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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Interpretively, what is meant by "those long since under earth / Nourishing the corn"? in Part I of "East Coker"?
(a) The roots of long-established families.
(b) The ancestral tradition of the West.
(c) Those who are dead and buried.
(d) Those who are asleep and preparing to farm.

2. What does the speaker in Part I of "East Coker" state sleeps "in the empty silence"?
(a) The sounds of summer.
(b) The dahlias.
(c) The noonday sun.
(d) The early owls.

3. What is disturbed on the bowl of rose-leaves, as mentioned in the first part of "Burnt Norton"?
(a) The bird.
(b) Time future.
(c) Memory.
(d) Dust.

4. What is the "dignified and commodious sacrament" mentioned in Part I of "East Coker"?
(a) Baptism.
(b) Penance.
(c) Communion.
(d) Marriage.

5. What does the speaker state is eternally present in Part I of "Burnt Norton"?
(a) The truth.
(b) Reality.
(c) The future.
(d) All of time.

6. In what way did the speaker, his auditor, and the flowers move in the garden of Part I of "Burnt Norton"?
(a) A haphazard line.
(b) A lazy stroll.
(c) A vertical mien.
(d) A formal pattern.

7. What adjective is applied to "Friday" in the final line of Part IV of "East Coker"?
(a) Good.
(b) Bloody.
(c) First.
(d) New.

8. From what are the "strained time-ridden faces" of Part III of "Burnt Norton" distracted?
(a) Stillness.
(b) Sincerity.
(c) Distraction.
(d) Opulence.

9. Into what did the characters of "Burnt Norton"'s first part look towards the end?
(a) A mirror.
(b) A pool.
(c) Their souls.
(d) The sky.

10. "Garlic and sapphires in the mud," described at the outset of Part II, clot what?
(a) The bedded axle-tree.
(b) The still point of the turning world.
(c) The artery of truth.
(d) The memory of inveterate scars.

11. What, in the first line of "Burnt Norton," Part IV, are "time and the bell" said to have buried?
(a) The day.
(b) The truth.
(c) The night.
(d) The sun.

12. For the appeasement of what does the "trilling wire in the blood" of Part II in "Burnt Norton" sing?
(a) The circulation of the lymph.
(b) The drift of stars.
(c) Long forgotten wars.
(d) Inveterate scars.

13. What is happening to "the hills and the trees, the distant panorama / And the bold imposing facade" in "East Coker"'s second part?
(a) They are being rolled away.
(b) They are being covered up.
(c) They are being disintegrated.
(d) They are being devoured.

14. What does the "wounded surgeon" ply in the first line of Part IV of "East Coker"?
(a) The steel.
(b) His eyes.
(c) His wounds.
(d) The cook.

15. The speaker questions whether or not who had "deceived us / Or deceived themselves" in Part II of "East Coker"?
(a) The smiling-eyed ancients.
(b) The ethereally moving lights.
(c) The quiet-voiced elders.
(d) The soft-spoken whispers.

Short Answer Questions

1. Only by what does the speaker postulate in Part V of "Burnt Norton," that words or music can reach the stillness?

2. Into what world does the speaker mention descending in the third part of "Burnt Norton"?

3. In what are the "Earth feet, loam feet" of Part I of "East Coker" lifted?

4. What goes in and out of "unwholesome lungs" in Part III of "Burnt Norton"?

5. What inhabits the garden of "Burnt Norton"'s first part?

(see the answer keys)

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