View a FREE sample

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

Short Answer Questions

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

2. By what is the "sultry light" absorbed in Part I of "East Coker"?

3. The first line of Part III of "Burnt Norton" states that "here is a place of" what?

4. By a grace of what was the speaker surrounded in "Burnt Norton," Part II?

5. Of what wisdom does the speaker hope to acquire, as stated near the end of Part II of "East Coker"?

Short Essay Questions

1. 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"?

2. 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"?

3. Why is the final sentence of "East Coker" an inversion of the first sentence?

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

5. 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"?

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

7. What is signified by the speaker's questioning of the deceitfulness of the "quiet-voiced elders" in Part II of "East Coker"?

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

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

10. What is meant by "Only by the form, the pattern, / Can words or music reach / The stillness" in "Burnt Norton"'s fifth part?

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

One of the recurring themes, but emphasized in "Burnt Norton," throughout The Four Quartets, is the notion of stillness as perfection. Analyze this notion as it is presented throughout the poems, focusing on the non-conventional ways in which stillness is spoken. What is stillness in the conventional sense? In what sense does Eliot speak of it in "Burnt Norton"? How is this different from the conventional sense? What characterizes Eliot's notion of stillness? Why is this notion of stillness a perfection? In what way is it related to movement? With what images and metaphors is it explicated and exposed? What is its overall importance in the poems?

Essay Topic 3

Time is one of the three major components of The Four Quartets, and is pondered, questioned, and considered throughout the four poems. Of particular importance in Part I of "Burnt Norton" is the consideration the speaker makes of the past, particularly its relationship to possibility. Analyze this relationship in a thoughtful essay. What is time? What are the two distinct notions of time which Eliot considers throughout the poems? What is the past? How does the past relate to the present and to the future? How does one speak of the possibilities of the past? How does the past influence the possibilities of the present and the future? What images are associated with the past and its perceived and unperceived possibilities?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,259 words (approx. 5 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample