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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. Under what are all of the dancers gone, according to the last line of Part II of "East Coker"?

2. In Part II of "East Coker," against what does the "Scorpion" fight?

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

4. What is the "dignified and commodious sacrament" mentioned in Part I of "East Coker"?

5. What does the speaker in Part I of "East Coker" state sleeps "in the empty silence"?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does the speaker mean when he states in Part V of "East Coker" that "there is no competition - / There is only the fight to recover what has been lost And found and lost again and again"?

2. What does the speaker mean in Part II of "Burnt Norton" when he states at the still point of the turning world, "there the dance is, / But neither arrest nor movement"?

3. What is an interpretative possibility for the final four lines of the first part of "East Coker"?

4. What is meant by the "intolerable wrestled / With words and meanings" in the second part of "East Coker"?

5. What does the speaker mean by commanding, in Part III of "East Coker," that one wait without hoping or loving, and that "the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting"?

6. Why does the speaker claim in Part II of "Burnt Norton" that "To be conscious is not to be in time"?

7. What does the speaker mean in the latter lines of Part III of "Burnt Norton" when he states that "This is the one way, and the other / Is the same"?

8. What are the other echoes which inhabit the rose-garden in Part I of "Burnt Norton"?

9. What is an interpretative possibility for the scene the speaker describes in the open field in the first part of "East Coker"?

10. What might be meant by the statement of the bird at the end of "Burnt Norton"'s first part, that "human kind / Cannot bear very much reality"?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

One of the principal themes in the final part of "Burnt Norton" is the relationship between words, music, and pattern and form. Analyze this relationship in a thoroughly developed critical essay. In what does the relationship consist? How is the relationship significant? What are some instances of the way in which the relationship exists? Can any words or music exist without pattern and form? How does form enable words and music to "reach / The stillness"? What does this imply about the nature of pattern and form? What does it reveal about the natures of music and words?

Essay Topic 2

In Part III of "Burnt Norton," the speaker discusses the "world of perpetual solitude." Examine this discussion in an expository essay. What is solitude? What does it mean for a person to be in solitude? What happens to a person who is continually in solitude? What would a "world of perpetual solitude" be? What sort of conditions afflict the person in such a world of perpetual solitude? How is this significant to the condition of modern man? How is understanding this sort of solitude significant to interpreting "Burnt Norton"? How is it important to interpreting the poem as a whole?

Essay Topic 3

Set off of the coast of Cape Ann, Massachusetts, "The Dry Salvages" uses many seafaring and nautical images. Throughout the poem, water plays a prevalent role. Examine the role of water throughout the poem in a critical essay. Why is water important for man? How does water benefit man? How can water harm man? In what way is man dependent on what? How has man been dependent on water in past times? How has he overcome this dependence, and what are the consequences of his overcoming it? What is the significance of water in a religious context? How is this shown in the poem? How is this religious significance important to interpretation of the work as a whole?

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