t as instru- mental as the early work, but now instruments for a matured purpose. Kipling could handle, from the beginning to the end, a consi- derable variety of metres and stanza forms with perfect confi- dence; he introduces remarkable variations of his own; but as a poet he does not revolutionize. He is not one of those writers of whom one can say, that the form of English poetry will always be different from what it would have been if they had not written. What fundamentally differentiates his 'verse' from his 'poetry' is the subordination of musical interest. Many of the poems give, indeed, judged by the ear, an impression of the mood, some are distinctly onomatopoeic: but there is a harmonics of poetry which is not merely beyond their range--it would interfere with the inten- tion. It is possible to argue exceptions; but I am speaking of his work as a whole, and I maintain that without understanding the pur- pose which animates his veise as a whole, one is not prepared to understand the exceptions. 0 Essentially Eliot believed that the proper language of poetry is that of -.peech (which may of course be highly lyrical, or musical), and that therefore the poetry of any age must reflect the colloquial speech idiom of the people. ."I believe, " he said, "that any language, so long as it remains the same language, imposes its laws and restric- tions and permits its own license, dictates its own speech rhythms 40 A Choice of Kipling's Verse, Made by T.S. Eliot, With an Essay on RudyardTipling (Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1962), p. 38. "I’L 1 02 and sound patterns. "41 Since language is not static, but continually changing, the tendency is for poetry to lag behind the change in collo- quial idiom. Therefore, according to Eliot, "the task of the poet will differ, not only according to his personal constitution, but according to the period in which he finds him self. At some periods, the task is to explore the musical possibilities of an established convention of the relation of the idiom of verse to that of speech; at other periods, the task is to catch up with the changes in colloquial speech, which are fundamentally changes in thought and sensibility. "42 Eliot felt that Shakespeare, in his lifetime, carried out the task of two poets and accomplished both functions. He divided the development of Shakespeare's verse into two periods. During the first, he was slowly adapting his form to colloquial speech: so that by the time he wrote Antony and Cleopatra he had devised a medium in which everything that any dramatic charac- ter might have to say, whether high or low, 'poetical' or 'prosaic, ' could be said with naturalness and beauty. Having got to this point, he began to elaborate. The first period-70f the poet who began with Venus and Adonis, but who had already, in Love's Labour's Lostfbegun to see what he had to do--is from artif' 1' cial- ity to simplicity, from stiffness to suppleness. The later plays move from simplicity towards elaboration. The late Shakespeare is occupied with the other task of the poet-~that of experimenting to see how elaborate, how complicated, the music could be made without losing touch with colloquial speech altogether, and without his characters ceasing to be human beings. This is the poet of gymbeline, The Winter's Tale, Pericles, and The Tempest. 43 41 "The Music of Poetry," op. cit., p- 31-' 42 Ibid., p. 28. 43 Ibid., p. 29. 1 03 Whether or not Eliot equated his own deve10pment with that of ShakeSpeare is intriguing to consider; no one, apparently, has sug- gested that he did. Nevertheless, a very similar, and somewhat more obvious, pattern may be seen throughout the course of Eliot's own works. In the poetry of his early period he was searching for a new poetic language idiom, representative of its time, one which would grasp the colloquial speech of the age and thereby be capable of communicating the poet's ideas not just to a sophisticated audience but also to the man in the street and the reader of the daily newspaper. This was Eliot's period of exploration--even of revolution--and one of the principal elements of his poetic language was that of rhythm. Rhythmic Elements and the Earlier Experiments "A poet's individuality is most deeply felt in the rhythms of his verse, " Helen Gardner said in her Byron Foundation Lecture on Eliot;44 and it is most certainly true that Eliot's bold experiments with new and vivid rhythmic patterns marked one of the distinctive aspects of his early poetry. Underlying the poet's highly individual rhythmic motivation, at least two factors may be found at work: Eliot's acute aural sensibility, which was extremely susceptible to the sounds and rhythmic stimulations of his environment; and his 44 Helen Gardner, T.S. Eliot and the English Poetic Tradition, the thirty-sixth Byron Foundation Lecture, University of Nottingham, October 22, 1965, p. 13. 104 youthful orientation in an age and a place which were teeming with a variety of sounds and rhythms brought into being both by new social forces and by the steadily increasing technological advance of the indus- trial age. While for Eliot this is manifested as essentially a twentieth- century phenomenon, its roots go back deep into the nineteenth century. The transformation of man's environment resulting from the indus- trial revolution seems clearly to have had an explicit effect on the aural sensibility of man in general and on the auditory imagination of poets and writers in particular, and MissGardner is right when she observes, "It is difficult not to feel that there is some connexion between the alteration of the whole tempo and rhythm of life in the nineteenth century and the extraordinary metrical inventiveness of nineteenth- century poets. "45 This metrical invention appears pri- marily in the shorter poems of the period and is particularly apparent in the lyrical verse of Victorian poetry. Browning was especially notable in this respect, as illustrated in such a poem as "Christmas Eve," where he anticipated Eliot in observing that a rhythm can give birth to a "tune" in a poet's head: A tune was born in my head last week, Out of the thump-thump and shriek- shriek Of the train, as I came by it, up from Manchester; And when, next week, I take it back again, My head will sing to the engine's clack again, While it only makes my neighbor's haunches stir, --Finding no dormant musical sprout In him, as in me, to be jolted out. (IV) 45 Ibid., p. 14. n12 b afien notnt favorj Dr in Such thet 15a are1 into Hum. the F tune liver COnH ears their 105 Pointing out that nineteenth- century poetry is rich in what Eliot, in a broadcast talk, called " 'thumpers', poems with an insistent, often mechanically repeating beat, " and that Eliot himself, in this talk, confessed that such poems ran in his head, although they were not necessarily very good poems or poems that he would call his favorites, but poems that came to his mind when waiting for a train or in the dentist's waiting- room, Miss Gardner cites Browning: Such a masterpiece as Browning's 'Up at a Villa--Do.vn in the City', with its Bang, whang, whang goes the drum, tootle-te-tootlejtie fife; No keeping one's haunches still: it's the greatest pleasure in life, is a poem born out of the sounds of the city, though here they are the sounds of a pre-industrial age: the diligence rattling in to the sound of 'the blessed church-bells', Pulcinello's trumpet in the market place, and the little band that follows the procession of our Lady, and that gave, one suspects, the 'tune' out of which the poem was born. But such aural sensi- tiveness, though here aroused by older sounds, is surely connected with the constant assaults of modern life upon our ears. I have the impression that nineteenth century poets at their most natural, when they have not cast their singing robes about them and are writing con amore, tend far more than poets of earlier ages to triple rhythms, that is to a rhythm that is nearer to the 'e ine's clack-again' than to the 'clop— clop' of men and horses. 6 4'6 Ibid. Although the lines "And when, next week, I take it back again,7 My head will sing to the engine's clack again" are ostensibly in iambic pentameter, Miss Gardner's reference to triple metre and her insertion of the hyphen in "clack-a ain" indicates that she is reading the lines in dactylic feet-~"e’ h’e's cla’ck-aga'in"; this would seem clearly to be Browning's intent (the three preceding lines have of course established a four- stress pattern). The equiva- lent musical notation of the latter line would be: HOE O mack 106 Certainly Eliot' 5 line of inheritance is clear. In his early years Eliot's aural environment would have included not only the train, but numerous other steam-driven vehicles and machines, a multiplicity of mechanical, electrical, and pneumatic JJ“ J JJJJJ NJ My head will sing to the en-gine 's clack-a-gain or, more properly, since the anacrusis necessary for normal stress cannot rhythm ically follow the ending dactyl of the preceding line: J. J... w... 54,4. J..J J, J U clack-a- gain (The advantages often inherent in using musical notation to convey poetic rhymes would seem to be illustrated here. The traditional metrical foot stress marking is frequently inadequate, as is evident in the case of the word "engine's" in this line: syllabically there are only two parts to the foot, but the first syllable, as I read it, has twice the value, quantita- tivel of the second; in traditional marking it would appear as a trochee-- n-g1ne's--which would fail to take into account the proper syllabic value given the first syllable by the rhythmic context, which actually makes the word dactylic.) In connection with the " 'clop—clop' of men and horses"--clearly a duple rhythm-~it might be noted that while some of the lower equine gaits such as jogging or trotting are conveyed by this rhythmic onoma- t0poeia, the far more prevalent effect in poetry of all ages is that of the canter or gallop, which is evoked by a triple rhythm almost identi- cal to that discussed above (though with more of a lilt which is impos— sible to annotate precisely); in illustration, Virgil's famous line from the Aeneid comes immediately to mind: Quadr'uped- lante pu-l trem son»)- tu quatitl ungula)‘. campum Possibly the most outstanding of Browning's onomatopoeic rhythms is the emphatic triple rhythm of the gallOp in "How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix": I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he; I galloped, Dirk galloped, we galloped all three; This is clearly the nineteenth- century English equivalent of Virgil's (16V in; C90 107 devices--many of them of recent genesis and therefore much more impressively conspicuous--and above all that phenomenon of twentieth- century life, the internal- combustion engine, soon-to-be ubiquitous and omnipresent. The latter was quickly manifested in many forms both exotic--the airplane was one--and commonplace, and not the least of these was the automobile. Hugh Kenner has written that "Eliot suggested in 1926 that contemporary perception of rhythm had been affected by the internal combustion engine. "47 Discussing the social environment and psychological orientation of the on- stage characters in Sweeney Agonistes, Kenner says of Wauchope, Horsfall, Klipstein, and Krumpacker that "the lopsided percussion of an idling four- cylinder Ford establishes the beat within which they permute their ragtime formulae. "48 Anyone who has been exposed to the highly rhythmical, but off-beat and syncopated sputterings and poppings of the early gasoline engines will immediately recognize its rhythms in such a passage as this: equine gallop, though, characteristically, the syllabic metre is basi- cally accentual rather than quantitative. The quantitative metre of Virgil's Latin gives somewhat more of a rolling gait than does Brown- ing's sharper rhythm. ' Concerning poetic rhythms generally, Miss Gardner is right, of course, in that duple rhythms are characteristic of English poetry from Chaucer to Milton; the triple rhythms came in largely in the seventeenth century--mostly after the Restoration. 47 Hugh Kenner, The Invisible Poet: T.S. Eliot (New York: McDowell, Obolensky, 1959), p. 223. 48 Ibid. 108 DUSTY: How about Pereira? /P0p!7 DORIS: What about Pereira? flaw-w-tf I don't care. /_Puk!7 _ DUSTY: -You_don't care! [Pop_!7 Who pays the rent? DORIS: Yes, he pays the rent DUSTY: Well some men don't and some men do ,_/Sp1ut!7 Some men don't and you know who @W-W-tlr DORIS: You can have Pereira _[Pop_!7 DUSTY: What about Pereira? [Puk _17 DORIS: He's no gentleman, Pereira: [Splutl Fw-w-t_!7 You can't trust him! DUSTY: wen that's true. [Pop_!7 In these lines it is the implicit percussion on the off-beat catalexis (indicated, of course, by my bracketed onomatopoeia) which compen- sates for the missing syllabic elements and completes the metrical value of the verse. The fact of its being implicit, and giving rhythmic accentuation to a beat on which the syllabic value normally anticipated is missing, is of course the source of the syncopation and its resul- tant kinaesthetic shock. In certain of the lines Eliot has made the rhythmic accentuation explicit in the form of an anacrusis which is actually the missing catalectic element shifted to the beginning of the following line; for instance, in the lines "‘Who pays the rent?/ Yes, he pays the rent/ Well some men don't and some men do, " anacruses appear on "Yes" and "Well, " but rhythmically these words belong at the end of the lines which precede them. The motor car, and other noise- and sound- producing devices of the new twentieth- century aural environment, are made explicit in the play by Sweeney him self, who envisions life on the cannibal isle ‘iithou dthe pint; iation, Again, “9 C01 btarin: One m2 "huh 3‘3 the f ”'3 adc 109 without such modern distractions, and "nothing to hear but the sound of the surf, " as the epitome of essential existence, with the fecund purity of an egg and nothing at all but three things, "Birth, and copu- lation, and death": You see this egg You see this egg , Well that's life on a crocodile isle. There's no telephones There's no gramophones There's no motor cars No two- seaters, no six- seaters, No Citro'en, no Rolls-Royce. Again, in the last two lines, the caesuras, indicated by the commas, are completed by implicit beats resulting in a syncopated rhythm bearing great affinity to that of the idling internal- combustion engine. One may also easily feel that the line "There's no motor cars" requires a rhythmic repetition to provide metrical symmetry before proceeding to the following line, and the implicit rhythmic echo gives the necessary two additional strong beats. I find it interesting that Eliot, in a letter to Miss Hallie Flanagan in 1933, quoted by Carol H. Smith in her work on Eliot's dramatic theory and practice, said in connection with Sweeney Agonistes that he had intended "the whole play to be accompanied by light drum taps to accentuate the beats (esp. the chorus, which ought to have a noise like a street drill). "49 A street drill is, of course, a pneumatic 49 Carol H. Smith, T.S. Eliot's Dramatic Theory and Practice: From Sweeney Agonistes to The Eldér Statesman (Princeton: Princeton dent: with t 110 device, and, considering Eliot's powers of eclectic observation coupled with his aural acuity, it is perhaps justifiable to speculate that not only the rhythms of the drill itself, but the syncopated sounds of the compressor which serves it and the gasoline engine which drives the compressor contribute their influence to the shifting, overlaid force- ful rhythms of Sweeney Agonistes. Jazz Rhythms It will now perhaps be evident that the rhythms we have been dis- cussing are also essentially jazz rhythms; and this introduces a major influence in the early rhythmic experimentations of T.S. Eliot. Jazz was one of the major social and aural manifestations of the milieu of Eliot's youth and young manhood. His birthplace and the scene of his boyhood were close to the heartland of the new indigenous Ameri- can musical form, and Eliot grew up and matured during the most vital formative period of jazz; from the last decade of the nineteenth ' century until World War I, instrumental jazz--"Dixieland"--and piano ragtime were evolving and developing simultaneously, and both forms must have exerted a strong influence on the young poet. To Eliot, jazz rhythms seemed to represent the vernacular aesthetic of the age, and in his earlier poetry he boldly experimented with new and vivid rhythmic patterns which were not only influenced by, but h University Press, 1963), p. 52. Helen Gardner, in her Byron Founda- tion Lecture on Eliot, also points out (p. 13) that "the Ting a ling ling/ Ting a ling ling of the telephone provides the accompaniment to the call girls' conversation. " often u Nc hte tel immed panerr ir‘herex {iii-re i 611011th 5T Jazz the his the mus {EDSI D6 IRZZ.‘-: me bar) 111 often unashamedly imitative of the musical jazz rhythms of the time. Now, the creation of poetry in jazz rhythms involves a very defi- nite technique and requires the use of specific devices which will immediately and unmistakably elicit the desired rhythmic response pattern on the part of the reader/ listener. The jazz rhythm must be inherent in the poem itself and evoked by its natural reading, since there is no pre-existing melody to suggest the rhythm. Strangely enough, this is just opposite to the situation obtaining for most popu- lar jazz lyrics, which have their jazz rhythms imposed on them by the musical setting and do not read in jazz rhythms unless one hears the music behind the words. 50 For instance, the lyrics Come to me my melancholy baby, Cuddle up and don't be blue; All your fears are foolish fancy, maybe, You know dear that I'm in love with you. Every cloud must have a silver lining; Wait until the sun shines through. Smile my honey dear While I kiss away each tear, Or else I shall be melancholy too. 50 The traditional poetic form of the lyric of the "blues"--the most pervasive and influential structural form in the development of jazz-~13 essentially nothing more nor less than the English heroic, or Elizabethan, couplet--two rhymed lines of iambic pentameter verse-- with the first line repeated. Thus: I hate to see that evenin' sun go down I hate to see that evenin' sun go down Because my baby he done left dis town. (St. Louis Blues) As set to music in blues form, in a 4/4 metre (four quarter notes to the bar), each line takes two measures and is followed by a "break," have n setting ponds 1n ter 112 have no recognizable jazz quality by themselves, but Ernie Burnett's setting of them has made "My Melancholy Baby" one of the best known popular jazz songs of all time. The essential qualities of jazz rhythm, which the poet must educe in verbal equivalents, are an insistent, regular, almost incantatory underlying beat; a repetitive pattern; and frequent, often complex, syncopation. In jazz the beat is always explicit, as opposed to the implicit rhythmic structure of much serious music, and is in fact carried and emphasized by separate rhythm instruments. The under- lying accent, whether on- or off-beat, is steady, regular, and well- defined, regardless of the syncopated patterns being superimposed on it. Since the jazz rhythm, normally in 4/ 4 time, is heavily accented either on 1 and 3 or 2 and 4, the simplest means of effecting the poetic equivalent is by a series of syllabically-exact incisive lines with obvious accents: ,/ / Le directeur Conservate r Du Spéctateur Empéste la brise. Les a’ctionna res Reictionnaires 111 Spéctat r Conscirvate r / Br 8 dessds bras dessous F nt dest rs A pds de 1 p. ("Le Directeur") or poetic prosthesis, of two additional measures, so that each of the three lines is an evenTour bars and the pentameter verse has been neatly con- verted to a four-beat duple rhythm. These 1 beats to which a the rhyt itieren The the acce [:19 hilt} rm...— f" ifs—J 113 These lines may very well be felt in groups of two, with four strong beats to the group; the two opening lines of the poem, Malhefi a la m/lheureu e, Tam/ise Qui coule si pr 8 du S ctatehr. which are double the length of the others, therefore serve to reinforce the rhythmic pattern, particularly in view of the very obvious stresses inherent in the French words. The same effect may be obtained by a word structure which makes the accents obvious and incisive, even though the syllabic structure of the lines is not exact: The river sweats Oil and tar The barges drift With the turning tide Red sails Wide To leeward, swing on the heavy spar. The barges wash Drifting logs Down Greenwich reach Past the Isle of Dogs Wbialala leia wallala leialala Elizabeth and Leicester Beating oars The stern was formed A gilded shell Red and gold The brisk swell Rippled both shores Southwest wind Carried down stream The peal of bells White towers 114 Weialala leia Wallala leialala (The Waste Land, 111)51 The use of this rhythmic structure in this episode effects a superb multiple irony, for Eliot is here using a vernacular idiom in the parody of Wagner's Rhinemaidens to convey the depravity, deterioration, sterility, and lust of the twentieth- century wasteland by bringing within its context the contrasting glory of past history, the heroes of mythology, and the great artistic expressions of past ages; here in this brief passage are allusions to the noble Odysseus and the sirens, the great epics of Homer, the pomp and magnificence of Antony and Cleopatra, the Renaissance flowering of the Elizabethan age, the glorious poetic drama of Shakespeare, and the towering achievement of Wagner's music-drama as the crowning artistic expression of a recently- vanished Romantic era. 51 If it be objected that Eliot's own reading in his recording of The Waste Land does not invoke much overt jazz rhythm in this passage (though the refrains are certainly syncopated), I would point out that 1) Eliot's readings, as critics have testified, apparently varied from time to time, particularly over a period of years, and 2) scholars and critics have on occasion taken issue with Eliot's own ideas of what he was doing in certain matters of prosody. Primarily, however, my analysis must be in terms of my own responses and of what Eliot's poetry means to me. I certainly do not feel that my reactions and interpretations in matters of metre and stress exclude other readings. Individual readers may feel different metrical and rhythmic patterns, and their interpretations will be valid for them. Those readings which I propose are, of course, the ones whose prob- ability seems to me to be most thoroughly established--though I will readily admit that in various instances 1 can as easily accept an alter- nate reading. that WOI< may side DYE? 115 In the excerpt quoted above from "Le Directeur" it may be noted that part of the rhythmic effect is achieved by the repetition of various words. Repetition is a major poetic device by which jazz rhythms ' may be evoked, and Eliot utilizes various types of repetition. Be- sides single words, whole phrases may be repeated, as in the excerpt previously quoted from Sweeney Agonistes: DUSTY: How about Pereira? DORIS: What about Pereira? I don't care. DUSTY: You don't care! Who pays the rent? - DORIS: Yes he pays the rent DUSTY: Well some men don't and some men do Some men don't and you know who DORIS: You can have Pereira DUSTY: What about Pereira? DORIS: He's no gentleman, Pereira: You can't trust him! DUSTY: ‘ Well that's true. At this point the jazz rhythm is highly modified for several lines; however, because the repetitive pattern has been so definitely estab- lished right from the beginning, there is sufficient momentum to carry over the feel of the insistent beat through the continuing bridge passage: i (DUSTY:) He's no gentleman if you can't trust him And _if you can't trust him-- Then you never know what he's going to do. DORIS: No it wouldn't do to be too nice to Pereira. DUSTY: Now Sam's a gentleman through and through. It may be noted that though the rhythm has been modified there is CQHIII 1'313’21'1.’ beat of ‘Srlc S: r “"1 ,— .H.. O 116 continuing repetition of words and phrases which helps maintain the rhythmic carry-over. Then the original rhythmic pattern is resumed with a new repetitive theme about Sam. In another passage from Sweeney Agonistes, every line contains a phrase which is repeated: Oh I'm so sorry. Ian; so sorry But Doris came home with a terrible chill No, just a chill Oh I think it's only a chill Yes indeed I hope so too-- Well I hope we shan't have to call a doctor Doris just hates having a doctor She says she will ring you up on Monday She hopes to be all right on Monday etc. Alliteration is a form of repetition which serves to reinforce the beat of jazz rhythms. The device occurs frequently in popular song lyrics: Lazy-bones, sittin' in the sun Never gwine to git yo' day's work done ( Popular song) K-K-K-Katy, beautiful Katy ( Popular song) Eliot similarly uses alliteration in writing jazz rhythms: Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach? I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. ( The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock) i‘ian I 3 Ti and 117 Nonsense syllables also serve to establish a jazz rhythmic pattern quickly, partly because of their incisiveness and also because of the rhythmic flexibility inherent in their construction in terms of syllable length, consonant and vowel sounds, and their ready incorporation of other devices such as alliteration and rhyme. Morris Freedman, in his paper on jazz rhythms in T.S. Eliot, cites the lyric "A flat- foot floogie with the floy—floy" as an example of nonsense syllable usage in popular jazz songs, and further points out, "This line with its heavy alliteration finds an odd echo in a line from Murder in the . "52 Cathedral: "With pleasure and power at palpable price. We might also consider the rhythmic effects of nonsense syllables in such jazz lyric lines as % 52 Morris Freedman, "Jazz Rhythms and T.S. Eliot, " South Atlantic Quarterly, LI (July 1952), p. 423. Mr. Freedman also quotes as nonsense syllables some excerpts from SweeneyAgonifistes: Telephone: Ting a ling ling Ting a ling ling and Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Actually, these constructions would much more properly be considered ' examples of onomatopoeia, rather than nonsense syllable; they do evoke the verbal equivalent of a specific, recognizable sound. Nevertheless, their function in expressing jazz rhythm is not made less effective by their proper identification. and 93??! IL‘I‘i} SinCE 118 Zippity doo-da, zippity dey My oh my, what a wonderful day! (POpular song) and Mairzy doats an' dozy doats an' little lamzy divy A kiddle dee divy too, wouldn't you? ( Popular song) the latter not strictly nonsense, but more of an elisional transfor- mation. It will be noted that nonsense—syllable construction usually incor- porates substantial alliteration, and the combination of the elements further emphasizes the rhythm through mutual reinforcement. Thus, in Eliot: Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum, Such as Munkustrap, Quaxo, Coricopat, Such as Bombalurina, or else Jellyorum-- Names that never belong to more than one cat. ( "The Naming of Cats, " Old Pos- sum's Book of Practim His ineffable effable Effanineffable Deep and inscrutable singular Name. (113391,) Rhyme is a major device for emphasizing the beat of jazz rhythm, since the repetitive effect makes the rhymed word the strongest sound ii accent Strum i . £20563 1 119 in the line. The primary function of rhyme in jazz poetry is for rhythmic accentuation, not, as in most conventional poetry, to assist in creating structural form. Therefore, rhymes in jazz rhythm usually appear close together, whether close-coupled or coming at the end of the line on a strong beat: Five foot two, eyes'of blue, But oh, what those five foot could do, Has anybody seen my girl? Turned up nose, turned down hose, Never had no other beaus, Has anybody seen my girl? ( Popular song) Every star above knows the one I love, Sweet Sue, just you (Popular song) Eliot does not overlook opportunities for rhythmic emphasis via inter- nal rhyme and closely- coupled rhyme, as well as the more frequent use of end rhyme on strong beats: The Rum Tum Tugger is a Curious Cat: Bustopher Jones is not skin and bones-- Well I never! Was there ever A Cat so clever As Magical Mr. Mistoffelees! The Pekes and the Pollicles, everyone knows, Are proud and implacable passionate foes; ( Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats) ma; mt Cite 120 Where the breadfruit fall And the penguin call And the sound is the sound of the sea Under the bam Under the boo Under the bamboo tree. (Sweeney Agoniste 5) Finally, one of the major techniques by which jazz rhythms may be represented in poetry is the inclusion of the verbal equiv- alents of syncopation, achieved in various ways. Syncopation is, of course, essentially the removal of an accent where it is expected or the placement of an accent where it is not expected; the human body reacts kinaesthetically, compensating for the removal of the antici- pated accent and reacting by shock to the placement of the unexpected accent. In verse this may be accomplished by pause, by the inclusion of extra syllables, ellipsis, or stopping the phrase or line short of the complete metrical value. The pause, which is a prominent feature of jazz lyrics set to music, occurring in the melodic line--either instrumental or vocal, often accented and, when sung, either aspirated or voiced--appears as a caesura in verse not set to music. We previously noted the syncopated rhythmic effect resulting from caesuras indicated by the co‘Tlthias in the excerpt from Sweeney's panegyric: No two- seaters, no six- seaters, No Citroen, no Rolls-Royce. 121 While the caesura occurs in the lyric, the strong underlying beat con- tinues, a beat occurring at each comma and the period as well. Musi- cally annotated, the rhythm would be as follows: No two- seat-ers , no six- seat-ers , J J 1'} 3 J J J i No Cit- ro - én , no Rolls-Royce . No Cit- ro - 'én; , (alt.) Punctuation also indicates caesura in the syncopated rhythm (referred to by Helen Gardner as "the rag-time melody"53) of: I grow old . . .I grow'old . I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. ( The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock) Considering both caesuras in the first line, the musical notation which the rhythm suggests is JJJEJJJE Agrow old. .I grow old J1 JinnJJJ; I shall wear the bot-toms of my trous-ers rolled. J P J $ trous-ers rolled (alt.) \ 53 Byron Foundation Lecture, p. 16. Hoe Ali Q ‘1' I. I lit Flt it) ale. . u ~\U a «\U Evin :W« n v. . d 122 However, an alternate, and equally valid, jazz rhythm occurs if the second caesura is disregarded and the first two words of the second line are considered as an anacrusis which really belongs at the end of the first line in place of the catalexis represented by the quarter- note rest: A ' A J 3 J J J J] grow ldA. . .I grow old I shall JJJTJJJJ J‘é wear the bot- toms of my trous-ers rolled. A o Of course, one can hardly justify ignoring those three dots. Eliot also gets a series of pauses by word repetition, as in the following, where repeating of the word little is also reinforced by the Dllnctuation: SWEENEY: I'll convert you! Into a stew. _— A nice little, white little, missionary stew. DORIS: You wouldn't eat me! SWEENEY: Yes I'd eat you! In a nice little, white little, soft little, tender little, Juicy little, right little, missionary stew. In the following lines, a syncopation is achieved by stopping the hues S110 rt of the final beat. Since the last word of each line comes 0 n a strong beat, the body tends to feel the completing weak beat 0f the . A rhYthmic pattern, and the reaction to the absence of any words on t “ffec t l Arne n . 1 I fix. ‘ r.|\ . “N n \U z u . C d l. . mu :3 Wu R. but p we \ ha" a .Ju MN 123 on the beat strengthens the rhythmic emphasis and its sync0pated effect: Two live as one One live as two Two live as three Under the bam Under the boo Under the bamboo tree. Annotated, the rhythm would appear as follows: A ...>L)L..>I_)‘_>I._ I—> L> L) L) L) ‘—> L No M m h» m L) M m M Part of the effect, of course, derives from the repetition of bamboo, which has been stated four times in the preceding three lines of the stanza, and from the breaking up and recombination of the word. Among the various instances of jazz rhythms occurring in _'I_‘_h_e Waste Land, where Eliot both creates such rhythms in original lines and introduces fragments from the lyrics of popular songs, there appears one well-known line which is among the most highly synco- pated the poet ever wrote: 0 O O O that Shakespeherian Rag-- 124 Basically, Eliot has merely introduced the title of a 1912 song hit, "That Shakespearian Rag, "54 but has adroitly transformed it to yield a verbal rhythm of unmistakable jazz equivalence. The syncopated effect results from the four incisive _(_)_'_s, each emphasized on a strong beat, and from the introduction of the extra syllable in Shakespeherian. Each of the first three _Q_'_§ is followed by an implicit, though obvious, caesura, or off-beat, and a reinforcement of the syncopation is obtained by the placement of Lhat_ on the off-beat following the fourth g. In musical annotation such a rhythm appears thus: A A A A J7J’7J‘7J-J J j J JJ’J 7 O O O O that Shakes- pe- -her--i-an Rag This is by no means the only rhythm which this line will yield. The four 9_'_s could just as easily occur on the off-beats, with the rests coming ahead of them; and the word _th_at_, instead of acting as a pick- up for the following strong beat, might itself come on the strong beat, dictating a modification in the rest of the pattern, but With just as strong a rhythmic effect: A A A A A 7J7J7J’7JJ’ f? EN 7 O O O that Shakes-pe- --her--i -an Rag 54 "That Shake spearian Rag, " Lyric by Gene Buck and Herman Ruby, Music by Dave Stamper. Edward B. Marks Music Corporation. Originally published by Joseph W. Stern & Co. , 1912. 125 And continuing: J’fliJ It's so el-e--gant J'J’TJJ in-tel- li- gent What Eliot has done rhythmically with the "Shake speherian Rag" line seems all the more remarkable when it is realized that syllab- ically the line is an almost perfect iambic pentameter verse. Many other examples of rhythms in a strong jazz idiom, as well as rhythmic patterns highly flavored by the jazz influence but much less overt in expression, might be cited in T. S. Eliot's work from the poetry of 1909- 1910 through to about 1924- 192 5, when Sweeney Agonistes marked a culmination of his experimentation with the style. 55 The w 55 One of Eliot's most potent uses of jazz rhythm is to be found in a later work. In the second-act scene of Murder in the Cathedral where the four murderous knights enter the came—(Hal and call Beck—3t to come down to his death, Eliot has couched their taunts in an incisive, sharply-accented, formal stanza structure which incorporates the elements of rhyme, alliteration, repetition, and strong syncopation, all of which combine to produce a vividly marked jazz rhythm: Where is Becket, the traitor to the King? Where is Becket, the meddling priest? Come down Daniel to the lions' den, Come down Daniel for the mark of the beast. Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb? Are you marked with the mark of the beast? Come down Daniel to the lions' den, Come down Daniel and join in the feast. 126 foregoing discussion, however, should adequately show the importance and extent of the poet's work in verbal jazz rhythms in his attempts to create a new colloquial language idiom capable of speaking to his age and effectively communicating through poetry. Changing Metres and Rhythmic Displacement Extensive as were Eliot's early experiments in jazz rhythms, they were by no means his only preoccupation in developing new rhyth- mic patterns, and there are other rhythmic ideas in the early poetry of a non-jazz nature which bear close analogy to musical construction. Chief among these are the use of changing metres and rhythmic displace- ment--rhythms which in effect cross the bar lines, a form of sync0pa- tion. Interestingly enough, the use of frequently-changing metres within discrete melodic lines and structural sections, while long known to music and employed in past periods, is a particular twentieth- century Where is Becket the Cheapside brat? Where is Becket the faithless priest? Come down Daniel to the lions' den, Come down Daniel and join in the feast. Clearly, Eliot resorted to the jazz idiom in this instance to give the knights a vernacular expression which points up their coarseness and brutality and emphasizes the shallow, materialistic, impercep- tive aspects of their character which are made so explicit with their address to the audience at the end of the play. This is a further in- stance of Eliot's continual striving for maximum consonance of med- ium and content. 127 phenomenon and has been exploited most fully by composers since Stravinsky. An example is the theme from Aaron Copland's Piano Variations (Cos Cob Press, Inc. , 1932): Example 3 Within these seven measures there are four different metrical mark- ings and four changes of metre. The shifting of metrical accent with respect to the bar line, so that the metrical unit crosses the bar line and occupies portions of two consecutive measures, while also traditionally known in music, had largely disappeared during the eighteenth century. It was the later nineteenth-century Romantic composers who revived it and developed the full potentialities of the technique; Johannes Brahms in particular made it an integral part of his musical style, and there is hardly a page of his work which does not reveal the use of rhythmic displacement, as in this first part of the sub-theme from the first movement of his Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Opus 68. Note that the m (dotted) quarter note of each measure receives the strong accent, while the first, which would normally be accented, gets the (“‘9‘ JJJJ 'i—v' ' I, ch 128 weak beat: Example 4 Basic motive p (101”; A String: 1 Av/"' JbJ._‘-[>,»J 7 A 125 express. ' f A A . v 011. ’ p 1 4p +44% - - \‘ Beginning with his earlier work, Eliot has effectively adapted both of these musical devices to the poetic medium. Note the open- ing lines of "Portrait of a Lady": Among the smoke and fog of a December afternoon You have the scene arrange itself--as it will seem to do-- With: "1 have saved this afternoon for you"; And four wax candles in the darkened room, Four rings of light upon the ceiling overhead, 129 The first two lines are, syllabically, iambic heptameter, although each line has a silent but implicit final foot which makes their true metric mode octameter. But with the third line there is a shift to iambic pentameter, which continues in line four. The fifth line changes to iambic hexameter-~an Alexandrine. Then, with the next two lines which follow, there is a continuation of the changing metre, but it is now combined with a shift in metrical structure which is equivalent to a musical metre crossing the bar line: An atmosphere of Juliet's _tomb Prepared for all the things to be said, or left unsaid. Ostensibly, the first of these two lines is in iambic tetrameter, the second changing to an Alexandrine in iambic hexameter (with an anapest on "to be said"). We have here, however, a run-on line construction, and syllabically the logical arrangement would have placed "prepared" at the end of the first verse after "tomb"; this would have resulted in two balanced lines of iambic pentameter, which is, on a quantitative basis at least, the predominant metre of the poem. But Eliot was more concerned with the sense and sound of the lines and, since "prepared for all the things to be said, or left unsaid" is a complete dependent clause modifying "Juliet's tomb" (and probably to emphasize the rhyme of "room" and "tomb" as well), he chose to move the final foot of the first line to the begin- ning of the second; thus, in effect, he has shifted the "bar line" and 130 run the metre across it. In oral reading, of course, the slight natural caesura occurring after "tomb" by virtue of the fact that it is the end of the clause and the ostensible end of the line is sufficient to effect the sense of metri- cal shift and obviate an equalization into two balanced iambic penta- meters; at the same time, the underlying implicit pentameter struc- ture permits a smooth transition which maintains the rhythmic flow and eliminates any raggedness in the poetic line. A similar construction occurs in the lines I smile, of course, And go on drinking tea. where the first line of two iambic feet is a run-on to the succeeding three-foot line. Metrically, the two lines combine to form a single line of iambic pentameter; Eliot broke it up, in effect running it over a bar line at the end of the second foot, in order to emphasize its function as a brief interruption to the monotonous monologue of the Lady. &1ch rhythmic locutions become, at times, fairly complex. Consider the following lines, also from "Portrait of a Lady": "You do not know how much they mean to me, my friends, And how, how rare and strange it is, to find In a life composed so much, so much of odds and ends, [For indeed I do not love it . . .you knew? you are not blind! How keen you are _!_7 To find a friend who has these qualities, 131 Who has, and gives Those qualities upon which friendship lives. How much it means that I say this to you-- Without these friendships—-life, what cauchemar!"56 There is a variety of changing metres in this sequence. Syllab- ically, they are all basically iambic, the first line being a hexameter, the second changing to pentameter, the third returning to hexameter; the fourth line is in heptameter ("it" plus the caesura constituting an iambic foot) and is followed by a dimeter line, the sixth being in pentameter, with a recurrence of the dimeter following, and finally three lines of pentameter. The rhythmic displacement begins with the fourth verse (note that the caesura, indicated by the dots, occurs on the strong beat of the fourth foot of the line, providing a certain syncopation); in effect this line, syllabically heptametric, is com- prised of a pentameter segment with a dimeter tacked on, thus creating a rhythmic shift. I Metrically, "you are not blind" could have been carried over to the beginning of the next line and, followed by "How keen you are !'; would have formed a single iambic tetrameter line. Syntactically, however, "you are not blind" relates more closely to "For indeedI do not love it . . .you knew?"; it would also seem logical to infer that the poet wanted to isolate "How keen you are!" in order to emphasize it for its function in portraying the Lady's g 56 The brackets enclosing 11. 4-5 in ed. cit. were changed to Parentheses in the publisher's 1963 edition of T.S. Eliot: Collected Poems 1909- 1962. 1 32 affectation. The sixth and seventh lines could have been combined to form another heptameter line, but substantively it would have been pointless; in its syntax, "Who has, and gives" runs on into the next line. Isolated, it provides a certain balance for the preceding dimeter; also a rhythmic subtlety results from its position as a concurrent bridge and separation between the two pentameter lines, with either of which it may combine syllabically into a heptameter, a metre already introduced. In the examples above discussed, the changes of metre, though frequent, do not seem abrupt; this is partly because of the syntac- tical progression of the verse, partly due to the run-on lines, partly bedause of the lack of overly-incisive beat in these particular excerpts, with their conversational, almost prosaic flavor. There are other instances where the change is much more obvious, even at times sharp and precipitate, producing an entirely different rhythmic and emotional effect by the emphasis and incisiveness: And still she cried, and still the world pursues, "Jug Jug" to dirty ears. (The Waste Land, 11) Well, that Sunday Albert was home, they had a hot gammon, And they asked me in to dinner, to get the beauty of it hot-- HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME (The Waste Land, 11) 133 Now they go up to the temple. Then the sacrifice. Now come the virgins bearing urns, urns containing Dust Dust Dust of dust, and now Stone, bronze, stone, steel, stone, oakleaves, horses' heels Over the paving. (Coriolan, I - Triumphal March) Section I of "Preludes" contains a rhythmic figure involving abrupt metre change which is interesting because of its anticipation of a jazz style which was to become prevalent some forty years later: The winter evening settles down With smell of steaks in passageways. Six o'clock. The burnt-out ends of smoky days. And now a gusty shower wraps The grimy scraps Of withered leaves about your feet And newspapers from vacant lots; The showers beat On broken blinds and chimney-pots, (etc.) In the early 1950's, the ever-evolving jazz idiom developed a style known as "be-bop." While there are various specific harmonic and melodic elements which give the style its individual characteristics, one of the hallmarks of be-bop is an extremely rhythmic basic motive, usually fairly short, ending with a sharply-accented two-note phrase which acts as a brief, incisive cadence. It is this two- note cadence from which be-bop takes its name, since performers often got into the habit of shouting the two nonsense syllables on the cadence. 134 Eliot's above poetic sequence, with its series of two highly-insistent four-beat lines followed by the short, sharp, two-beat, cadence-like phrase, is a perfect verbal anticipation of the musical style. "Rhap- sody on a Windy Night" also utilizes the rhythmic figure, though here the two-beat phrase usually occurs at the beginning of a section. While this particular figure is not widespread throughout Eliot's earlier work (though other. instances or modifications of it may be found), it does help to illustrate the extent of the poet's rhythmic inventiveness, and the close musical affinity of his rhythmic forms. Eliot's Mature Rhythmic Structure Now, just as Eliot disdained to consider poetic speech in terms of rigid metrical scansion and syllabic construction, his maturing conception of the rhythm of the poetic line tended to reject a literal representation of musical rhythmic patterns, except where specifi- cally required by context or for special effect. Rather, he sought the inherent music of a natural rhythm which would approximate the pat- terns and cadences of vernacular speech, while yet serving as a vehicle for the poetic expression of image and idea. Thus, by the time of Ash Wednesday Eliot's rhythmic construction had undergone a considerable refinement and attained a subtlety and ease which the earlier works had not possessed. This rhythmic deve10pment was of course a continuous and gradual process, not to be broken down and allocated to distinct and arbitrarily-designated "periods." ’C’). - 135 Nevertheless it can be generally stated that his earlier works represented a period of exploration of the musical possibilities of the idiom and experimentation in new, distinct, and often extreme rhythmic construc- tion; that in his middle period he consolidated, developed, and refined the new techniques and ideas of his early works, and evolved his own individual poetic rhythmic style; and that finally, in his mature works, he elaborated and exploited the musical possibilities of the idiom which he had developed as his own. So it is that Four Quartets, probably in all ways Eliot's most mature, profound, and meaning- laden work, displays a rhythm of line which is smooth-flowing and flexible, seeming to be perfectly matched to the image and idea being expressed, varying easily and naturally as the formal and musi- cal structure requires, adapted as needed to either vernacular speech or formal lyric; and, though without the harsh accents, abrupt transi- tions and sharp syncopations of the early experiments, is still capable of wide contrast, rhythmic excitement, intensity, momentum, and drive. In illustration, the second movement of "Burnt Norton" may be cited. Here the formal stanza of the opening section is set in a whirling, fast-tempoed, sharply-accented four-stress line (while basically iambic tetrameter, the feet are by no means regular; thus there is a freedom and flexibility to the verse, while the basic rhythm is well defined): 136 Garlic and sapphires in the mud Clot the bedded axle-tree. The trilling wire in the blood Sings below inveterate scars And reconciles forgotten wars. The dance along the artery The circulation of the lymph Are figured in the drift of stars Ascend to summer in the tree We move above the moving tree In light upon the figured leaf And hear upon the sodden floor Below, the boarhound and the boar Pursue their pattern as before But reconciled among the stars. The mood of restlessness, excitement, and insistent motion which this rhythm creates is perfectly suited to the idea of the flux of life being treated, and to the imagery presented--the singing of the trilling wire, the "dance along the artery," the "circulation of the lymph," the movement in light upon the figured leaf. In the contrasting second section, the initial discursive statement contemplating the relation of stillness and movement is in a rhythm consistent with the changed mood and idea; here the line is lengthened to one of six stresses, the sharp accent has been modulated to a smoother, more evenly-flowing mttern, the tempo is moderated to a thoughtful pace, and the entire rhythmic flow takes on a contemplative character apropos of the philosophical mood of the verse: At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless; Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the . dance is, But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity, 137 Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards, Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point, There would be no dance, and there is only the dance. With the transition to the consideration of the pattern which is mani- fested in stillness there is a return to a line of four stresses, but with none of the urgency of the opening passage; here the relaxed tempo, combined with the firmly-accented and shortened, though flowing, lines, reinforces the feeling of resolution suggested by the theme of the union of change and permanence conveyed in the verse: Yet the enchainment of past and future Woven in the weakness of the changing body, Protects mankind from heaven and damnation Which flesh cannot endure. . This general rhythm is maintained in the return to imagery at the end, though with a somewhat more meditative pace which augments the contemplation of consciousness at the still point and the conquest of time through time. By now it will certainly have become evident--even though the limitations of this study have directed a focus on the more closely musically-analogous aspects of Elio 's rhythmic structures--that (and this is true even in the more musically- literal earlier poems) there is much more involved in the rhythms than the technical and mechanical aspects of metrical modes and rhythmic patterns. Just as in music the total rhythmic expression is affected and enhanced by 138 such elements as melodic line, harmonic progression, dynamics, instrumentation, and tone color, so in Eliot the poetic rhythms are the integrated product of the syntactic construction, diction, syllable shape and quantity, the pattern of stress and caesura, dynamics, and such devices as alliteration, assonance, rhyme, and onomatopoeia. Even in the case of the more obvious jazz rhythms, our analysis has only been completely meaningful in terms of these elements. And it is in the increasingly effective use and combination of these elements that Eliot's rhythmic development lies. Rhythmic Counterpoint: Polyrhythm and Polymetre If there is one overriding characteristic--a hallmark even--of T.S. Eliot's mature rhythmic style, it is his magnificently adroit imposition of accentual- stress metres on verse which, though fre- quently irregular and replete with metrical substitution, is--quanti- tatively at least--essentially syllabic. "Imposition" is perhaps a misleading term; there is rarely anything of forceful warping or unnatural distortion in the process or the product. Rather it is a combining of accentual and syllabic metres in the formation of the verse in such manner that, while each exists independently, the resultant rhythm is composed of the elements of each. We may con- sider that this is a rhythmic counterpointing, which in music would be termed the use of polyrhythms, or cross-rhythms. 57 57 In the Harvard Dictionary of Music Willi Apel defines poly- rhythm as "The simultaneous use?" of strikingly contrasting rhythms in different parts of the musical fabric, also known as cross-rhythm . . . “‘9 139 In The Art of T.S. Eliot, Helen Gardner stated, "I suspect that the element which prosodists will concentrate on in the future is the use Eliot makes of quantity to counterpoint his stress. "58 Strangely enough, despite Miss Gardner's perceptive hint, Eliot scholars seem- ingly have remained largely unaware of the nature and extent of Eliot's use of thistechnique--a technique even more complex than Miss Gard- ner's observation indicates, since it involves syllabic numbers as well as syllabic quantity. Even now, critics are prone to consider that in his later poetry Eliot essentially abandoned traditional syllabic verse for an accentual verse; the stress pattern thus assumes primacy ‘w—vfifi Generally . . . the term is restricted to those examples in which rhythmic variety is introduced, not as a means to enhance contra- puntal life, but for its own sake (cross rhythm). A distinction can be made between two types: contrasting rhythms within the same scheme of accents (meter) _/_Ex. 1, a and b7; contrasti rhythms involving a conflict of meter or accents _[E—x. 1, c and g . The latter type is sometimes termed "polymetric. " J 7JJ yJ" JJ JJ {N 7N dJJJJWJ J 3-’ W: 4JJJJIJJJJ JTJJIJ JJ JJ 4 zJJJIJ JJIJJ JJJJIJJJJ (pp. 59-3 >594) On this basis, perhaps we may more properly consider Eliot's com- bining of strong- stress and syllabic metre to be polymetric. 58 1 p. 29. 140 in their analysis of his prosody, the syllabic aspects of the verse are relegated to a subordinate position rhythmically, and awareness of the contrapuntal interplay between the two, as well as their function of mutual reinforcement, is lost. Therefore, since I feel strongly that Eliot's rhythmic counterpoint is basic to his mature method, and that it has been unjustly neglected, I will treat the subject in some detail. Now, while this rhythmic construction reached its epitome in Four Quartets, it was by no means a late development in Eliot's verse; it had its beginning in his early work, and the poetry of his earlier periods makes frequent use of it. Consider, for instance, the lines from "Portrait of a Lady" cited above in the discussion of changing metres. In accordance with my reading of the lines (and I hasten to acknowledge that not only are other readings possible, but that in certain instances I can accept alternate readings as readily as those pr0posed) I am giving both the accentual stress markings and the traditional short and long markings for the under- lying syllabic metre: / / / / "Ybu d3 fiat knbw 115w m'fich thhy me—an I6 m3, m’y fri-Ends, And how, how rare and strange it is, Yo find / / / / V _. - _ .. _. .. .— In: life cbmmsed E6 much, ‘s’o much‘o’f odds 55d ends, / / / . _[Fb’rindEédT d5 fist fave‘i’t .-.' .376u kn'e'w? \y’ou'a—re .4 4 not blind! I / . H‘o’w ké'én ybu-a.re_!7 141 1 .1 - 3, .1 _. friend who has these quaIities, (a / — v - V £- V '4 Those quafi' ties upon which friendship lives. / / / / _ _ Hb/w much‘i’t means that 1 52:31 this t3" you-- I / / / ( WithSI-it these friEndships--fi—fe, w t cfichéinzr !" The metrical stress pattern, in terms of stresses per line, may be seen to be 5, 4, 5, 6, 2, 4, 2, 4, 4, 4. It is an interesting phenom- enon in this particular excerpt that, although the stresses in lines of equal stress by no means occur in the same position in the line, the number of stresses in each line is one less than the number of feet in the line, with the exception of the dimeter lines which have two stresses. It is obvious that the lines of four stresses predominate, a fact which is enhanced if we consider the fourth line (as we previously analyzed it in discussing the syllabic metre) to be composed of two parts, with the pentameter section containing four stresses, and the dimeter two. Were the dimeter section moved to the beginning of the succeeding line, which can be done logically both metrically and rhythmically, two additional four- stress lines would result. Alter- nately, line five could-~with metrical and rhythmic logic- -be moved to the beginning of line six, resulting in a six- stress line which would balance line four. Thus, while there is a variation in the number and position of lines of varying stresses, an internal consistency exists which imparts rhythmic and structural unity and tends to sustain 142 the effect of polyrhythmic--or polymetric--movement. Other sequences are more regular in stress and syllabic construc— tion: The éOctober ni Iht comes do/wn; retur 'ng as aseefore Excé t for a $1 ght sensition of being 11 at I mun the s 1}rs and rn the handle of thea And feel as if had m nted on my h2{nds and 1:2es. ( "Portrait of a Lady") The quintuple pulse here imposed on nearly regular iambic hexameter lines results in a metrical counterpoint which is regular and defined. In the following excerpt from The Waste _Land a four— stress pulse is the accompanying rhythmic counterpoint to almost perfectly- regular iambic pentameter metre: / She tu/rns nd lobks a mo, ent in the glass, Hardly a re of he; departed lo’ver; Her [brain allows one half- formed {thought to pass: "Well now that's done: and I'm mfl {d it's ver. " When lovely woinan stoops to f 11y and Paces abbut her room again, a1 ne, / She smo’oths her hair with automat/m hand, And puts a record on the gra’mophone. At the same time there begins to be a development in these poems beyond the more easily-recognized and well- defined counterpointing of stress against regular syllabic metres, so that the syllabic metres become more irregular and varied, resulting in a less easily-perceived and more subtle, though not less valid, polyrhythmic movement of the 143 verse: I / / Wh6 is he third who walks always goesid; you? When I count there re only you [and together But when I 106k ahea up the w te road There is always an her one walking bes1de you (The Waste Land, V) Eliot's developing rhythmic sense embraced and subjected even those passages of essentially prose rhythmic structure. Take the famous borrowing from the prose of Lancelot Andrewes which sets both the mood and the mode, the tone and the tune, of "Journey of the Magi": I / A cold co/ming we had of it, Just the worst time of the year, For a jotirne , and such a? lo’ng journey: The w2{ys deep and t e weather s rp, The very dead of nter. Helen Gardner has noted that this passage, which falls easily and naturally into lines of verse, begins quite clearly by giving a three- stress line; but that "in the first two lines there is no caesura, and as soon as a caesura occurs, in the third line, it leads at once to a line of four stresses, divided in the middle, the characteristic line of Eliot's later verse. "59 Actually, in this passage there are two cross-rhythms which may be felt running contrapuntally against the strong- stress pattern of 3, 3, 3, 4, 2. First there is the metrical ‘ 59 Byron Foundation Lecture, p. 19. 144 syllabic construction which, while irregular, carries a strong and distinct rhythmic pattern: V—J —UJ U—J U— uo_l _ul u_| uu—Juu —JUU —J U u—I -—u| u—l u — u—I u—l U—l U Against this, there is a musical metre into which the lines might naturally fall: There are thus three distinct and separate metrical structures which may be heard making up the rhythmic fabric of this verse. By the time of Ash Wednesday, Eliot had built his polymetric rhythms into a powerful form of expression in which varying stress patterns combined easily and naturally, moving against increasingly 145 complex syllabic metres: At the first turning of the third stair Was a slotted window bellied like a fig's fruit And beyond the hawthorn blossom and a pasture scene The broadbacked figure drest in blue and green Enchanted the maytime with an antique flute. Blown hair is sweet, brown hair over the mouth blown, Lilac and brown hair; Distraction, music of the flute, stops and steps of the mind over the third stair, Fading, fading; strength beyond hope and despair Climbing the third stair. This, then, is the foundation of the sure, fully-matured rhythmic style which T.S. Eliot brought to Four Quartets; a style whose poly- metric construction provided a diversity of metrical and rhythmic modal expression, an adaptability to changing and contrasting mood, and a flexibility in conveying image and philosophical idea. In short, it was a rhythmic style which not only was capable of precise and incisive poetic utterance in traditional and formal metrical forms, but also served the poet as a vehicle for discursive, contemplative, invocational, hortatory, and conversational speech: a speech which, while retaining its essentially colloquial, vernacular idiom, was at the same time transformed into a moving and powerful poetic expres- sion. "Burnt Norton" opens with a series of falling strong- stress lines, concerning which Harvey Gross, in his essay on Eliot's music of poetry, has pointed out, "These lines present neither images nor metaphors, 146 the supposed quintessential materials of poetry. Everything is handled through the silent rhythms of syntax and the audible rhythms of iso- chronism and strong— stress meter. "60 Time present and time past Are both perhaps present in time future, And time future contained in time past. If all time is eternally present All time is unredeemable. The developing motive of these lines, with its accumulating, or expanding, idea and emotion, is carried by a rhythmic expansion in the verse within the four-beat strong- stress pattern. The basic beat is constant, however, and the tempo is deliberate, suiting the mood of philosophical speculation, through the end of the exposition section (see the structural analysis of this movement in Appendix B). The move from abstract speculation to the injection of personal eXperience with "Footfalls echo in the memory, " beginning the development section, brings a quickening of the tempo which, though the line remains basically four- stress (the "footfalls" line is three- stress, pointing up the transition into the development), effects a marked change in rhythmic impulse. The move into another dimen- sion, with the lines —“ 60 Harvey Gross, "T.S. Eliot and the Music of Poetry," in ZiggStructure of Verse: Modern Essays on Prosody, edited with an Introduction and Commentary by Harvey Gross (New York: Fawcett World Library, 1966), pp. 204-205. 147 Quick, said the bird, find them, find them, Round the corner. Through the first gate, Into our first world, shall we follow The deception of the thrush? Into our first world. introduces a feeling of excitement, urgency, and anticipation which is largely induced by the quickened tempo and heightened rhythmic drive brought about by theshortened phrases and brief caesural interruptions. The predominance of one-syllable words and short vowels also substantially augments the effect of heightened tempo. Clearly the total rhythmic effect at this point is accomplished by a most apt congruence of sense, syntactic structure, diction, and metre. And, if there were any doubt about the valid rhythmic effect of polymetres within Eliot's verse, it should be easily dispelled by comparing these two lines: Time present and time past Quick, said the bird, find them, find them, Both lines are four-beat strong- stress, but the complete dissimi- larity of their syntactic construction and syllabic structures (in terms of both syllable length and numbers of syllables) results in a striking contrast in the counterpoint within each line between the accentual stress and the syllabic metre. With the projection of the potential in the imagined world--the dream of what might have been--the tempo slows to a more considered pace and the stresses are considerably moderated, so that the flow 148 of the syllabic structure tends to predominate, and the accentual pattern to be subordinated to it. The result is a rhythm appropriate to, and helping to convey, the mood of contemplation of the ideal which is the substance of the sequence. The final part of the development section, where potential and actual are merged in a series of para- doxes, contains some of the finest imagery of the poem; and while the four- stress line predominates, there are lines of varying stress, all merging smoothly and without abrupt transition: Dry the pool, dry concrete, brown edged, And the pool was filled with water out of sunlight, And the lotos rose, quietly, quietly, The surface glittered out of heart of light, And they were behind us, reflected in the pool. With the reappearance of the bird, and the transition back to reality, and to the present moment in the rose garden, the urgent rhythms briefly return. This leads directly to the three-line recapit- ulation and the movement closes with a return of the falling, four- stress, deliberate rhythms of the exposition. I have pointed out that much of the unity of Four Quartets derives from the consistency of structure between corresponding movements of the four poems, and that the rhythmic modes enhance this unity by their correspondence to the form. The first movements of "Burnt Norton, " "East Coker, " and "Little Gidding" are all set in Eliot's strong- stress rhythmic metre. But, while the normal four stresses largely predominate, line lengths vary, and the great flexibility. 149 inherent in Eliot's syllabic constructions allows a continuing correspondence of rhythm with subject and mood while yet maintaining sufficient variety to obviate the monotony which might otherwise be anticipated. As con- trasted with the first movement of "Burnt Norton, " the opening lines of "East Coker" are longer and carry more of a forward impetus, which not only fits the more discursive nature of the verse, but also reinforces the subject of continuous cyclical movement and succession. And there is, here, more variation in stress pattern, though the first two lines, in 3 and 5 stresses, move promptly to the four-stress norm: In my begi/nning is my eh . In succe/ssi n Hodses rise and £411, cr mble, are ext nded, Are regndved, destrbye , restored, or in their place Is an pen field, or a f ctory, or a -pass. The counterpointing effect of syllabic quantity against accent is readily apparent here. In some cases the stressed syllable is the shortest (in terms of vowel length) in the isochronic word group in which it falls, as in "In my begi/nning, " "in succession, " "or a fa/ctory, " thus emphasizing the polymetric aspects of the rhythm. The syllabic rhythm is also determined by syllabic number (i.e. , numbers of syllables), which has a cumulative effect when combined with vowel length. The variation in rhythm deriving from these ele- ments is clearly shown if one compares "In my begi/nning is my ehd" , / ,l I . w1th "Houses use and fall. " Or, compare the two four- stress hnes: 150 / ( ,l I And to shake the wa1nscot where the held-mouse trots I Time present and tflne past The metrical stress may occur on a long vowel, as in "Are / l / / removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place . . ." Here the contrapuntal metrical contrast is diminished due to the coincidence of accentual stress with lengthened syllabic stress; but at the same time, and by the same functioning, the rhythmic emphasis is augmented. This particular example is, of course, essentially an iambic penta- meter line (with the first foot an anapest) and the accentual stresses occur on the long syllables of the feet in each case. We have here, then, a polyrhythm rather than a polymetre, since the accents coin- cide. The first movement of "Little Gidding, " again in a mood of pro- found contemplation, is set in the same basic four- stress measure, though it is diversified through lines of varying stress which merge and modulate smoothly ina pulsing rhythmic flow that is without dis- tortion or apparent syllabic raggedness: / / / / Midwinter spring is it own season I pternal thoughs sdden towards sungown, Suspgnded in t1me betwefn npble and tr pic. ./ When the sh/drt 12:}, 13 br ghtest, wi h frd’st a d fire, The brief sun f es the ice, 11 nd and di ches, In wi dless c61d at is th heart's he’at, Refl cting in a cry mr rror / / A glire that is blindness in the early afternoon. Eliot's full range of syllabic constructions and devices are unleashed W" ' 151 here. The long vowel may coincide with syllabic stress: I . And gldw more inte/nse than bla’ze of branch, or braz1er, Or the stresses may occur on the short vowels, effecting a distinct change of metrical counterpoint: ./ I . .I / / Stirs the dumb sp1r1t: no w1nd, but pentecostal fire Occasionally, in a kind of syllabic modulation, a line may have its vowels duplicated at corresponding metrical positions: I l , / . I .’ When the short day 15 brightest, w1th frost and f_1_re, In this instance, the latter device enhances the flavor of 14th-century strong- stress alliterative verse which is evoked in the opening lines of the movement both by the alliteration and the frequent use of caesura. The rhythmic movement at this point is also augmented by the paralleling of the above line with the one which follows; two blank verse lines, each with five stresses at analogous positions, with almost identical syllabic quantities, each with a caesura marked by the comma: yrvlllien the sh ’rt day is brightest, wi )h frosta agid fire, e brief sun flames the ice, on pond and d1 ches, At times the placement of stress, in relation to syllabic metre, gives the effect of an off-beat accent, as in the first stress in each of the 152 above two lines. The strong stress on the immediately following syllable strengthens the off-beat, or syncopative, effect. Long and short vowel patterns may be duplicated within the line, i.e., long, short, followed by long, short: I I l / If you came at ni_ght like a broken ki_ng, Or there may be an inversion: ./ . / . I I But th_13 IS the nearest, 1n p1_a_ce and time, In considering the four- stress metre, with caesura, as basic to Eliot's verse in these sections- -indeed in all of his late poetry--61 it should be made clear that the pattern is normative, not merely due to its quantitative predominance, but because it induces the same effect as a tonic key in music. Regardless of the deviations from it, and of modulations into patterns of more or fewer stresses per line, there is always a return to the four- stress pattern, with the accom- panying feeling of being "home" again, or returning to the tonic from the dominant or a related key. In those cases where a section in four- stress metre ends with a half-line of two stresses, there is no destruction of the tonic orientation; 61 In her Byron Foundation Lecture, Helen Gardner says (p. 19) "I am well aware of the embarrassing fact that Eliot himself said more than once that the staple line of his later verse was a line of three stresses. I rejoice to find, that whatever Eliot himself thought he was doing, I am supported by Professor Northrop Frye in hearing four stresses. " 4“ 1 53 rather, the two- stress line acts as a cadence, imparting a feeling of conclusion and finality to the verse: Where is the summer, the unimaginable Zero summer? But this is the nearest, in place and time, Now and in England. The opening of "The Dry Salvages" is set in a basically triple syllabic metre, which is counterpointed against an accentual metre of five stresses. Harvey Gross has noted that "although the lines move in almost regular trisyllabic feet, anape sts and dactyls, there is neither the solemn torpor of Evangeline nor the galloping frenzy 62 of The Destruction of Sennacherib. " I do not know much about gods; but I think that the river Is a strong brown god--sullen, untamed and intractable, Patient to some degree, at first recognised as a frontier; Useful, trustworthy, as a conveyor of commerce; Then only a problem confronting the builder of bridges. Besides the five principal stresses each line has a strongly felt caesura; the basic metre is anapestic pentameter, with substitutions of dactyls and spondees. But the reader is not conscious of the syllab- ic and metrical mechanics; the steady underlying pulse of the triple rhythm in conjunction with the distinct though moderate accentual stress pattern, all combined with the regularly occurring caesura 62 "T.S. Eliot and the Music of Poetry, " op. cit. , pp. 211-212. 154 and the unhurried but insistent syntactic sequence, result in a rhythmic flow which elicits a feeling of the eternal, imponderable Mississippi as it moves implacably and inexorably through the scenes of Eliot's childhood--and through all past, present, and future time as well-- to the sea. It will be noted that after an extended sequence in this metre, there is a modulation to the typical four- stress pattern, and the first section of the movement closes with four lines in that metre. (Now, while we have particularly emphasized the importance of Eliot's four- stress rhythmic mode in his mature work, its prevalence by no means precluded the development of other stress patterns in verse of this idiom. As preceding discussion and analysis will have revealed, Eliot felt a particular affinity for triple rhythms and three- stress patterns, and some of his most effective passages are in triple metres. There are a number of such sequences in Four Quartets, and in fact, it comes as a distinct surprise, considering the functional pre-eminence of the four- stress rhythm throughout the cycle, to find that most of the lines of the concluding sections of all four Quartets are in a triple- stress metre. In "Burnt Norton" the two sections of the fifth movement are separ- ated by a distinct break. Concurrently there is a change from the four- stress rhythm of the first section to one of three stresses, and with the exception of four lines this is the pattern of the entire section: .22:- “A 155 The detail of the patte/rn IS [mavement As in the fire of the ten stairs. De ii‘e itsfuis ovement N t in itself IfdieSsZable; L ve is itself unmd’ving, T?” the ca’use a d e/nd of mdvement, Tm less, and ndesirin Exc pt intheas ctoftme Cadght inu‘.1 the f rm of limita/tion Be ween lib-be] ing andféing Sudden in a s haft of s vigsht E6en while the du’st 111 There rises the hid en laughter Of ch1‘Idren in the f age / Qullck now, h re,’n no}, always-- Ridi’culous the wa’ste sad tfine Strétching befdre and fiter. In "East Coker" the move from the basic four- stress to the three- stress sequence comes within the second section of the final move- ment, with no break whatever, with the lines Thea: is a time for the ebening/ under starlight, A ti e for the e’vening under lamp ght (The e