Pressing the Mind
The joy of thinking new thoughts.
Burnt Norton is a poem by T. S. Eliot. It is the first of four poems that, as a collection, are titled The Four Quartets. What I have found personally, by reading Eliot’s poems is that single words and phrases are packed with so much imagery it is impossible to understand what he is talking about until you have read the poem at least three times through. This then provides the framework upon which to then study it in more depth. Reading poetry isn’t easy.
To begin with Burnt Norton is a place.
This is true as well for the titles of the other three poems: East Coker, The Dry Salvages, and Little Gidding.
Burnt Norton was a mansion that burned down in 1741 with the owner inside. Later it was purchased by someone else and exists today. Its past never was completely forgotten. Thus its name.
What this has to do with the poem, Eliot never says, which to me, is a clue. In other words, a poem to Eliot is an opportunity to explore and in many ways find our own way to something meaningful and true. This does not mean that Eliot saw all interpretations as acceptable or true, but that he will not quibble or care if we don’t understand everything the way he did.
I believe good poetry is the most difficult literature to write even though it gives the illusion of simplicity. There is certainly structure and literary conventions based on the time in which a poem is written, but great poetry always pushes envelopes. This is certainly true of Eliot.
With this said, let’s look at the beginning of Burnt Norton.
Time present and time past Are both perhaps present in time future And time future contained in time past.
In one poetic sentence the word Time appears five times. That’s five out of nineteen words or twenty-six percent of the time. How is this good writing? For me it breaks down literary rules that well-meaning teachers attempted to help us improve our writing by. It shows that a small word repeated multiple times in a single sentence can elevate that word to the position of main theme. Eliot is writing about time. Everything to follow will have something to do with time.
One of my favorite words in this first line is the word perhaps. This is his poetic voice. Eliot is offering a thought or idea for our consideration. There is no demand that we agree, only consider.
So what is Eliot saying? I think he is showing first that we are operating in time. He is showing a timeline. Past to present to future. But there is more. Our past is connected to our present. We would not be where we are now had we not come through the events of our past. The trickiest part comes in contemplating time future. This is time that has not yet come, but still is connected. In many ways our future is implied by our pasts and present. It will grow out of these.
Having just come back from a high school reunion, I can relate at a different level to what Eliot was saying. Before going I was looking forward to seeing people I had not seen in decades, but the reason I went had to do with my past and theirs. In the future we still have all the time that went before.
Reflections like this can stabilize us from the noise and worries of our current lives that often become detached from where we have come from and where we are going.
For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.