Duke University Press, University of Oregon Comparative Literature

University of Oregon
Canon Cancrizans and the Four Quartets

Author(s): Elizabeth S. Dallas
Source: Comparative Literature, Vol. 17, No. 3 (Summer, 1965), pp. 193-208
Published by: Duke University Press on behalf of the University of Oregon
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1769823
Accessed: 25-06-2016 19:28 UTC
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted
digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about
JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
Duke University Press, University of Oregon are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and
extend access to Comparative Literature
This content downloaded from 159.178.22.27 on Sat, 25 Jun 2016 19:28:20 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
volume xvii
summer i965
number 3
ELIZABETH S. DALLAS
Canon Cancrizans
And the Four Quartets
N T. S. ELIOT'S poetry, prose, and plays there is a gradually

developed understanding and application of the principle that an in-
separable relationship exists between form and material in a work of art.
From the time of the early poems, Prufrock and Other Observations
(1917), Eliot combined the technique and poetic concepts which later
became prime factors in the formal structure of his poems and plays.1
In his critical studies, he frequently discussed the problem of artistic
form. Fundamental in his technique is an understanding of the "past-
ness and the presence of the past," the poet's "place in time," and the
co-existence of the "timeless" and the "temporal" as both separate and
integrated entities.2 It is this developed historical sense which enabled
Eliot to manipulate the opposed tensions inherent in the juxtaposition
of the changeless and the changing as a basis for the form of a poem. In
this study I am concerned with the relationship of form and material
and the technical application of this principle as a basic factor in the
formal structure of the Four Quartets.3 In addition, I shall consider
an historical model of the principle.
1 For example, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufock" reflects a close correla-
tion between the stanza form and the fragmented, wandering flow of Prufrock's
thoughts, particularly in connection with the unequal number of lines in the dif-
ferent stanzas and the variable speech rhythms. In "Portrait of a Lady" he ob-
serves that "our beginnings never know our ends," and the significance of the
individual's relationship to time and place is suggested in "The Boston Evening
Transcript": "If the street were time and he at the end of the street." T. S. Eliot,
The Complete Poems and Plays 1909-1950 (New York, 1952), pp. 11, 17. All
quotations from Eliot's poems are from this edition. Subsequent references are
cited in the text.
2 T. S. Eliot, "Tradition and the Individual Talent" (1919), in Selected Essays,
new ed. (New York, 1950), p. 4.
3 A comparison of the form of the Four Quartets with the form of Eliot's plays,
particularly with Murder in the Cathedral, shows the further development and cul-
193
COMPARATIVE LITERATURE
When a poet begins a poem, he may not be fully aware of the ulti-
mate result. Eliot describes the mind of a poet as a kind of storehouse
of combined ideas which will yield the proper new idea at the appro-
priate time and cites the last four lines of Canto XV of the Inferno as
an example of the fruition of an idea "which was probably in suspen-
sion in the poet's mind until the proper combination arrived for it to
add itself..."4 Selection of poetic material, then, is not necessarily a
process of molding a work of art that will fit either an originally com-
plete idea or a preconceived formal pattern. Rather, the selection of
material is a response that functions through the association of ideas;
and the form of a poem develops and takes its shape from the order
which is inherent in the material, or substance, of the poem.5 The con-
cept of an inherent order suggests the presence of some kind of pattern
in the material; according to Eliot, "... a poem, or a passage of a poem,
may tend to realize itself first as a particular rhythm before it reaches
expression in words; and... this rhythm may bring to birth the idea
and the image."6 Thus, in the creative process, it would seem that a spe-
cific idea which has been suspended in the poet's mind may be con-
sciously realized, initially, in an abstract form, a "particular rhythm."
When the abstraction is finally associated with and replaced by the
consciously realized idea, or image, the poet is able to formulate it in
concrete words which will communicate to others both the formal shape
and the psychic material of his abstract impression. The ability to
recognize the rhythmic abstraction as meaningful requires an under-
standing of the function of rhythm in poetic structure, and a poet who
possesses that understanding will intuitively control the rhythmic order
mination of his structural technique. See also: Louis L. Martz, "The Wheel and
the Point: Aspects of Imagery and Theme in Eliot's Later Poetry," T. S. Eliot:
A Selected Critique, ed. Leonard Unger (New York and Toronto, 1948), pp. 444-
462; Donna Gerstenberger, "The Saint and the Circle: The Dramatic Potential
of an Image," Criticism, II (1960), 336-341; and Richmond Y. Hathorn, Tragedy,
Myth, and Mystery (Bloomington, Ind., 1962), pp. 195-216.
4 Eliot, Selected Essays, p. 8.
5 Sean Lucy defines Eliot's use of the words "form" and "material" as referring
to "formal shape", and "psychic material" in a passage he quotes from Eliot's es-
say, The Three Voices of Poetry (1953): "What happens is a simultaneous de-
velopment of form and material; for the form affects the material at every stage;
and perhaps all the material does is to repeat 'not that! not that !' in the face of
each unsuccessful attempt at formal organization; and finally the material is iden-
tified with its form." Sean Lucy, T. S. Eliot and the Idea of Tradition (New York,
1960), p. 103.
6 T. S. Eliot, "The Music of Poetry" (1942), in On Poetry and Poets (New
York, 1957), p. 32. A relationship between form and rhythm in poetry is recog-
nized by James Devaney when he says "that the poet will inevitably find his own
form for every poem, a sort of pattern which is largely the rhythm of the thing,
and which gives unity to the whole." James Devaney, Poetry in our Time: A
Review of Contemporary Values (Victoria, 1952), p. 80.
194
CANON CANCRIZANS AND FOUR QUARTETS
of his poetic ideas or images with a patterned application of the par-

ticular rhythm that is inherent in his material.
Eliot employed some of the philosophical concepts expressed in the
cosmological speculations of Heraclitus as the basic material for the
Four Quartets. In the Cosmic Fragments, Heraclitus' teaching con-
cerning the eternal repetition of opposition and change which takes
place in nature is expressed in several ways. Fragments of particular
relevance to this study are:
Fragment XX: This world, which is the same for all, was made neither by a
god nor by man, but it ever was, and is, and shall be, ever-living Fire, in measures
being kindled and in measures going out.
Fragment LVI: The attunement of the world is of opposite tensions, as is that
of the harp or bow.
Fragment LXIX: The road up and the road down is one and the same.
Fragment LXX: The beginning and end are common.7
These fragments suggest an understanding of a universal rhythm

which results from the constantly recurring pattern of the movement
of opposites toward one another with a fusing into oneness at the point
of interception to form a moment of suspension of movement, a mid-
point pause. For Heraclitus the midpoint of suspension is represen-
tative of the point of balance between the known and unknown, or
changing and changeless, worlds of man.8 The simple image of the bow,
in which the stress of two opposite but equal tensions produces a per-
fect arch having a single midpoint of suspended stress, is a graphic
representation of this view.
The structural pattern of the Four Quartets contains the same rhyth-
mical movement as its underlying principle of unity and variety. Ac-
tivated by the interplay of the images, the patterned movement of
opposites recurs over and over on all levels from the smallest segments
of detail to the total design of the set. It is predominant in the line-by-
line meter, the interrelationship of the four poems, and the relationship
of the five sections of each poem.
A strong four-beat rhythm, which places stress on key words rather
than syllables and is equally divided by a pause of beatless time, is the
7 "Heracleitus: On the Universe," Hippocrates, IV, The Loeb Classical Libra-
ry, trans. W. H. S. Jones (London, 1931), pp. 477-493. For a detailed analysis of
the cyclic rhythmical patterns to be found in Heraclitus, see William C. Kirk, Jr.,
Fire in the Cosmological Speculations of Heracleitus, pp. 15, 17, 21, 22, and 25.
8 Elizabeth Drew, T. S. Eliot: The Design of his Poetry (New York, 1950), p.
155, states that "Heraclitus' system had no still point." However, it seems to me
that the fragments suggest otherwise. Cf. Copernicus, De Revolutionibus (in
Harvard Classics, XXXIX, 58) "Heraklides of Pontus . .. make[s] the earth
move, not changing its position, however, confined in its falling and rising around
its own center in the manner of a wheel."
195
basic unit of the structural pattern.9 In the opening lines of Burnt

Norton the symmetrical grouping of stress patterns is immediately set
in the meter.
Time present [ and time past

Are both perhaps present [ in time future
And time future contained in time past.
(I, p. 117)
Throughout the Four Quartets the stress pattern varies in duration by

shifting from the initial stress on key words to syllables and back to
words again. Deviations from the basic four-beat unit appear as three-
beat or six-beat patterns; sometimes two-, five-, seven-, or eight-beat
patterns occur. Whatever the number of beats used, the opposite ten-
sions resulting from balanced, opposing movements coming together
at a midpoint pause are retained.
The directional impetus contained in the rhythm of the lines quoted
above is derived from the abstract concepts which the words create in
the mind. "Time present and time past" have obvious oppositions. In
the last line of East Coker the same kind of opposition is clear: "In
my end is my beginning" (V, p. 129). The idea is more subtle in the
opening lines of The Dry Salvages. In the first line, the words "I do
not know much" are negative in thought and do not provide an impetus
to movement; but "I think" is positive and begins the movement which
"river" carries forward. The second line has a strong self-contained
opposition: "Is a strong brown god-sullen, untamed and intractable"
(I, p. 130). Similar rhythmical movement can be seen in the opening
line of Little Gidding, "Midwinter spring is its own season" (I, p. 138).
The movement of the images retains the basic rhythm and stress
pattern of opposite tensions on a broad scale as well as in small detail.
In Burnt Norton the sense of movement permeates the entire specula-
tion on the opposed aspects of time present, time past, and time future.
From the very first image a sense of moving forward is constantly
maintained by active words.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose garden
(I, p. 117)
The dance along the artery

The circulation of the lymph
Are figured in the drift of stars
(II, p. 118)
9 Helen Gardner, The Art of T. S. Eliot (New York, 1959), pp. 1-35.
196
Descend lower, descend only

Into the world of perpetual solitude,
(III, p. 120)
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?
(IV, p. 121)
The detail of the pattern is movement

(V, p. 122)
The line from Section V may be viewed as a reference to the motion

inherent in the formal structure as well as the material.
The impetus of the movement of the images is retained in East
Coker, but the scope of movement is widened to include the larger
natural world rhythms.
In a warm haze the sultry light

Is absorbed, not refracted, by grey stone.
(I, p. 123)
What is the late November doing

With the disturbance of the spring
And creatures of the summer heat,
And snowdrops writhing under feet
(II, p. 124)
Whisper of running streams, and winter lightning.

The wild thyme unseen and the wild strawberry,
The laughter in the garden, echoed ecstasy
Not lost, but requiring, pointing to the agony
Of death and birth.
(III, p. 127)
The whole earth is our hospital
Endowed by the ruined millionaire,
(IV, p. 128)
As we grow older
The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living.
(V, p. 129)
Considering Burnt Norton and East Coker as a pair, we can discern

a step-by-step variation of the poet's intimate identification with the
natural world, in which he responds to the small, the gentle details of
life, into an expanded relationship of man to the elements, the seasons,
the enigmatic joy of life, the illness of the world, and the ultimate in-
comprehensible mixture of life and death and time. Eliot moves from
self to non-self, just as he moves from warmth to coldness.
197
Throughout East Coker the opposition of warmth and coldness is

constantly reiterated and expanded. Beginning with the image of
November presented in Section II, the opposition to the warmth of
Section I is sustained to the closing lines of the poem, which firmly
establish the feeling of a bleak, cold, desolate winter.
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.
(V, p. 129)
The Burnt Norton-East Coker pair is connected to the Dry Salvages-

Little Gidding pair by the principal transitional passage of the whole
set, appearing in the beginning of The Dry Salvages, which provides
a moment of suspension between the two pairs. One of the first indica-
tions of the tensions which are sustained in the last two poems as a
pair, and which are opposed in movement to that of the first pair, is
contained there in the implication of new growth and rebirth suggested
by the reference to an opposite season. The "brown god" river keeps
"his seasons and rages," and his rhythms, "in the rank ailanthus of the
April dooryard" (I, p. 130). In East Coker the nature images were set
on land; opposed to this we have the beat of the sea against the land
in The Dry Salvages.
The sea is the land's edge also, the granite
Into which it reaches, the beaches where it tosses
Its hints of earlier and other creation:
(I, p. 130)
And the ragged rock in the restless waters,
Waves wash over it, fogs conceal it;
(II, p. 133)
0 voyagers, 0 seamen,
You who come to port, and you whose bodies
Will suffer the trial and judgement of the sea,
(III, p. 135)
Also pray for those who were in ships, and
Ended their voyage on the sand, in the sea's lips
(IV, p. 135)
To report the behaviour of the sea monster,
(V, p. 135)
The reversed direction of the total image movement is continued in
Little Gidding. There is a return to land, a return to the past from
which new life is kindled, a return to our beginning.
If you came this way,
Taking the route you would be likely to take
From the place you would be likely to come from,
(I, p. 138)
198
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.
(II, p. 141)
History may be servitude,

History may be freedom. See, now they vanish,
The faces and places, with the self which, as it could, loved them,
To become renewed, transfigured, in another pattern.
(III, p. 142)
We only live, only suspire

Consumed by either fire or fire.
(IV, p. 144)
What 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.
(V, p. 144)
We also find Eliot's fundamental rhythmical pattern functioning in

the relationship of the five sections of each of the Four Quartets. The
quoted passages from each poem reflect the structure of that whole
poem. In Sections I and II there is a suggestion of a forward, rising
motion; and this movement is opposed by the turning back, falling mo-
tion in Sections IV and V. The third section of each poem serves as the
pause between the other four paired sections.
In its structure, East Coker is representative of the other three
poems.10 The outside perimeters are defined by the opening line of the
first section, "In my beginning is my end," and the last line of the fifth
section, "In my end is my beginning." In addition to being the sub-
stance of the poem, both lines might also be considered as a direct ref-
erence to the formal structure.
The opening lines of the poem provide a sense of the forward motion
that is inherent in nature.
In succession
Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended,
Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place
Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass.
(I, p. 123)
Successive vertical fluctuations are repeated several times; but the for-
ward motion is not lost, for "Dawn points, and another day / Prepares
for heat and silence" (I, p. 124). The contrasts of chaos contained
10 East Coker has been analyzed frequently, and each study that I have con-
sulted presents an interpretation which can be correlated with the rhythmic pat-
tern principle presented here. For example, compare Curtis Bradford, "Footnote
to East Coker: A Reading," Sewanee Review, LII (1944), 169-175.
199
within established order are presented in Section II, while the impetus
through succession is still retained:
The knowledge imposes a pattern, and falsifies,
For the pattern is new in every moment
And every moment is a new and shocking
Valuation of all we have been.
(II, p. 125)
The midpoint pause, represented by the third section, is immediately

introduced by the word "vacant" in line two, "The vacant interstellar
spaces, the vacant into the vacant." After the rhythmical suspension is
firmly established by the line, "I said to my soul, be still, and let the
dark come upon you," a reversing of the directional impetus within the
pause is first activated through the use of the three similes. From the
preceding darkness of the past, one turns back into an artificial dark-
ness which exists "as in a theatre," where "The lights are extinguished,
for the scene to be changed." Human awareness of an unknown move-
ment persisting in a known darkness, "as, when an underground train"
pauses in the tube, is increased "when, under ether, the mind is con-
scious but conscious of nothing" (III, p. 126).
A preparation for a second reversal of direction occurs when we are
told to "Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought / So
the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing" (III,
p. 127). The idea of waiting creates a hovering motionlessness until the
darkness becoming light and the stillness becoming dancing turns the
direction again to the original forward movement of nature with its
whispering, running streams.
Abruptly the directional movement within the pause reverses for a
third time, and our thoughts are turned back to the content which has
immediately preceded, back to the content of Sections I and II, and
back to the content of Burnt Norton, with the poet's assertion that he
shall, and must, repeat what he has already said. Although the direc-
tional movement of thought is reversed, the forward-moving impetus of
succession in nature ("and," "and," "and") is reiterated in the closing
lines, suggesting a tentative return to the original direction present at
the beginning of Section III.
The direction of the opposing tension contained in Sections IV and
V, delineated by the last line, receives its impetus from the concept of
man's power to resist chaos. Purposeful opposition represented by a
human institution, the hospital, is depicted in Section IV. In forceful
opposition to the drive and the decay of nature, man assumes a physical
defense coupled with a spiritual defense strengthened by maintaining
hope for mankind. Section V continues the contemplation of hope for
200
man and finds the source of strength in the human spirit as existing
in the power and act of self-criticism. For Eliot, this is accomplished
through artistic activity, and he considers himself to be at the mid-
point of suspension.
So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years-
Twenty years largely wasted, the years of l'entre deux guerres-
Trying to learn to use words, and every attempt
Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure
(V, p. 128)
Finally, man is free to contemplate his physical and spiritual rela-

tionship to nature, and he must do so in spite of the drive and decay
of nature.
Old men ought to be explorers
Here and there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
(V, p. 129)
The countermovement in thought content is carried through to the

closing line, thus completing the self-enclosed structure of the poem.
The structurally unifying function of Eliot's imagery has been
recognized by some critics. Mark Reinsberg considers the bird image
to be architecturally functional in tying the set of poems into a cyclic
unity."1 The symbolism of "the still point" is considered by D. E. S.
Maxwell to function as "the focus at which all temporal action and
movement are concentrated and resolved."'2 In her detailed analysis
of Burnt Norton, Elizabeth Drew interprets the reiteration and varia-
tion of the rose-garden image as a unifying element in the whole poem
and associates the concept of the still point as being especially signifi-
cant in the third section.13 However, there does not seem to be a gen-
eral recognition that a unified formal structure takes its shape from
these elements because of their rhythmical recurrence in a specific
pattern.
Other critics have taken the position that the Four Quartets is struc-
tured in accordance with musical quartet form. Stephen Spender was
one of the earliest writers to formulate a parallel between the "archi-
11 Mark Reinsberg, "A Footnote to Four Quartets," American Literature, XXI
(1949), 343-344. John Bradbury does not consider the image patterns to be archi-
tectural factors; however, his entire discussion of the fire, air, earth, and water
imagery recognizes the rhythmical recurrence of images. John Bradbury, "Four
Quartets: The Structural Symbolism," Sewanee Review, LIX (1951), 254-270.
12 D. E. S. Maxwell, The Poetry of T. S. Eliot (New York, 1952), pp. 172-173.
13 Drew, pp. 153-160. See also Eric Thompson, T. S. Eliot: The Metaphysical
Perspective (Carbondale, Ill., 1963), pp. 80-142.
201
tecture" of Beethoven's last string quartets and Eliot's poetry. In 1936

(the year Burnt Norton was first published) Spender wrote that "cer-
tain ... effects in the late Beethoven Quartets remind [me] ... of Ash
Wednesday," and he specifically compares the Quartet, Opus 130, in
A minor.14 Ten years later Raymond Preston drew an analogy be-
tween the structure of Eliot's Four Quartets and that of Beethoven's
last quartets.15 Frank Wilson analyzed The Waste Land as analogous
to the structure of a Beethoven symphony and extended the interpre-
tation to the Four Quartets."6 In her detailed comparison of the struc-
ture of the Four Quartets with musical sonata form, Helen Gardner
states that "the title shows, each poem is structurally a poetic equiva-
lent of the classical symphony, or quartet, or sonata, as distinct from
the suite"; but she also adds that "Mr. Eliot is not imitating 'sonata
form.' "17 Herbert Howarth asserts that Beethoven's A Minor Quartet
was the model for the form of Burnt Norton and again for East Coker,
which he considers to be the more successful "formal reproduction of
Beethoven's pattern."18 The sonata analogy is repeated again by C. A.
14 Stephen Spender, The Destructive Element: A Study of Modern Writers
and Beliefs (Boston and New York, 1936), p. 150.
15 Raymond Preston, 'Four Quartets' Rehearsed (New York, 1946). On p. 41
Preston states: "But to the reader who is attending, if Beethoven reached beyond
music in his last Quartets, Eliot reaches beyond poetry in these poems.1" Footnote
1 erroneously asserts that "In an unpublished lecture quoted on pp. 89-90 of
Matthiessen's book, The Achievement of T. S. Eliot, Mr. Eliot used this compari-
son in stating his aims as a poet. Perhaps it is no accident that the association is
prompted by his title, Four Quartets." Matthiessen actually gives the quotation as:
"To go beyond poetry, as Beethoven, in his later works strove to get beyond
music." There is no specific reference to quartets.
16 Frank Wilson, Sir Essays on the Development of T. S. Eliot (London, 1948),
pp. 24-54.
17 Helen Gardner, "The Music of 'Four Quartets,'" in The Art of T. S. Eliot
(New York, 1959), pp. 36-37. In spite of her own warning, Miss Gardner's ex-
tensive discussion is unquestionably oriented around the analogy. The structural
factors she cites are common to innumerable types of musical forms and are not
sufficient evidence to support the sonata-quartet-symphony analogy. Perhaps the
strongest characteristic which negates the analogy is that sonata form depends
upon the principle of thematic development, the process of selecting isolated parts
from the original total idea and evolving them into something completely new and
unrecognizable as being connected with the original order of musical material.
Eliot uses a theme and variation in the Four Quartets, and the outstanding charac-
teristic is the retention of a fixed element which is always present in its complete
original order and remains clearly recognizable throughout the entire work.
Nearly all of these authors consider the title of the poems as a definitive indication
of their form. However, it seems more plausible to accept Elizabeth Drew's inter-
pretation of the philosophical "quaternities," pp. 146-147, and the further applica-
tion of the quaternities concept that is made by Sister M. Cleophas, "Notes on
Levels of Meaning in 'Four Quartets,'" Renascence, II (1950), 102-116, as pos-
sible explanations of the significance of the title.
18 Herbert Howarth, "Eliot, Beethoven, and J. W. N. Sullivan," CL, IX (1957),
325. Howarth also states that Eliot continued to apply the pattern in his plays,
202
Bodelsen; aside from the analogy, he observes some of the significant

reversals of thought present in the third section of the four poems.'
In Marcello Pagnini's study we see the structural significance of rhythm
patterns in these poems. Although Pagnini also relies on the sonata
analogy, his observations concerning the rhythmical design of Eliot's
"fraseggi" and "phonetic interlacing" provide us with a valuable ex-
ample of the presence of the fundamental rhythmical pattern in small
detail, particularly noticeable in the alliteration, assonance, and word
repetitions.20
The form of the Four Quartets does bear a close resemblance to a
structural pattern found in music-the poetic-musical mediaeval ron-
deau. In the old rondeau, the order of the lines and of the rime is in the
pattern of opposed tensions. An eight-line rondeau is characterized by
the fact that "the beginning and the end are common"; and a midpoint
suspension, a sense of motionlessness, results from the repetition of
the first half of the refrain in the middle of the poem. Emphasis of the
suspension is achieved through the repetition of line one in line four, fol-
lowed by an introduction of new material with a repetition of rime in line
five. In addition to the static effect of the repeated end-line rime, there is
a dual effect of movement and countermovement present in the back-
ward reference of line four followed by the forward movement suggested
by the new material of line five, a transition line. The tension of oppo-
sites is clearly present in the closing lines six to eight. First, the rime
scheme of lines one to three is reversed, or mirrored; an ABa rime be-
comes bAB. In addition to the strength of the mirrored rime, the tex-
tual reference back to the beginning of the poem completes the pattern
of opposed movement.
During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, rondeaux were fre-
quently set to music, and the musical setting was also called the ron-
deau. Its musical structure was controlled by the poetic text and was
divided into two melodic units. If the lines of the poem were par-
ticularly long, having several phrases, the musical units would cor-
respond; and the repetition of the two melodies would follow the
repetition of the text. The most frequent scheme shows one line of the
poem set to one unit of melodic material. Using letters to indicate the
p. 331. Cf. Peter Kline, who writes that: "From Beethoven Eliot derived the quar-
tet form of writing, and used it first in The Waste Land." He later states that "in
Murder in the Cathedral Eliot made use of this technique." Peter Kline, "The
Spiritual Center in Eliot's Plays," Kenyon Review, XXI (1959), 461, 462.
19 C. A. Bodelsen, T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets: A Commentary (Copenhagen,
1958), p. 31. See also R. L. Brett, Reason and Imagination: A Study of Form
and Meaning in Four Poems (London, 1960), p. 127.
20 Marcello Pagnini, "La musicalita dei 'Four Quartets' di T. S. Eliot," Bel-
fagor, XIII (1958), 421-440.
203
two musical units, one can schematize the structural pattern of an eight-
line rondeau as follows (capital letters indicate the refrain):
Melodic units A B aA ab A B
Text lines 1 2 3 4 56 7 8
However, if the scheme is arranged according to the rhythmical move-

ment of the rime, it becomes: A B a Aa bA B. The structural
pattern of the music, then, is shaped by the rhythmical pattern of both
the rime and the repetition of textual material.
An important historical model of the poetic-musical rondeau exists.
It is "Ma fin est mon commencement et mon commencement ma fin,"
written by the fourteenth-century poet-musician Guillaume de Machaut.
This work is known; and a brief comparison of Eliot and Machaut
was written by R. J. Shoeck, who notes the ascription to Mary Stuart
of the motto "En ma fin est mon commencement," that was made by
both Wallace Fowlie and Raymond Preston. Shoeck continues: "There
is no question that Mary Stuart embroidered on her chair the motto
... But behind the chair of Mary stands the figure of Guillaume de
Machaut, whose rondel enunciates, with curious anticipation of Eliot's
treatment, this 'Theme of Mary, Queen of Scots'... About Mr. Eliot
there is no uncertainty: he has stated that he has certainly never read
this poem."21
Grover Smith provides further detail concerning the source of the
motto: "The image of 'the tattered arras woven with a silent motto,'
alludes, as Elizabeth Drew has discovered, to the motto of the Eliot
family, 'Tace et Fac.' The same image, together iwth the first line
of the poem, recalls Mary Stuart's motto-which was embroidered on
the cloth covering her royal chair of state."22
Machaut's musical setting for his own poem was the most sophisti-
cated, highly complex, three-part polyphonic rondeau written during
the fourteenth century. The text of the rondeau is:
Ma fin est mon commencement
Et mon commencement ma fin.
Et teneiire vraiement,
Ma fin est mon commencement.
Mes tiers chans trois fois seulement
Se retrograde et einsi fin,
Ma fin est mon commencement
Et mon commencement ma fin.23
21 R. J. Shoeck, "T. S. Eliot, Mary Queen of Scots, and Guillaume de Machaut,"

MLN, LXIII (1948), 187-188. In a note Schoeck identifies Eliot's assertion as
being "in a private letter, January, 1947."
22 Grover Smith, T. S. Eliot's Poetry and Plays: A Study in Sources and
Meaning (Chicago, 1950), p. 269. See also MLN, LXV (1950), 420-421.
23 Guillaume de Machaut, Musikalische Werke, I, ed. Friedrich Ludwig (Leip-
204
A closely knit structure is present in Machaut's music for the poem

and results from the combination of a poetic design and a musical de-
sign. Thus, a very close connection exists between the meaning of the
text and the musical structure, especially since the text of the poem de-
scribes the total musical structure and the canon cancrizans, or canon
in crabwise motion, which is employed in the composition.
A melody written in canon cancrizans technique is the same back-
ward as it is forward, in both tones of melody and rhythm. The literary
equivalent of canon cancrizans is the palindrome. In the palindromes
from James Joyce's Ulysses, "Able was I ere I saw Elba" and "Madam
I'm Adam," we can see the cancrizans principle. The letter order, the
syllabic rhythm, and the accents are identical whether the phrase is
read from beginning to end or from end to beginning. If we divide the
palindrome at its midpoint, we have the fundamental rhythmical pattern
of the Four Quartets. As the midpoint of a canon cancrizans, the tone
which ends the first half of the entire melody is repeated at the same
pitch, time value, and rhythm; then the second half of the melody pro-
ceeds in a mirrored version of the first half. Thus, at the midpoint,
the end of the first and the beginning of the second half of the melody
are momentarily suspended, as a single unit, in progression and motion.
In Machaut's poem, lines one, two, seven, and eight state his basic
cancrizans principle for the structure of both the poetry and music. As
line three indicates, the "true tenor" of the music is the lowest of the
zig, 1926), pp. 63-64. Other MSS read "Est teneiire vraiement." Teneiire has
often been mistranslated to read "holds." In his definitive study, Guillaume Ma-
chaut, Machaby supports those MSS reading "Et teneiire vraiement," and consid-
ers MSS which give a meaning of "holds" as erroneous copies. Gustave Reese,
Music ir the Middle Ages (New York, 1940), pp. 351-352, translates the poem as
follows:
"My end is my beginning
And my beginning my end,
And [this] holds truly.
My end is my beginning,
My third song three times only
Reverses itself and thus ends.
My end is my beginning
And my beginning my end."
Compare my translation:
"My end is my beginning
And my beginning my end.
This the true tenor being,
My end is my beginning.
My third song but thrice singing
Is retrograded; thus ends,
My end is my beginning
And my beginning my end."
205
three parts, the instrumental contratenor.4 It is "true" because it

graphically represents the meaning of the text. The contratenor part
is the foundation of the musical design; it is a forty-measure melody
written in canon cancrizans technique. Line five, a transition of thought
employing the refrain rime, refers to the structure and function of
smaller but highly intricate musical details; and it partially describes
the third part. In line six, "se retrograde" is a specific technical descrip-
tion of the canon cancrizans structure of the contratenor part; and the
closing melodic line, as well as the last text line, is a retrograded ver-
sion of the opening line.
Attention is directed in line five toward smaller musical details by
the words "trois fois seulement," for these words imply that the other
parts have a pattern different from that of the third song. The middle
part, identified in the manuscript as the tenor, is the melody to which
the poetic text is sung. Its simple melodic repetitions for different lines
of text are written in the traditional style of organ-point. The tenor
part is not in canon cancrizans technique. However, the concept is re-
tained in this melody, since the cancrizans relation exists between the
text melody and the top instrumental part. The top part is a retrograde
of the middle part. Thus, while the tenor sings lines one, two, three,
and four, following the melodic unit order ABa A, the top instrumental
part accompanies it with a melodic unit order ABa A according to the
text but in actual sound pattern an order equivalent to BAb B. The
mirrored version, which sounds like a different melody, is superim-
posed over the original sound pattern. At the same time the contra-
tenor plays an entirely independent melody. Considered as separate
yet integrated entities, all three parts are forty measures long, are di-
vided into two equal units, and follow the same pattern of repetition:
ABa Aa bAB
123 45 678
The contratenor canons cancrizans occur when lines 1-2, 5-6, and 7-8
are sung. When the music is performed, the combined sounds are so
intricately interwoven that the listener cannot discern the canon can-
crizans technique which is employed.
A reflection of the total design is present in still smaller details. In
all the parts, the predominant metrical rhythm is syncopation, and three
different syncopated values are used. A midpoint suspended pause is
the distinguishing rhythmic pulsation feature of syncopation. Finally,
opposed types of musical sound production for the three parts are also
24 In mediaeval music the "tenor" is the lowest part and functions as a kind of
organ-point, or foundation, for the upper part(s). The term did not yet refer to
the high male voice.
206
considered on a vertical plane. The middle part is a vocal melody; the

top and bottom parts are played by instruments.
Considering the text alone, we can observe three prime influences
which shape the structure of the poem into a rhythmical form. Of
immediate interest is the fourteenth-century poetic expression of the
same philosophical concepts contained in the Cosmos Fragments of
Heraclitus. On the broadest scale the substance of the poem connotes
universal philosophical concepts and expresses them on a personal
level. The statement of such a human-centered idea as "My end is my
beginning/And my beginning my end," written by an active, well-
known, worldly ecclesiastic, reflects the influence of the developing
Renaissance humanism which exalted human nature in asserting the
dignity of man and stressing the importance of the present life. At a
very early time, Machaut (ca. 1300-1377) is anticipating the later
effects of humanistic activity upon literature, especially in the sense of
emphasis on restraint and form.
On one level, line three ("Et teneiire vraiement") is a descriptive
reference to the music; but also it can be understood as an assertion of a
pre-Renaissance humanistic rejection of the mediaeval attitude toward
the present life as being useful primarily as a preparation for a future
supernatural life. The poetic expression uses a musical image to achieve
this: just as the contratenor part is the foundation of and key to the
structure of the music, so the understanding of the "pastness and the
presence of the past" and the individual's "place in time" is the true
foundation of the humanists' idealistic gospel of progress.
A dual meaning is also present in line five. The "third song" occurs
three times; and the basic substance of the poetic text, "my end is my
beginning," is repeated three times. The same duality is present in
line six. In the poem and music the basic material is characterized by
the canon cancrizans technique; and at the end of the whole work of
art the substance of the poem is stated in a retrograded order. Thus,
the poem is enclosed within itself somewhat as the "temporal" limita-
tions of humanism are self-enclosing.
The second prime influence which contributes to the shaping of the
poem is present in the symmetrical grouping of stress patterns, having
a strong four-beat rhythm as the basic unit:
Ma fin est | mon commencement
Et mon commencement I ma fin
Deviation from the basic unit appears in the third line as a three-beat
pattern: "Et teneiire vraiement." The decrease in the number of
stresses at this point creates a slowing down of motion and a prepara-
207
tion for the midpoint pause of lines four and five. At the point of sus-
pension, the forward movement of the preceding lines is stopped and
reversed by the return, in line four, to the initial pattern. Line five has
a six-beat pattern which reverses the motion again, within the suspen-
sion, and provides a transition to the opposing tension of the original
four-beat pattern returned to and maintained in lines six, seven, and
eight. The rhythmical recurrence of the stress pattern is facilitated by
the rhythm of the end-line rime.25
The third prime structural influence is contained in the progressive
motion, or rhythmical movement pattern, of the poetic thought. The
motion is activated by the interplay of the musical imagery that is
stated in terms which denote something capable of stimulating sensory
perception. The music is provided; therefore, we have not only thoughts
expressed which interpret the emotion arising from the philosophical
substance (objective correlative) but also an abstract interpretation.
The directional impetus of the thought movement is provided by the
active words. In each line the coming together of opposed tensions is
clear; they occur as directly opposed aspects of time or as a refer-
ence in the second half of the line backward to the material of the first
half. Through the movement of the music images in the whole poem,
the poetic thought is carried forward, then held in suspension, then
directed backward.
Applying the rhythmical criterion, we can identify an exact parallel
in the structure of Machaut's rondeau, "Ma fin est mon commence-
ment et mon commencement ma fin," and Eliot's Four Quartets. Both
works poetically and technically express the basic rhythmical principle
that is inherent in their Heraclitean philosophical substance. It would
seem that Eliot was not attempting to create some new poetic "quartet"
form; nor was he trying to emulate Beethoven. He did not write four
poems with the intention of fitting their structure to the preconceived
mold of sonata form. The formal shape of his poems grows from,
strengthens, and contributes to his psychic material. The final result
is a highly complex, rhythmically patterned rondeau structure which
correlates, in principle, the Four Quartets and canon cancrizans.
Stanford University
25 Machaut's fifty-nine rondeaux in "La Loange des Dames" and twenty-one
rondeaux with music, in Guillaume de Machaut: Poesies Lyriques, ed. V. Chich-
maref (Paris, 1909), can all be analyzed according to this principle. If the number
of lines in a rondeau exceeds eight, the opposite tensions break down into an intri-
cate complex. Cf. "La Loange," XXVII-Rondel (Vol. I, p. 42), which has
thirteen lines ordered in the following rime pulsations:
ABBa I bA B ab I bABB.
208

Duke University Press, University of Oregon Comparative Literature

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Duke University Press, University of Oregon Comparative Literature

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Duke University Press, University of Oregon Comparative Literature

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

University of Oregon

Canon Cancrizans and the Four Quartets

N T. S. ELIOT'S poetry, prose, and plays there is a gradually

of his poetic ideas or images with a patterned application of the par-

These fragments suggest an understanding of a universal rhythm

basic unit of the structural pattern.9 In the opening lines of Burnt

Time present [ and time past

Throughout the Four Quartets the stress pattern varies in duration by

The dance along the artery

Descend lower, descend only

The black cloud carries the sun away.

The detail of the pattern is movement

The line from Section V may be viewed as a reference to the motion

In a warm haze the sultry light

What is the late November doing

Whisper of running streams, and winter lightning.

Considering Burnt Norton and East Coker as a pair, we can discern

Throughout East Coker the opposition of warmth and coldness is

The Burnt Norton-East Coker pair is connected to the Dry Salvages-

Last season's fruit is eaten

History may be servitude,

We only live, only suspire

We also find Eliot's fundamental rhythmical pattern functioning in

The midpoint pause, represented by the third section, is immediately

Finally, man is free to contemplate his physical and spiritual rela-

The countermovement in thought content is carried through to the

tecture" of Beethoven's last string quartets and Eliot's poetry. In 1936

Bodelsen; aside from the analogy, he observes some of the significant

However, if the scheme is arranged according to the rhythmical move-

21 R. J. Shoeck, "T. S. Eliot, Mary Queen of Scots, and Guillaume de Machaut,"

A closely knit structure is present in Machaut's music for the poem

three parts, the instrumental contratenor.4 It is "true" because it

considered on a vertical plane. The middle part is a vocal melody; the

You might also like