ACTA
UNIVERS1 TATIS
LODZIENSIS
FO LIA LITTERARIA A NG LICA 6, 2003___________
Alicja Piechucka
“TH IS M U SIC CREPT BY M E U PO N THE W ATERS”:
THE M USICAL QUALITY OF ELIOT’S THE W A STE LAND
AND FOUR Q U A R T E T S
A lm ost all attem pts to place the w ork o f T. S. Eliot in a larger
intellectual context look to the poetic tradition. Affinities can be lound
with the M etaphysicals, whom he revived, with D ante, whom he regarded
as C hristian E u ro p e’s culm ination, but m ostly with the F rench symbolists.
Eliot acknowledged the im portance o f the latter to m odern poetry and the
fact th at he was him self one o f the m ain heirs o f the sym bolist m ovem ent
outside F rance. In D ecem ber 1908, while Eliot was still a student, he
discovered in the library o f the H arvard U nion The Sym bolist M ovem ent
in Literature (A ckroyd 24). Eliot subsequently described this well-known
book by A rth u r Symons as one o f those which had a m ajor influence on
his oeuvre. Sym ons’ m onograph introduced Eliot directly to L atorgue,
R im baud and Verlaine, and indirectly to C orbière (Eliot 1947, 63, 71-73).
Eventually, he was to be influenced by several o f the F rench sym bolist
poets, from Baudelaire to M allarm é.
One o f the links between the works o f the sym bolist poets of nineteenthcentury F ran ce and the poetry o f T. S. Eliot is the m usicality of the verse.
T he equation between poetry and m usic becam e one of the tenets of
sym bolism , as the m usic o f the w ords provided the element of suggestiveness
th at the sym bolists were looking for. V erlaine’s A rt Poétique, w ritten in
1874 and considered to be one o f the m anifestos o f the m ovem ent, clearly
expresses this p o in t o f view:
De la musique encore et toujours!
Que ton vers soit la chose envolée
Q u’on sent qui fuit d ’une âme en allée
Vers d ’autres cieux à d ’autres amours. (Verlaine 1964, 36)
M usic lacks the elem ent o f precision which w ords possess and which the
sym bolists w anted to dispose o f V erlaine’s poem ends with a dism issal of
everything th at does no t possess this vague, suggestive, m usical quality as
m ere literature. T he sym bolists w anted to do with w ords w hat W agner had
done with m usical notes. T hey regarded this as a new call, a return to the
lost tradition o f the song, to the very heart o f poetry.
In his celebrated m onograph on T. S. Eliot entitled The Invisible Poet,
H ugh K enner refers to The Waste L and as a poem which m ight be said
to “ap p ro ach the condition o f m usic” (198). A nother critic, B ernard H arris,
writes in his essay on the presence o f Shakespeare and W agner in The
Waste Land:
There is probably no end to the fruitful annotation of The W aste Land, and there, no
doubt, its greatness lies. But . . . its “meaning” is approached most certainly by reference
to music. (116)
If the two critics are right, and a closer exam ination o f the poem seems
to support their claims, one m ight perceive the m usicality, in the broadest
sense o f the w ord, of E lio t’s opus m agnum as yet an o th er trace o f French
symbolism in his oeuvre, in particular o f the influence o f Verlaine, by far
the m ost m usical o f all sym bolists. H arris also points to this F rench legacy
when he accounts for why he claims th at The Waste L and needs “ to be
h eard ” :
I say “heard” rather than “read” deliberately, since some of the early response to The
Waste Land drew upon a musical sensitivity appropriate both to the state of critical
comprehension about the relationship of the arts in that whole phase o f “modernism ”
and to the evident musicality of Eliot as a poet. This musicality is, of course, related to
the whole system of symbolism. (106)
E liot seems to have had in m ind V erlaine’s oft-quoted line “ De la
m usique avant toute chose” when he w rote The W aste Land, a poem in
which, as T hom as R. Rees points out, m usic is one o f the d o m in an t images
(170). Rees also refers to the five sections o f E lio t’s poem as “m ovem ents”
(170), which is the m usicological term for one o f the m ain divisions in
a long m usical w ork. The W aste Land as a whole can thus be likened to
a piece of music, a symphony in five movements. Again, to quote H arris (107):
.. .it has become customary to describe the five sections as movements, and it has been
found appropriate to extend the musical comparison invited by the later poetry back to
the earliest work.
H elen G ard n er, one o f E lio t’s m ost influential critics, speaks o f “ the
sym phonic richness o f The Waste L and" (37) and claim s th a t the five
m ovem ents o f the poem , along with certain structural patterns within each
m ovem ent, give it a form sim ilar to th at o f Four Quartets, a w ork regarded
as the culm ination o f E lio t’s musicality:
As the title shows, each poem is structurally a poetic equivalent of the classical sym phonj,
or quartet, or sonata, as distinct from the suite. This structure is clear when all lour
poems are read, as they are intended to be, together, and is essentially the same as the
structure of The Waste Land. (36)
Like m ost o f the d om inant images, the m usical im agery m akes its first
appearance in the opening m ovem ent o f the poem and continues to appear
at irregular intervals th ro u g h o u t the rem aining sections. T he m usical images
in The W aste L and are initiated by the W agner lyrics in the first m ovem ent:
Frisch weht der Wind
Der Heimal zu
Mein Irisch Kind
Wo weilest du? (Eliot 1961, 52)
In the second m ovem ent they assum e the form o f a ragtim e fragm ent:
O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag - (Eliot 1961, 55)
In the third m ovem ent the m usical m o tif takes on varied and contrasting
forms:
Sweet Thames, run softly till 1 end my song,
Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long. (Eliot 1961, 58)
O the moon shone bright on Mrs. Porter
And on her daughter
They wash their feet in soda water
Et O ces voix d'enfants, chantant dans la coupole! (Eliot 1961, 59)
This music crept by me upon the waters’
And along the Strand, up Queen Victoria Street.
O City city, I can sometimes hear
Beside a public bar in Lower Thames Street,
The pleasant whining of a mandoline. (Eliot 1961, 60-61)
In this m ovem ent the m usic is soft and seductive, then vulgar and jerky,
then serious and religious, then it is once m ore soft, and finally it assumes
the sentim ental w hining quality o f a m andolin being played in a public
bar, a distant echo o f Verlaine’s Mandoline, with its graceful and nostalgic air.
Les donneurs de sérénades
Et les belles écouteuses
Echangent des propos fades
Sous les ram ures chanteuses.
Leurs courtes vestes de soie,
Leurs longues robes à queues,
Leur élégance, leur joie
Et leurs molles ombres bleues
Tourbillonnent dans l’extase
D ’une lune rose et grise,
Et la mandoline jase
Parmi les frissons de brise. (Verlaine 1985, 508)
T here is also in The Waste L and a m ore direct allusion to V erlaine’s poetry
- a q u o tatio n from his sonnet Parsifal.
‘Et O ces voix d ’enfants, chantant dans la coupole!’ (Verlaine 1985, 505)
which is at the same tim e one o f the m any m usical references in the poem ,
significantly linking the concept o f m usicality and the F rench sym bolist
who is seen as its m ain propagator.
In the last m ovem ent o f The Waste Land, the m usic takes on the
strangeness of the setting, in keeping with the overall tone o f the final section:
A woman drew her long black hair out tight
And fiddled whisper music on those strings
And bats with baby faces in the violet light
Whistled, and beat their wings
And crawled head downward down a blackened wall
And upside down in air were towers
Tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours
And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells. (Eliot 1961, 66)
L ater in the sam e m ovem ent, What the Thunder said, the speaker hears
the dry grass singing and a chanted version o f London Bridge is Falling Down.
We can thus find in The Waste Land m usical fragm ents from W ag n er’s
o p era Tristan und Isolde, a ragtim e tune, a soldier’s ballad and a nursery
song, all m elted together in a collage or potpourri. But Eliot does not
m erely include m usical references in The Waste Land. T he w hole poem is
in m any respects rem iniscent o f a m usical com position. It is, as Rees put it:
.. .a complex exercise in theme and variation, with the dom inant images symbolically
projecting at different times the different aspects of the themes of sterility, sexual love,
and fertility or rebirth. Each image in the repetitive scheme is a them atic motif, or
fractional component of the theme: it is only a salient com ponent o f a theme which
strongly implies the whole. (171)
The W aste Land is thus com posed o f a series o f intertw ined m otifs. M otifs
from all three above-m entioned them es are frequently woven together in
a single passage by m eans o f a technique called “ them atic fragm entation,
which consists in breaking up individual them es into recurring com ponents
o r m otifs (Rees 172). As Paul C hancellor put it in his study The M usic
o f " The Waste Land":
.. .the form of The Waste Land . . . may be seen as that of a symphonic poem in sonata
form using the chief symbols as its themes, and with a declaiming voice woven with it,
partly to supply related but dissonant leitmotifs. (107)
T he m otifs o f The Waste L and can be divided into leading and sub­
ordinate, the function o f the latter being to bring ou t and su p p o rt the
former, operating either independently or in conjunction with them. According
to Rees, this m ode o f com position has its genesis in the W agnerian
“ le itm o tif’, in which “ individual m otifs are subjected to successive tra n s­
form ations in m eaning as they appear in changing contexts” (172). H ugh
K enner also points to the influence o f W agner on Eliot in his m onograph,
where he writes:
“A master of m iniature,” wrote Nietzsche of Wagner, intuiting the method of the long
Eliot poem. (198)
Rees suggests th at because o f its m ultiplicity o f m otifs The W aste L and
also bears a close resem blance to the com positions o f Stravinsky, a m usician
whom Eliot greatly adm ired and whose work represents a m odern elaboration
on W agner’s m ethod. Rees thus com m ents on the R ussian com poser’s
technique in the context o f E liot’s poem :
.. .Stravinski’s Le Sacre du Printemps, for example, utilizes large numbers of rhythmical
and melodic fragments, each o f which is a thematic component of the several musical
themes. The mixture of diverse truncated phrases in Stravinski’s work makes it appear
superficially disjointed and even chaotic; yet it is unified by the incessant interlocking
repetitions of these fragments. The mingling of the most advanced dissonant harmonies
with atavistic rhythms, moreover, corresponds to the mythical-anthropological configuration
which underlies Eliot’s conception of the m odem waste land. (173)
Eliot m ay thus be said to be endow ed with as distinctly a tw entieth-century
sensibility as Stravinsky’s, and to introduce the new and the startling into
poetry in a way which is sim ilar to w hat Stravinsky did in m usic.
Bernard H arris discerns a relationship between the form o f E lio t’s poem
and the technique o f yet an o th er com poser, Bela B artok, in particular his
E-type q u arte t form , in which the first and the fifth, the second and the
fou rth m ovem ents are set in com plex relationship to each other, and the
third m ovem ent is both a pivot for and a sum m ary o f those relationsh­
ips. H arris sees a parallel between such a m usical com position and the
structure o f The Waste Land, in which “ Eliot so frequently sets begin­
nings against endings th at one is prom pted to look for ‘m ean in g ’ at the
cen tre” (108). In H a rris’ view, The Fire Sermon, section three o f The
W aste Land, is its culm ination, containing and expressing the essential
experience o f the poem .
In his treatm ent o f the different them es o f The W aste Land, Eliot
shows the skill o f a m odern sym phonic com poser. M any o f the them es
and m otifs are implied ra th e r th an stated, bu t, according to B abette
D eutsch, “ th e suggested idea is in troduced, c o u n terp o in te d , repeated,
com plicated, transposed and developed with m usicianly skill and sym phonic
effect” (132). Even apparently irrelevant m otifs, such as for instance
the T a ro t pack, are later related to the central sym bolism o f the w ork,
as the co u rt cards are transform ed into the ch aracters o f the poem .
Eliot also com plies with the sym phonic technique by m aking sure th at
each them e is treated in at least four out o f the five m ovem ents. This
is a device borrowed from H ector Berlioz, whose cyclical m ode o f com position
consisted in one them e, referred to as the “m o tto -th em e,” being com m on
to all the m ovem ents o f a sym phony. Eliot applies a sim ilar technique
to his poem , thereby giving it a dense and coherent them atic structure,
in which them es and images are used cyclically (Rees 173). As the critic
Jaco b K o rg shows, every p art o f the poem is “connected with the others,
not in a conventional way, but by m eans o f a com plicated system of
echoes, contrasts, parallels, and allusions” (456). Rees subscribes to this
p oint o f view, saying o f The Waste L and:
Eliot has brought unity to this poem by means of a musicological mode of repetitions
and variation, or interlocking them atic motifs, all of which relate to the central idea of
modern sterility. (177)
A ccording to B ernard H arris, the Song o f the T ham es-daughters, which
closes The Fire Sermon, is a m usical culm ination o f this unifying technique,
and is at the same tim e central to the experience o f The Waste Land:
There is nothing in modern poetry to equal the scale of what is attem pted here, where
the cities of Augustine, D ante, Shakespeare and the London of everyday acquaintance
are reconciled. T hat they are so related is due to the power o f the music here specifically
invoked. (114)
He also suggests th at the “ evidence of E liot’s knowledge and use o f musical
form should cause us to approach the m usic in The W aste L and with high
expectation o f its im portance” (107).
H arris is thus aw are o f the extent to which E lio t’s celebrated concept
o f “ the m usic o f p o etry ” is applicable to The W aste Land. H e also
sees in the m usical quality o f the poem “ the tran sfo rm atio n of hum an
experience beyond the capacity o f hum an utterance to express it, for
which the language o f m usic is necessary” (108). It m ay thus be claimed
th at E liot aspires alm ost to “ poésie p ure,” to sound above sense, in
his attem pt to add a purely lyrical sound effect to the poem . It seems
th at he is trying to sum m on to the reader’s ear the m usic itself. I he
sweet T ham es runs softly till the song is done, and m usic flows through
the whole poem, as though it were “creeping by us upon the w aters,”
in the form o f either direct allusions or structural principles which liken
the com position o f the poem to th at o f a m usical w ork. T he references
to W agner, which recur in the poem , startin g w ith q u o ta tio n s from
the libretto o f Tristan und Isolde and culm inating in the Song o f the
T ham es-daughters m odelled on W agner’s R hine-daughters, send the reader
back to the F ren ch sym bolists and the em phasis they placed on the
m usicality o f the verse and the prim acy o f sound over m eaning. Eliot
referred to W agner, the sym bolists’ favourite com poser and the ideal
o f M allarm é, whose am bition was to achieve in poetry w hat the G erm an
com p o ser had accom plished in m usic (M allarm é 174). In accordance
w ith th e sym bolists’ call to re tu rn to the m usical origins o f poetry,
Eliot developed the musical element in The Waste L and, adding Verlaine
and M allarm é to the num ber o f F rench sym bolist poets who influenced
him. H e incorporated into The Waste Land the m elody o f V erlaine’s
verse and M allarm é’s a ttem p t to purify and “ m usicalise” poetry, en ­
dow ing his m ost celebrated w ork with a m usical quality which tw enty
years later was to find richer and m ore varied realisation in Four Q u­
artets,, a poem which, as its very title suggests, is p ar excellence m usical.
T he year 1942 was, for several reasons, a landm ark in E liot’s poetic
career. It was the year in which he published his fam ous essay The
M usic o f Poetry, usually considered to be a sum m ing-up o f his oeuvre. It
was also the year in which, a few m onths after the publication o f the
aforem entioned essay, Eliot w rote L ittle Gidding, the last poem in a series
entitled Four Quartets and at the same tim e the last poem he w rote in
his life. Both the essay and E liot’s last poetic w ork, to which A. D.
M oody refers as “ a musical organisation o f the m in d ’s resources” (1996,
180), and which, according to B ernard Bergonzi, contains “ a true m usicalization o f th o u g h t” (M oody 1996, 167), give am ple indication o f w hat
the p o et’s debt to the art o f m usic was, and, consequently, how he dealt,
in theory as well as in practice, with one o f the m ain tenets o f F rench
sym bolism .
In Four Quartets the very title m akes it im possible to escape m usical
associations. As A. D. M oody rem arks:
The compact title plays upon severalness and singularity: four works, and yet one work.
N ot just four works either, but four to the power o f their four instruments; and still the
title declares them to be a single work. Further, the title declares the words on the pages
before us to be musical compositions, like those of Haydn or Beethoven or Bartók. W hat
then are the instrum ents of these “quartets” which are actually composed of words? And
are they truly written in quartet form? Thus the title proposes its own questions and
perspectives. (M oody 1996, 161)
B ernard Bergonzi m akes a sim ilar point when he writes:
As the title suggests, the Quartets invoke the ideal of musical form that had attracted
Eliot ever since he wrote the “Preludes” and the “Rhapsody on a Windy N ight” at the
beginning of his career, and his 1942 lecture on “The Music of Poetry” provides a useful
background to the Quartets. Indeed, it has been suggested that Eliot had one or more
specific string quartets in mind as models, and works by Beethoven and Bartók have
been suggested. However this may be, the point is worth m aking that the quartet is
a more intricately organized form than the prelude or the rhapsody, and in the Quartets
Eliot attem pts to stiffen and support the articulations of pure musical expression with
a regular and predictable form, based on a five-fold division. (164)
A closer exam ination o f the poem itself enables the reader to see how
Eliot used m usic in his solution to the problem o f finding a form for the
long poem. Four Quartets was by no m eans the first w ork in which Eliot
m ade such attem pts, bu t it was doubtless the one which m ost closely
ap p ro ach ed the condition o f m usic. T hom as R. Rees thus sum m arises
E lio t’s developm ent in this respect:
From the time of his earliest compositions Eliot has continually exploited the musical
idiom as a source of formal organization in his verse. In “ Portrait of a Lady” and “The
Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” the unity and progression o f images is based on
interlocking patterns o f repeated words and symbols, which approxim ate the progression
of interweaving motifs in the impressionistic music of Debussy and Ravel. The numerous
false starts and broken phrases o f Prufrock’s dialogue follow an incremental development
pattern similar to Chopin’s deferred resolutions. The confused and fragmentary development
of themes in The Waste Land, combined with the use of recurrent patterns in the
dom inant image-groups, reflect the fused influences of Stravinski and the Wagnerian
leitmotif. Finally, in the composition of the Four Quartets, Eliot moulds his deepest
religious feelings into a broader form at for thematic organization suggested by the
sonata-allegro form of Beethoven’s string quartets. It is a form at ideally suited to the
orderly and sustained development of contrasting themes. (303)
It m ay thus be said th at there is an analogy between the form o f Four
Q uartets and th at o f a m usical quartet. In the first m ovem ent o f a con­
ventional qu artet three m ain sections can be discerned: the exposition
section, which introduces two contrasting themes or subjects; the developm ent
section, in which these tw o them es are subjected to variations, extensions,
inversions and counterpoint; and the recapitulation section, where the
original them es, having been resolved and transfigured in the preceding
section, are restated in final form. Such a m ode o f com position is used
n o t only in quartets, but also in other types o f m usical w orks, such as
sonatas, concertos, overtures and sym phonies.
I he m ain subject o f Four Quartets is the p o et’s search for “ the point
o f intersection o f the timeless / W ith tim e” (Eliot 1990, 275-276), or, to
qu o te Rees, „th ro u g h m ortal time, for eternal reality” (304). T he poem
presents, according to H elen G a rd n er, „ a series o f m ed itatio n s upon
existence in tim e” (44). Eliot adapts this m aterial to the above-m entioned
m usical form , splitting the subject into tw o opposing but connected themes
- eternity versus tem poral m utability. In each o f the Four Quartets, nam ely
Burnt N orton, East Coker, The D ry Salvages and L ittle Gidding, these two
them es are introduced, developed and recapitulated in such a way th at the
p o e t’s ideas are expanded and am plified from q u artet to qu artet. T he two
con trasting them es are synthesised in the idea th at eternity can only be
perceived th rough one’s experiences in the tem poral world (Rulewicz X C III).
Even though m ost critics agree th at Four Q uartets can be seen as
a literary ad ap tatio n o f a m usical form , they differ in their analysis o f the
p oem ’s structure. A ccording to H elen G ardner, each o f the four poem s is
com posed o f five m ovem ents (37). She therefore suggests th a t each poem
is a separate q u artet, an interpretation which is in keeping with the title
o f the entire w ork. Rees, on the o th er hand, proposes a different approach:
.. .the reading time for all four of Eliot’s quartets is about the same as the playing time
for a string quartet or short eighteenth-century symphony. The four poems o f the
Quartets, moreover, correspond to the four movements of a conventional quartet or
symphony, except for the fact that the sonata-allegro form is repeated in all four of
Eliot’s poems. It might be preferable, therefore, to consider the entire work as one quartet,
for all of the poems are united by interlocking patterns o f dom inant images which project
the two themes of eternity and temporal mutability. (305)
G ard n er claims th at each o f the m ovem ents has “ its ow n inner structure”
(37). T he first m ovem ent in each poem im m ediately suggests a m usical
analogy, as “ it contains statem ent and counter-statem ent, o r tw o contrasted
b u t related them es, like the first and second subjects o f a m ovem ent in
strict so n ata fo rm ” (G ardner 37). In each poem , the treatm ent o f the two
subjects is slightly different. In The D ry Salvages, the river and sea images
stand for tw o different kinds o f time: the rhythm o f the m icrocosm -hum an
life, and th e rhythm o f the m acrocosm - etern ity (R ulew icz, X C V I).
T he two subjects are presented successively and contrasted. A sim ilar
tw ofold division m ay be observed in Burnt N orton, in which the contrast
is between ab stract speculation and an experience in the garden, the form er
being a m editation on consciousness, the latter a presentation of consciousness.
In East Coker, however, the first m ovem ent falls into four parts. T he first
them e o f the tim e o f the years and the seasons, the rhythm o f birth, grow th
and death, is resum ed in the third paragraph, and the second them e, the
experience o f being outside time, o f tim e having stopped, is briefly restated
at the close. In L ittle Gidding, which, according to G ard n er, is “ the m ost
brilliantly m usical o f the four poem s” (38), the third p arag rap h develops
the first two, weaving together phrases taken from both and form ing a kind
o f counterpoint. D espite these differences, however, it m ight be claimed
th at the opening m ovem ent introduces the contradictions the poem is to
reconcile.
T he construction of the second m ovem ent is guided by a different
principle: here a single subject is treated in two contrasting ways. I he
effect, to q u o te G ardner, is
.. .like that of hearing the same melody played on a different group o f instrum ents, or
differently harmonised, or hearing it syncopated, or elaborated in variations, which cannot
disguise the fact th at it is the same. (38)
This analogy with the use o f different instrum ents in the q u arte t form is
also em phasised by M oody:
.. .in quartets in sonata form the definition and the development of the themes are effected
by using the distinctive characteristics of the different instruments. The formal structure
is designed to allow the instrum ents to rem ain distinct from each other while yet
performing together, and so to treat different themes in different ways while weaving
them into “a new whole.” (Moody 1996, 163)
T he second m ovem ent opens with a highly lyric passage, which is followed
by an extrem ely colloquial passage. Thus, the sam e idea is first handled
by m eans o f m etaphors and symbols, and then developed in a conversational
m anner. T his is particularly conspicuous in The Dry Salvages:
.. .the beautiful lament for the anonymous, the endless sum of whose lives adds up to
no figure we can name, and leaves little trace but wrecks and wastage on time s ocean,
hints in its last stanza where meaning can be found, and the hint is then developed
directly, at first with little metaphor, but at the close with a full and splendid return to
the original images of the river and the sea. This return to imagery in The Dry Salvages
comes with wonderful power and force after the purging of our minds by the colloquial
and discursive passage in which the poet has deliberately deprived himself of the
assistance of imagery. It is a poetic elTect comparable to the mom ent when, after a long
and difficult passage of musical development, the original melody returns with all its
beauty. (Gardner 39)
As in the first m ovem ent, the relation between the tw o parts varies with
the character o f each poem. However, it can generally be said th at the
first part is sym bolic and lyrical, whereas the second p art is discursive,
colloquial and m editative.
T he third m ovem ent is the crux o f each qu artet, ou t o f which recon­
ciliation grows. It is devoted to the exploration o f the ideas o f the first
two m ovem ents, accom panied by sudden changes in m eaning. Helen G ardner
thus com m ents on this part o f the poem:
At the close of these centre movements, particularly in East Coker and Little Gidding,
the ear is prepared for the lyric fourth movement. The repetitive circling passage in East
Coker, in particular, where we seem to be standing still, waiting for something to happen,
for a rhythm to break out, reminds one of the bridge passage and leading passages
between two movements which Beethoven loved. The effect o f suspense here is comparable
to the sensation with which we listen to the second movement of Beethoven’s Violin
Concerto finding its way towards the rhythm of the Rondo. (41)
A brief lyrical m ovem ent follows the third p art and precedes the fifth one,
which recapitulates the them es o f the poem and resolves the contradictions
o f the first m ovem ent. As in the second m ovem ent, a division into two
parts m ay be observed, though it is slighter and reversed. T he colloquial
passage com es first, and then images return in quick succession, w ithout
any clear-cut break. T he last lines o f the fifth m ovem ent echo the beginning
o f the whole poem or use im ages from o th er poem s, and m ak e up
a conclusion which is characterised by “ tender gravity” and “ lyric sweetness”
(G ard n er 37-42).
In a different approach to the analogies between the structure o f Four
Q uartets and th at o f a musical w ork, T hom as R. Rees argues th a t since
a single m ovem ent o f a m usical qu artet constitutes a separate, autonom ous
com position with its own distinctive them es and style, it is each o f the
fo u r poem s rather than each o f the five divisions within one poem th at
should be treated as a “m ovem ent” in the m usical sense o f the term .
A ccording to Rees, “ like a m ovem ent in a m usical qu artet, each o f E lio t’s
poem s contains a full exposition, developm ent and recapitulation o f them es”
(306). T hus w hat G ard n er term s a “m ovem ent” is m erely a segm ent or
section w ithin the m ovem ent to Rees. H ow ever, the latter’s analysis o f the
stru ctu re o f these “ sections” is consistent with G a rd n e r’s.
T he com poser G ardner refers to in her study o f the m usical quality of
Four Quartets is Beethoven. Rees, on the other hand, claim s th at as
Beethoven selected different subjects and styles for each o f the m ovem ents
within his qu artets or sym phonies, Eliot m ight be said to d ep a rt from
B eethoven’s form inasm uch as m ost o f the im p o rtan t images interweave
and overlap from poem to poem . It is true th at a different set o f leading
images dom inates each o f the poem s, but it is also true th at the principal
im age patterns occur in tw o or m ore o f the poem s. T he im age o f the
g ard en , for instance, is found in all fo u r poem s. T h a t o f the sea is
predom inant in The Dry Salvages, but appears also in East Coker and
L ittle Gidding. This, according to Rees, suggests an analogy w ith an o th er
com poser:
Because of the recurrence of dom inant image patterns throughout the four poems, the
true form o f the Four Quartets in many respects resembles the form at o f H ector
Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique, which represents an elaboration on the traditional
sonata-allegro form. In addition to the regular introduction, development, and recapitu­
lation of themes, Berlioz introduces a motto-theme to unite all the movements of his
symphony, and owing to the recurrence of this theme in each movement, the form is
called cyclical.
.. .the structural organization of the Four Quartets bears at least as much resemblance to
Berlioz’s cyclical form as it does to the form of Beethoven’s string quartets. .. .Eliot
exploits the motto-them e device and thereby enhances the continuity of his work, for all
of the poems are threaded together by means of motto-images. These images, in projecting
the two themes o f eternity and temporal mutability, create a highly integrated thematic
texture. (307)
W hether the structure o f Four Quartets is m ore rem iniscent o f the form o f
B eethoven’s qu artets or o f the cyclical organisation o f Berlioz’s sym phonies
is open to dispute. However, w hat is m ore im p o rtan t is th at, as Rees puts
it, “ E lio t’s poetic dialect conform s to the dialect o f m usical discourse”
(307). N o t only opposing them es, bu t also opposing voices can be found
in Four Quartets. Eliot varies his voices like instrum ents used in a m usical
qu artet, and in Burnt Norton, for example, one m ay distinguish tw o voices,
the lyric and the didactic. Four Quartets, however, lacks the m ultiplicity of
dram atic voices th a t m ay be found in, for instance, The Waste Land. T he
voices in E lio t’s last poem are in fact various m anifestations o f a single
voice in different m oods. These oppositions in voice and them e result in
tension. A gain, to quote Rees:
Tense moments are often followed by sudden resolutions and resolutions dissolve into
conflicts, with lyric smoothness alternating with the roughness of unresolved dilemmas.
This flow of tensions and resolutions resembles the changing harm onic progressions in
a musical composition in which dissonances resolve into harmonies. (308)
In a w ord, even th o u g h v ario u s co m m en tato rs m ig h t differ in th eir
views o f the source o f the m usical influences in Four Quartets, none
o f them denies E liot’s success in exploiting the m usical idiom. E lio t’s
m eth o d m ig h t be com pared w ith the w ork o f a com poser, as H elen
G a rd n er does:
The form is inspired by the com poser’s power to explore and define, by continual
departures from, and returns to, very simple thematic material. The “thematic m aterial” of
the poem is not an idea or a myth, but partly certain common symbols. The basic
symbols are the four elements, taken as the material o f mortal life . . . Burnt Norton is
a poem about air . . . East Coker is a poem about earth . . . The Dry Salvages is a poem
about water ... Little Gidding is a poem about fire___(44-45)
In Four Quartets, however, the analogy with m usic goes m uch deeper
than a com parison o f the sections with the m ovem ents o f a quartet,
or th an an identification o f the four elem ents as “ them atic m ateria l.”
The treatm en t o f images in the poem is conspicuously rem iniscent of
m usic, and thus rem ains in keeping with E liot’s view th at the m usic
o f poetry is “ a m usic o f im agery as well as so und” (Eliot 1976, 30).
T he images reappear, but with constant m odifications and in different
contexts, and are com bined with other recurring images. Eliot does with
im agery what is done with a phrase in music. These recurrent images
seem obvious and fam iliar when one first encounters them , but, as G ardner
suggests:
As they recur they alter, as a phrase does when we hear it on a different instrum ent, or
in another key, or when it is blended and combined with another phrase, or in some
way turned round, or inverted. (48)
T he m ore one reads Four Quartets the m ore these recurring images fix
them selves in the m ind, and through them and the changes in them one
can understand the alterations in the subject and its developm ent. One of
the m any instances o f this is the image o f the yew-tree, which occurs only
three tim es in Four Quartets, bu t each tim e w ith great and different
significance. It appears in the fourth m ovem ent o f Burnt Norton'.
Time and the bell have buried the day,
The black cloud carries the sun away.
Will the sunflower turn to us, will the clematis
Stray down, bend to us; tendril and spray
Clutch and cling?
Chill
Fingers of yew be curled
Down on us? After the kingfisher’s wing
Has answered light to light, and is silent, the light is still
At the still point of the turning world. (Eliot 1990, 220)
In the above-quoted passage, the yew im age is suggestive o f death, with
con n o tatio n s o f the coldness o f the grave and a vague sense o f foreboding.
By con trast, the yew-tree as presented in the closing stanza o f The Dry
Salvages gives a sense o f security:
Here the impossible union
O f spheres of existence is actual,
Here the past and future
Are conquered, and reconciled,
Where action were otherwise movement
O f that which is only moved
And has in it no source of movement Driven by daemonic, chthonic
Powers. And right action is freedom
From past and future also.
For most of us, this is the aim
Never here to be realised;
W ho are only undefeated
Because we have gone on trying;
We, content at the last
If our temporal reversion nourish
(N ot too far from the yew-tree)
The life of significant soil. (Eliot 1990, 278)
H ere the yew-tree becomes a sym bol o f both m o rtality and im m ortality,
beneath whose shade one m ay rest in peace. It stands for harm ony. Finally,
the image reappears at the end o f L ittle Gidding:
Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning,
Every poem an epitaph. And any action
Is step to the block, to the fire, down the sea’s throat
O r to an illegible stone: and th at is where we start.
We die with the dying:
See, they depart, and we go with them.
We are born with the dead:
See, they return, and bring us with them.
The mom ent of the rose and the moment of the yew-tree
Are of equal duration. (Eliot 1990, 307)
T h e rose and the yew-tree, the understanding o f love and the understanding
o f d eath are linked together. They are b o th equally valid and essential to
the understanding o f life.
In the same way as im ages and symbols recur, certain w ords are used
again and again, their m eaning deepened o r expanded by each fresh use.
It could be claim ed th at w hat Eliot does in Four Q uartets is to explore
the m eaning o f certain w ords. These w ords resem ble the im ages and
sym bols in th at they are com m on and obvious. One takes these w ords for
gran ted when they first ap p ear in the poem . H ow ever, th ro u g h their
recurrence in some or all o f the quartets, these apparently fam iliar words
take on new m eanings and different dim ensions are added to them . The
m o st striking am ong these w ords are “ e n d ” and “ beginning” , which
som etim es occur together, and som etimes separately. It is ap a rt from the
w ord “ b eg inning” th a t “ e n d ” appears in the opening lines o f Burnt
Norton'.
What might have been and w hat has been
Point to one end, which is always present. (Eliot 1990, 215)
H ere the m eaning o f “ en d ” is still vague, even though it is plain th at it
stretches beyond “ last p a rt” or “ term in atio n ” . Yet, when the word is
repeated in the fifth m ovem ent o f the first qu artet and is connected with
“ beginning” , its sense is clarified:
.. .Only by the form, the pattern,
Can words or music reach
The stillness, as a Chinese jar still
Moves perpetually in its stillness.
N ot the stillness of the violin, while the note lasts,
N ot that only, but the co-existence,
Or say that the end precedes the beginning,
And the end and the beginning were always there
Before the beginning and after the end.
And all is always now. (Eliot 1990, 220)
T he w ord “e n d ” now stands for “com pletion” , “ pu rp o se” and “ final
cause.” In Burnt N orton the focus is on the word “ en d ” , and “ beginning
is merely an addition. In East Coker it is the other way round. I he poem
is all ab out “ beginning” . T he poem opens with the w ords “ In m y beginning
is m y end” (Eliot 1990, 243), which is an inversion o f M ary S tu a rt’s m otto
“ En m a fin est m on com m encem ent” (Rulewicz X C IV ), and ends with the
statem ent “ In m y end is m y beginning” (E liot 1990, 251), a faithful
tran slatio n o f the Scottish queen’s precept. In both cases em phasis is placed
on th e w ord “ beginning” . In L ittle Gidding, n o t only are the w ords
reiterated m any times, but synonym s for both are frequently used, and are
com bined with various meanings. As in Burnt Norton, the w ords “ beginning
and “ e n d ” are used to generate paradoxes:
W hat we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from. (Eliot 1990, 306)
N um erous other words recur in this way in Four Quartets, such as, for
example, “ p ast” , “ present” and “ fu tu re” , “m ovem ent” and “ stillness’ , and
also com m on prepositions, like “ before” and “ after” , “ here” , “ there and
“ now ” . T hus n o t only sym bols and images, but also certain w ords are part
o f the p oem ’s “ them atic m aterial.”
In Four Quartets, im ages, phrases and w ords receive m usical treatm ent,
which, due to variation and turning, brings ou t hidden m eanings and
different senses, and m akes it im possible to fix the sym bols in the poem.
As H elen G ard n er puts it:
Here one must not hunt for meanings and precise correspondencies . . . it is better
in reading poetry of this kind to trouble too little about the “ m eaning” than to
trouble too much. If there are passages whose meaning seems elusive, where we feel
we “are missing the point,” we should read on, preferably aloud; for the music and
the meaning arise at “ a point of intersection,” in the changes and m ovem ent of
the whole. (54)
W hen G a rd n e r suggests th a t while reading Four Q uartets one should
pay atten tio n to w hat she term s the “m usic o f m eaning,” which “ arises
at ‘th e p o in t o f intersection,’ w here w ord relates to w ord, phrase to
phrase, and image to im age” (55), she in fact refers to the view expressed
by Eliot him self in his essay The M usic o f Poetry. In it, the au th o r
o f The W aste L a n d claim s th a t the m usic o f p o etry and the m usic
o f the w ord lies in the intersection o f words. T he w ord itself, like the
n o te in m usic, has m eaning only in relation to o ther w ords. It. exists
in tim e and in usage; and since contexts and usage change, the life
o f a word is a continual death. How ever, w ithin a poem the w ord’s
life is preserved and it is there stable, no t in itself, but in its relations
to all the o ther w ords in the poem , which in turn are held to their
m eaning by their relations to it. T he word used in a particular context
is also associated with all the other m eanings it had in other contexts.
T h e m usical p attern o f sounds is superim posed onto the p attern o f m e­
anings, and the two layers becom e inseparable (Eliot 1976, 25). As a result,
the poetry eludes rigid classifications, and its m usic can n o t be clearly
defined. Four Quartets is based on this principle, and the m eaning and
value o f the poem stem from w hat A. D. M oody calls its “ verbal m usic”
(M oody 1996, 161).
One m ight o f course wonder how conscious Eliot was of these analog­
ies w ith m usic. A lthough it is possible to perceive such analogies as
som ething o f a confusion o f arts, it would probably be to o iar-fetched to
claim th at Eliot literally copies the effects o f a different m edium . It is,
however, obvious th at Eliot, m uch like the F rench sym bolists, believed
th at poetry was closer to the condition o f m usic th a n to th a t of, for
instance, painting or sculpture, and th at it was a tem poral art rather
th an a spatial one (Bergonzi 182). T he au th o r o f Prufrock is, in any
case, som eone who has th ought a lot ab o u t the affinities between poetry
and m usic, as this oft-quoted passage from The M usic o f Poetry shows:
I think that a poet may gain much from the study of music: how much technical
knowledge of musical form is desirable I do not know, for 1 have not that technical
knowledge myself. But I believe that the properties in which music concerns the poet
most nearly, are the sense o f rhythm and the sense o f structure. I think that il
might be possible for a poet to work too closely to musical analogies: the result
might be an effect of artificiality; but I know that a poem, or a passage o f a poem,
may tend to realize itself first as a particular rhythm before it reaches expression
in words, and that this rhythm may bring to birth the idea and the image— (Eliot
1976, 32)
Eliot insists th at “ the use o f recurrent them es is as natural to poetry as
to m usic,” and works on this assum ption th ro u g h o u t his quartets, in an
attem p t to show th at “ there are possibilities o f transitions in a poem
com parable to the different m ovem ents o f a sym phony or a q u arte t (Eliot
1976, 32).
A. D. M oody claims th at Four Quartets is “ dedicated to the ending
o f everything hum an and to silence” (M oody 1996, 161). H e thus seems
to suggest th at Eliot attem pts to approach an ideal the F rench sym bolist
S téphane M allarm é vainly pursued. O n the o th er han d , M o o d y also
states that:
.. .the poem breaks the absolute silence it aspires to, and breaks it with a virtuoso mastery
of verbal music. The mastery of course is directed towards the discovery of the spiritual
sense of things. But because the spiritual sense is beyond any sense which words can
make, the art has to work in a mainly negative way, creating space for “ the dumb spirit
by excluding whatever is not in accord with it. (Moody 1996, 173)
A ccording to M oody, Four Quartets
...asp ires to an absolute beyond words and speech, but, caught “ in the form ol
limitation,” it must use words and speech to reach towards the silence o f the divine
W ord. (M oody 1996, 179)
H e also observes that:
G etting the belter of words is of the essence of Four Quartets. Its major design is to so
use words as to make them mean what is beyond w ords— (M oody 1996, 168)
E lio t’s aspiration to w hat he him self term ed “m usical elaboration (Eliot
1976, 33) should not give rise to the m istaken belief th at the au th o r of
The Waste L and thinks the m usic o f poetry could exist independently of
the content. On the contrary, he knows this would lead to beautiful musical
poetry th at m akes no sense. Nevertheless, he does believe th at “ there are
poem s in which we are m oved by the m usic and take the sense for granted
(21). In The M usic o f Poetry he writes:
It is a comm onplace to observe that the meaning o f a poem may wholly escape
paraphrase. It is not quite so commonplacc to observe that the meaning of a poem may
be something larger than its author’s conscious purpose, and something remote from its
origins. (22)
T he view expressed here by Eliot is in keeping with H elen G a rd n e r’s
opinion. G ard n er claims th at it is pointless to desperately hunt for the
m eaning o f Four Q uartets and th at the beauty o f the poem is th at p art of
this m eaning is doom ed to rem ain elusive. Four Q uartets is n o t a poem
“ in which one ‘finds values for x, y and z’ and then can m ake the whole
work o u t” (G ard n er 54). Instead, she suggests one should “ find the
m eaning in the reading” as:
Reading in this way we may miss detailed significances, but the whole rhythm o f the
poem will not be lost, and gradually the parts will become easier for us to understand. (54)
T he “m usic of m eaning” (55) in Four Quartets is therefore close to w hat
the sym bolist Stéphane M allarm é achieved in his poetry: a poetic vision
which, though blurred and am biguous, conveys som ething transcendental
for which words hardly exist. Like M allarm é’s verse, Four Q uartets is based
on suggestion and allusiveness, and thus eludes precise interpretation. It is
also rem iniscent o f the F rench poet’s w ork in th at it is the kind o f poetry
th at aspires to possess the direct appeal o f music. M allarm é carried the
idea o f m usical effect to an extrem e, and went to o far in his attem p t to
purify poetry and transform it into a kind o f m usic. H is ideal was silence,
a kind o f unheard m usic, an absent perfection. H e disregarded the fact
th at w ords are never devoid o f m eanings, which is the m ain reason why
his doctrine failed. Eliot, however, is aw are th at such a m ethod is dangerous
as it could easily lead into the false identification o f poetry with m usic
which caused the vague obscurity o f so m uch o f M allarm é’s verse. 1 he
A nglo-A m erican poet is sure th at poetry could approach the condition of
m usic w ithout sacrificing its definite core o f m eaning. Eliot know s th at he
m ust not sacrifice either sense to sound, or sound to sense. He sum m arises
this in an essay on E zra Pound:
W ords are perhaps the hardest of all material of art: for they must be used to express
both visual beauty and beauty of sound, as well as communicating a grammatical
statement. (Eliot 1947, 126)
T his concern with w ords is also voiced in Four Quartets itself:
W ords move, music moves
Only in time; but that which is only living
Can only die. Words, after speech, reach
Into silence.
Words strain,
Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,
Will not stay still.
(Eliot 1990, 220)
In E liot’s case, however, this strife with w ords is not a losing battle. In
Four Quartets, he m anages to realise his ideal o f “ the m usic o f poetry,
which, according to him, does not only lie in the m elody o f the verse,
but also in the m usic o f words, im agery and o f the whole poetic struc­
ture (Eliot 1990, 24-30). H e m akes good use o f the F rench sym bolists
legacy and inherits the regard they had for the m usical quality of poetry,
w ithout falling into the trap o f m aking his verse m usical at the expense
o f m eaning. On the contrary, Eliot m akes m eaning with the m usic of his
verse.
T he m usicality o f poetry, an im portant aspect o f the sym bolists’ work,
was m uch appreciated by Eliot. T he au th o r o f The W aste L and learnt from
his F rench predecessors, and created his own m usic o f w ords and images.
He applied one o f the m ain tenets o f sym bolism to m odern poetry, showing
the skill o f a m odern sym phonic com poser. T he m usic o f E liot’s poetry
com prises the m elody o f the verse, but also the m usic o f w ords, imagery,
m eaning and o f the entire poetic structure. M usic helped Eliot solve the
problem o f finding a form for the long poem . But for the em phasis the
F rench poets placed on m usicality, Eliot m ight not have been able to
exploit the m usical idiom w ith such m astery, giving images, w ords and
phrases m usical treatm ent and providing them with a structural fram ew ork
resem bling th at o f a m usical com position. M oreover, by m aking his poetry
m usical Eliot intensified in it the element o f suggestiveness th at was of
crucial im portance to the symbolists. T he F rench sym bolists taught their
A nglo-A m erican heir the art o f vagueness and indirectness, which surely
m ade his own poetry herm etic and elitist enough to discourage the mass
reader, but at the sam e time contributed to the profundity and com plexity
o f E lio t’s verse in a way th a t can h ard ly be equalled by any o th er
tw entieth-century poet.
D epartm ent o f American Literature and Culture
University o f Łódź
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