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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Whom does the speaker of "Four Quartets: The Dry Salvages" think is a "strong brown god"?

2. The last line of Part III of "Four Quartets: East Coker" states that "where you are is" where?

3. The enemy in "Lines for an Old Man" is said to be dangling from what?

4. What word is repeated at the end of "Difficulties of a Statesman"?

5. What two things are made one in the "crowned knot of fire" discussed at the end of Part V of "Four Quartets: Little Gidding"?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is implied by the repetition of the phrase "meaning / Death," in reference to the various stages of life's enjoyment in "Marina"?

2. What is a possible interpretation of the significance of the "Midwinter spring" described in Part I of "Little Gidding"?

3. Why do the "cycles of Heaven in twenty centuries," spoken of in the first chorus from 'The Rock,' bring man further away from God and closer to dust?

4. What is meant in "Burnt Norton" by the phrase, "Only a flicker / Over the strained time-ridden faces / Distracted from distraction by distraction"?

5. What is the tone of the five parts of the "Five-Finger Exercises" and how is this indicated?

6. What characterizes the tone of the poem in "Difficulties of a Statesman"?

7. How is the "Mr. Eliot" of the "Five-Finger Exercises" satirized?

8. How was the speaker awoken in "The wind sprang up at four o'clock"?

9. What characterizes the metaphors used as description of the old man bearing the "tooth of wit" in "Lines for an Old Man"?

10. How do love and desire contrast with one another in "Burnt Norton"?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

His first major poem, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", is a commentary on the modern world and in particular on the modern man. Provide your own interpretation of this poem in an analytically interpretive essay. Who is Prufrock? What is Prufrock's status in society? What troubles the mind, thoughts, and desires of Prufrock? What characterizes Prufrock as a whole? How is Prufrock a symbol of modernity?

Essay Topic 2

In the third part of "Four Quartets - Burnt Norton" is a line which reads, "Distracted from distraction by distraction." This line has often been quoted in reference to the condition of the modern world. Evaluate the meaning of this statement, within the context of both the particular section in which it is found, the poem in which it is a part, and the society which it describes, in a well-thought-out analytical essay. What are man's distractions? Why is he distracted from them? How is man distracted in modernity? What sort of things distract him? How is this idea fleshed out in the third part of "Burnt Norton"? How is it further fleshed out in the poem as a whole? What does this distracted condition indicate about human nature and the human condition in the modern world?

Essay Topic 3

In "Choruses from 'The Rock'", it is postulated that man without the Church at the center of his life is lost. Analyze this claim in a critical essay that evaluates the messages put forth in all ten of the choruses. What is the Church itself? What does the Church provide man that the rest of the world cannot? What happens to the rest of the world, particularly insofar as men interact with it, if men put the Church at the center of their lives? What does this indicate about the nature of humanity, at least in the way that Eliot perceives it and portrays it in "Choruses from 'The Rock'"?

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