What do Members think of the "fire where you must move in measure like a dancer"? Firstly would it not be more appropriate to write "in which" instead of "where"? And secondly, we do not really see the connection between fire and dancing . . . indeed we are not sure that we even approve of the latter activity.

Is it not a fact that jolly old Eliot was much better at the evocative leaves and smoke sort of thing than at the metaphysical or mythological lark which frankly in his case seems derivative and second-rate? He was not entirely on top of his subject matter was he?

Only one more?! Goodness, I was only doing an impromptu bit of introductory analysis, it was completely off the cuff (I see it took me 20 minutes at most) and certainly wasn't intended to cover all the issues.

But you're right, I could have mentioned the terza rima.

Do you think 'good' or 'bad' is a quality judgment which can be applied overall to the Four Quartets, though? To me they're nothing if not uneven. Memorable phrases, as you say (though it's interesting our choices even of those might be different: 'purify the dialect of the tribe' strikes me as positively fascist in its overtones and makes me uncomfortable indeed, and 'the river is a strong brown god' is just laughable, as is most of the passage of pretentious half-baked symbolism that follows it at the beginning of 'East Coker'), and I was surprised how consistently strong the voice was in the passage I dug out from 'Little Gidding', which I'd remembered as being more uneven. This is wonderful, for example - Lord's Prayer to modernist anxiety ('last year's words belong to last year's language') and on to Wasteland-esque ('my body on a distant shore') in the space of 12 lines:

So with your own, and pray they be forgiven
     By others, as I pray you to forgive
     Both bad and good. Last season's fruit is eaten
And the fullfed beast shall kick the empty pail.
     For last year's words belong to last year's language
     And next year's words await another voice.
But, as the passage now presents no hindrance
     To the spirit unappeased and peregrine
     Between two worlds become much like each other,
So I find words I never thought to speak
     In streets I never thought I should revisit
     When I left my body on a distant shore.

But it strikes me that Eliot gets unstable almost whenever he comes too near his own theories and 'designs for life': I can just about agree with you on 'the fire and the rose are one', but 'restored by that refining fire / Where you must move in measure, like a dancer' is a bit bathetic after that wonderful phrase 'From wrong to wrong the exasperated spirit', and despite some striking images I think almost all the formal bits of the Quartets ('Ash on an old man's sleeve', etc.) are ultimately failures, damned by sloppy diction and even sloppier metaphysics.

As you say, Don, a bit medium rare. But I enjoyed doing the little introduction for SusanDoris, nonetheless.

I hadn't noticed this post when I wrote my last! It seems we agree wholeheartedly, Mr Grew!!

The more I studied and got to know The Waste Land, the more I found I disliked it. I think I annoyed the tutor of a course I attended, who was a great fan of it, by reading out in class Wendy Cope's:

Waste Land Limericks

I.
In April one seldom feels cheerful;
Dry stones, sun and dust make me fearful;
Clairvoyants distress me,
Commuters depress me--
Met Stetson and gave him an earful.

II.
She sat on a mighty fine chair,
Sparks flew as she tidied her hair;
She asks many questions,
I make few suggestions--
Bad as Albert and Lil--what a pair!

III.
The Thames runs, bones rattle, rats creep;
Tiresias fancies a peep--
A typist is laid,
A record is played--
Wei la la.  After this it gets deep.

IV.
A Phoenician called Phlebas forgot
About birds and his business--the lot.
Which is no surprise,
Since he met his demise
And was left in the ocean to rot.

V.
No water.  Dry rocks and dry throats.
Then thunder, a shower of quotes!
From The Sanskrit to Dante.
Da. Damyata.  Shantih.
I hope you'll make sense of the notes.

Well we are all of us the creatures in combination of a) the triumphant heavier metals b) all kinds of extra-temporal vibrations and c) passing intergalactic pollen clouds; thankfully though there is also the possibility of our deliverance and justification through Polytheism and Art. In other words it is we think to something in the air that credit is in this instance due.

Apropos of which, what do Members think of this bit, towards the end of the same work:

  The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew-tree
  Are of equal duration. A people without history
  Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern
  Of timeless moments. So, while the light fails
  On a winter's afternoon, in a secluded chapel
  History is now and England.

Do they follow that "for"? Or for that matter that "so"?

Is there perhaps a lot lurking in the the word 'pattern'? 

I hadn't realised 'pattern' was a the word. Now you mention it, I do see what you mean, and you may well be right. But I don't think Eliot had thought it through nearly so well as you, George.

time is now #327

Thank you for such an interesting post; that is exactly the kind of commentary I was hoping to find, so I have copied it and the poem so that I can print it off and look at it again away from the computer.