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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. Across what does the light fall, mentioned by the speaker in Part I of "East Coker" after the second time he utters the phrase "In my beginning is my end"?

2. How many years "largely wasted, the years of l'entre deux guerres," does the speaker mention having passed in Part V of "East Coker"?

3. What month is mentioned in the first line of the second part of "East Coker"?

4. From what is man said in Part II of "Burnt Norton" to be protected by the "enchainment of past and future" in the body?

5. What does the speaker state is eternally present in Part I of "Burnt Norton"?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the significance of the first 13 lines of "East Coker"?

2. What does the speaker mean in Part IV of "East Coker" when he states that "Our only health is the disease"?

3. What is the significance of the dark, mentioned repeatedly at the beginning of Part III of "East Coker," into which "they" all go?

4. What is a possible interpretation of the fourth part of "Burnt Norton"?

5. What is the purpose of the line, repeated and modified throughout the first part of "East Coker," "In my beginning is my end"?

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

7. 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"?

8. What is signified by the phrase in Part III of "East Coker," "the growing terror of nothing to think about"?

9. Why does the speaker find "only a limited value / In the knowledge derived from experience" in Part II of "East Coker"?

10. Why does the speaker of "East Coker" want only to hear of the folly of old men, in Part II of "East Coker"?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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?

Essay Topic 2

Part III of "The Dry Salvages" begins with a meditation upon the nature of time future. Explicate this meditation in all of its imagery and significance. What images are associated with the future? How does man think of the future? How do these images demonstrate man's thinking of the future? In what way is the future uncertain? In what way is the future predetermined? How do these images demonstrate this? What is the significance of the future to the present? How does man relate the possibilities of the future to the present? In what way does the speaker disdain of this and why? What is the significance of the future, as it is discussed in the poem, to the interpretation of the poems as a whole?

Essay Topic 3

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?

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