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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. In what month would the auditor of the first part of "Little Gidding" find the hedges white again, "with voluptuary sweetness"?

2. The speaker asserts in Part I of "The Dry Salvages" that the sea has many what?

3. The speaker says near the end of Part III of "Little Gidding" that "We have taken from the defeated / What they had to leave us--a" what?

4. Describing the correct cohesion of language, the speaker in Part V of "Little Gidding" describes the "common word exact without vulgarity, / The formal word precise but not" what?

5. The third of the "conditions which often look alike" in Part III of "Little Gidding" is what?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is significant about the speaker's discussion of the strangeness of the sea in relation to man, in Part I of "The Dry Salvages"?

2. What does the speaker mean by saying in Part V of "The Dry Salvages" that "to apprehend / The point of intersection of the timeless / With time, is an occupation for the saint"?

3. How is "Time the destroyer" also "time the preserver," as stated in Part II of "The Dry Salvages"?

4. What does the speaker mean in Part I of "The Dry Salvages" by "The tolling bell / Measures time not our time"?

5. How can one be "redeemed from fire by fire," as is stated in Part IV of "Little Gidding"?

6. What does the speaker mean by saying in Part I of "Little Gidding" that "prayer is more / Than an order of words, the conscious occupation / Of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying"?

7. What characterizes the "gifts reserved for age" which the interlocutor of Part II of "Little Gidding" describes to the poem's speaker?

8. Explain what is meant by the paradoxical statement in Part V of "The Dry Salvages," "music heard so deeply / That it is not heard at all."

9. What does the speaker mean in Part III of "The Dry Salvages" when he states that, "the future is a faded song, a Royal Rose or a lavender spray / Of wistful regret for those who are not yet here to regret"?

10. What is meant in Part III of "Little Gidding" by "We cannot revive old factions / We cannot restore old policies / Or follow an antique drum"?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Each of The Four Quartets is both united to the others and yet distinct with a complete meaning unto itself. Discuss the principal themes in "Burnt Norton," including time, the past, stillness, motion, and pattern, indicating the ways in which they are unified and present a coherent thought. How are these themes presented in the poem? What unites them? How are they, as a coherent whole, related to the other poems in the work? What is the significance of these relations? How do they help to unveil the overall meaning of "Burnt Norton"? How does this overall meaning contribute to interpretation of the whole work?

Essay Topic 2

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?

Essay Topic 3

Throughout all four of the poems in The Four Quartets, circularity and wholeness are brought to light and the object of hints and vague statements. In the final part of "Little Gidding," they are summed up and the poems are brought into a sort of unity. Discuss the manner in which they are unified and how they are all interrelated, as demonstrated in this final part. In what way is the final part of the work a conclusion of the whole? How does it relate to each of the four poems? How does it contain them all? How is the beginning shown to be in the end? How is the end found in the beginning? What does this indicate about human nature? What does this indicate about the world and about time? How does it relate to the prevalent concern with the universal and infinite that pervades the poetry?

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