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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. The "time" which the speaker mentions in Part I of "The Dry Salvages" is older than "time counted by" what?

2. The speaker's interlocutor in Part II of "Little Gidding" says that "next year's words await another" what?

3. History is said, in Part V of "Little Gidding," to be a pattern of what?

4. The speaker says in Part II of "The Dry Salvages" that the God of the bone's prayer is whom?

5. In the litany of "usual / Pastimes and drugs, and features of the press," given in Part V of "The Dry Salvages," communication with which god is listed?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is an interpretative way to read the significance of the "ragged rock" being "what it always was," at the end of Part II of "The Dry Salvages"?

2. What is meant by the statement in Part II of "Little Gidding" that "Water and fire deride / The sacrifice that we denied"?

3. What is meant by the line, "You are not the same people who left that station," in Part III of "The Dry Salvages"?

4. What does the speaker mean when he states, in the last part of "The Dry Salvages," that "Here the impossible union / Of spheres of existence is actual"?

5. 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"?

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

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

8. With whom does the speaker of Part II of "Little Gidding" converse, and what is their relationship to one another, on the literal level?

9. What is meant in Part III of "Little Gidding" by "not less of love but expanding / Of love beyond desire, and so liberation / From the future as well as the past"?

10. Why is the "strong brown god" of Part I of "The Dry Salvages" "almost forgotten / By the dwellers in cities"?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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?

Essay Topic 2

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 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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