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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. What is said to be "not here" in this "twittering world" in the "Burnt Norton"'s third part?

2. The speaker states in the third part of "East Coker" that "In order to arrive at what you do not know / You must go by a way which is the way of" what?

3. To whose funeral(s) do they all, in "East Coker," Part III, go?

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

5. Of what world's inoperancy does the poem's narrator speak of in "Burnt Norton," Part III?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

3. 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"?

4. 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"?

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

6. 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"?

7. What purpose is served by the string of paradoxical statements at the end of Part III of "East Coker"?

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

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

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

Part V of "The Dry Salvages" sees the speaker discuss the essential, inherent need of human persons for faith. Analyze this discussion in an essay both expository and critical. What is faith? Why is faith important? What sort of things do human persons ordinarily seek as objects of faith? Why do people seek this faith? Why, in the estimation of the speaker, are these common objects and common faiths unsatisfactory? What sort of faith is satisfactory? In what does this sort of faith consist? Who possesses this faith? What does this indicate about the nature of faith? What does this indicate about the nature of the human person in regards to faith and fulfillment?

Essay Topic 2

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 3

Recurrent as a character throughout The Four Quartets, Christ is referred to in many different ways. In Part IV of "East Coker," he is called the "wounded surgeon." Analyze this identity of Christ in Part IV, both within its particular analogy and as significant to the whole of the work. Why is Christ called the "wounded surgeon"? What are his wounds? In what way is he a surgeon? What surgery does he perform? Upon whom does he perform it? What is the relationship between health and disease in Part IV of "East Coker"? How is this significant to the whole of the poem? How is it significant to the interpretation of all four poems? How is Christ's role as healer significant to the whole of the work?

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