East Coker (poem)

In 1939, T. S. Eliot thought that he would be unable to continue writing poetry. In an attempt to see if he could still, he started copying aspects of Burnt Norton and substituted another place: East Coker, a place that Eliot visited in 1937 with the parish church, where his ashes were later kept. The place held a particular importance to Eliot and family because their ancestor, Andrew Eliot, left the village to travel to America in 1669. A plaque in the church invites prayers for the soul of "Thomas Stearns Eliot, poet". He managed to complete two sections by February 1940, but finished the rest during that month. John Davy Hayward, Herbert Read and others helped review and edit it. East Coker was published in the March 1940 New English Weekly for its Easter edition. It was later reprinted May and June, and it was published on its own by Faber and Faber in September. With the completion of the poem, Eliot began creating the Four Quartets as a series of four poems based on the same theme with Burnt Norton as the first in the series and East Coker as the second. ==Poem==

East Coker is described as a poem of late summer, earth, and faith. As in the other poems of the Four Quartets, each of the five sections holds a theme that is common to each of the poems: time, experience, purgation, prayer, and wholeness. The time theme is stated in the first section as "In my beginning is my end" which, given proper attention, might prove to lead into the eternal moment. The first section reflects on how things rise, fall, and are reborn, drawing on images of countryside houses built and destroyed, of rural life, seasons, traditional rituals, music and dance, and honoring the dead to evoke the passage of time. The poet emphasizes how life is intertwined with death and human actions are part of an eternal rhythm. The second section discusses disorder within nature, which is opposite to the discussion of order within nature found in the second section of Burnt Norton. Also, rational knowledge itself is described as being inadequate for explaining reality. Those who pursue only reason and science are ignorant. Even our progress is not progress as we continue to repeat the same errors as the past. The poet dismisses "the wisdom of old men", and says he wants to hear of their "folly". "The only wisdom we can hope to acquire", the poet claims, "is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless." Although the descent is predicated on going astray, so is persevering beyond it into the light. The poet encourages spiritual exploration, especially for older people, suggesting that true understanding comes from embracing both stillness and movement. The poet evokes imagery of light, darkness, and the sea to reflect the soul's journey, searching for deeper communion and unity; he ends, "in my end is my beginning." ==Themes==

East Coker gives a message of hope that the English communities would survive through World War II. In a letter dated 9 February 1940, Eliot stated, "We can have very little hope of contributing to any immediate social change; and we are more disposed to see our hope in modest and local beginnings, than in transforming the whole world at once... We must keep alive aspirations which can remain valid throughout the longest and darkest period of universal calamity and degradation." The poem also relied on the war as a way to connect to Eliot's idea that there was a united humanity. In particular, Stephen Spender claimed that "the war modified [Eliot's] attitude by convincing him that there was a Western cause to be positively defended. And after the war there was a Germany to be brought back within the Western tradition". The poem served as a sort of opposite to the popular idea that The Waste Land served as an expression of disillusionment after World War I, even though Eliot never accepted this interpretation. World War II itself has a direct mention in only a few of Eliot's writings. However, World War II does affect the poem, especially with the disruption caused by the war being reflected within the poem as a disruption of nature and heaven. In a twist from expectation, Eliot's poem suggests that old men should go out and explore. He warns that people should trade wisdom for pointless experience and argues that men should explore human experience itself. This concept is hinted of in The Waste Land and draws from the ideas within Dante's Convivio. Dante argues that old men are supposed to return to God and describes the process in a way similar to the travels of Odysseus. Unlike Homer's hero, Dante argues that men should not travel in the material world but in the spiritual world. Both Dante and Eliot put forth a similar view to Augustine of Hippo when they focus on internal travels. Through these travels, mankind is able to have faith in salvation and able to see that there is more to the world than darkness. Eliot explains within the poem that we are all interconnected through time and that we must realise this. Only through this realisation is mankind able to understand the truth of the universe. This, in turn, would allow humanity to break free from the burden of time. As Russell Kirk explains: "That end, for those who apprehend a reality superior to 'birth, copulation, and death'—a reality transcending the rhythms of physical nature—is to know God and enjoy Him forever." Family and family history also play an important role in the poem. Eliot found information on his family from the book A Sketch of the Eliot Family (1887), which described how Eliot's family lived in East Coker for 200 years. When Andrew Eliot left, he disrupted the family history. Similarly, Eliot broke from his own family when he travelled away from his family, a family that he saw was declining. Within the poem, Eliot emphasises the need for a journey and the need for inward change. ==Sources==

East Coker sold almost 12,000 copies during its initial publication. Eliot's response was to claim that its popularity proved that it was a bad poem. Regardless of the truthfulness of the statement, he enjoyed the fact that the poem could inspire people during the war. Eliot's friend, Emily Hale, liked the poem so much that she read the poem to her Smith College students "as if it were a love-letter from God". Early reviews focused on discussing the poem in terms of its content and not its style. In the Southern Review, James Johnson Sweeney, Spring 1941, and Curist Bradford, Winter 1944, discussed paraphrases of the poems and the sources of various passages. However, Andrews Wanning, Spring 1941, stated that Burnt Norton was a better poem than East Coker and that "'Burnt Norton' is a poem of suggestion, 'East Coker' a poem of argument and explanation". Another American critic, Delmore Schwartz, did not appreciate the tone within East Coker, especially that expressed in the fifth section. ==Notes==