28 pages • 56 minutes read
T. S. EliotEast Coker
T. S. EliotFiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1940A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Beginnings and Ends
In a letter written in May 1940, Eliot described the village of East Coker as the ideal place for “a meditation on beginnings and ends” (“In Eliot’s Own Words: Four Quartets.” T. S. Eliot), and this motif permeates the poem. “In my beginning is my end” (Line 1) is the very first sentence, which is followed by examples, such as houses, of things that are built but eventually come down. Ends are always contained within beginnings. The segue to the imagined country scene in the village invokes how things that were once used or living are now “under the sea” (Line 100), like the houses and the dancers who have gone “under the hill” (Line 101).
The beginnings and ends motif also occurs in the notion of the spiritual path, in which through contemplative prayer, the individual self reaches its “end”—that is, the person learns how to go beyond desire and thought to experience a union with God. As a result, a new beginning emerges for that individual. The same is true for the sacrament of the Eucharist, as Section IV shows.
The speaker also describes his tortuous attempts to write poetry as “a new beginning” (Line 181), with previous works the equivalent of “ends”—poetry that he has no desire to repeat in style or meaning. Beginnings and endings can both be hard, as suggested by “the agony / Of death and birth” (Lines 133-34) invoked in Section III and the very end of the poem, in which a new way of living is envisioned. This is a state of being in which the person is both spiritually aware and also conscious of “a lifetime burning in every moment” (Line 196). This new awareness represents a different, more purposeful way of being in the world; it is the “beginning” that is evoked in the last sentence of the poem: “In my end is my beginning” (Line 211). Thus, if all beginnings lead to ends, all ends also offer beginnings.
Writing
Writing and the struggle to achieve meaningful expression form another important motif in the poem. The speaker declares the opening of Section II to be “not very satisfactory: / A periphrastic study in a worn-out poetical fashion” (Lines 69-70). Consequently, he must try again to deal with “the intolerable wrestle / With words and meanings” (Lines 71-72). In Section V, he has to acknowledge once more the almost insuperable difficulty of expressing exactly what he wants to say in the way he wants to say it:
Trying to learn to use words, and every attempt
Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure
Because one has only learned to get the better of words
For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it (Lines 176-80).
In other words, past accomplishments act as a hindrance to his current creativity, which must always be fresh and open to new forms of expression and new perspectives rather than sinking back into what has already been done. The speaker seems almost to despair at being able to accomplish such a thing, and he ruthlessly denigrates his own abilities, even in the act of demonstrating them:
And so each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,
Undisciplined squads of emotion (Lines 180-84).
In his perceived failure, the speaker resembles the leaders of society in Section III who can offer nothing valuable to the populace. Like those leaders, the poet’s powers are inadequate to the task demanded of him. Failure, then, occurs at the level of individual creativity as well as in the functioning of society.
Letting Go
The notion of letting go, of allowing a natural process to unfold, is a recurring motif. This does not mean that disciplined activity is not required, but activity cannot be effective unless there is also a willingness to let go at the appropriate time and in the appropriate way. This is apparent in the first section, when the speaker stresses that there is a time for everything—“A time for building / And a time for living and for generation” (Lines 9-10)—and a time for allowing things to pass away. The letting go is an intuitive, rather than carefully considered, process of “keeping the rhythm” (Line 41) of life, allowing it to go on in its own way in its own time.
Letting go is part of the “wisdom of humility” (Line 99) that replaces the ceaseless human striving to control life. It is part of the spiritual path because that necessitates a letting go of all thoughts and desires and resting in the eternal. Letting go is letting the soul “be still” (Line 124) and allowing it to just wait, without expectation of anything.
There must also be a letting go in the way that the poet regards his own work. Although he must strive to “get the better of words” (Line 178), he is not to be concerned about how his work is received: “For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business” (Line 191). In other words, he—and he includes everyone, “us,” in this general point—must make every appropriate effort but not be attached to the fruits of those efforts, which are not for the individual to decide.
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