Burnt Norton
Burnt Norton is the first poem of T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets. He created it while working on his play Murder in the Cathedral, and it was first published in his Collected Poems 1909–1935 (1936). The poem's title refers to the manor house Eliot visited with Emily Hale in the Cotswolds. The manor's garden serves as an important image within the poem. Structurally, the poem is based on Eliot's The Waste Land, with passages of the poem related to those excised from Murder in the Cathedral.
The central discussion within the poem is on the nature of time and salvation. Eliot emphasises the need of the individual to focus on the present moment and to know that there is a universal order. By understanding the nature of time and the order of the universe, mankind is able to recognise God and seek redemption. Many reviewers of Burnt Norton focused on the uniquity and beauty of the poem. However, others complained that the poem does not reflect Eliot's earlier greatness and that the use of Christian themes harmed the poem.
Poem[edit]
The poem was the first of Eliot's that relied on speech, with a narrator who speaks to the audience directly.[13] Described as a poem of early summer, air, and grace, it begins with a narrator recalling a moment in a garden. The scene provokes a discussion on time and how the present, not the future or past, really matters to individuals. Memories connect the individual to the past, but the past cannot change. The poem then transitions from memory to how life works and the point of existence. In particular, the universe is described as orderly and that consciousness is not found within time even though humanity is bound by time. The scene of the poem moves from a garden to the London underground where technology dominates. Those who cling to technology and reason are unable to understand the universe or the Logos ("the Word", or Christ). The underworld is replaced by a churchyard and a discussion of death. This, in turn, becomes a discussion of timelessness and eternity, which ends the poem.[14]
Themes[edit]
Eliot believed that Burnt Norton could benefit society. The poem's narration reflects on how humankind is affected by Original Sin, that they can follow the paths of either good or evil, and that they can atone for their sins. To help the individual, the poem explains that people must leave the time-bound world and look into their selves, and that poets must seek out a perfection, not bound by time in their images, to escape from the problems of language.[15]
Peter Ackroyd believes that it is impossible to paraphrase the content of the poem; the poem is too abstract to describe the events and the action that make up the poem's narrative structure.[13] However, the philosophical basis for the poem can be explained since the discourse on time is connected to the ideas within St. Augustine's Confessions. As such, there is an emphasis on the present moment as being the only time period that really matters, because the past cannot be changed and the future is unknown. The poem emphasizes that memory must be abandoned to understand the current world, and humans must realize that the universe is based on order. The poem also describes that although consciousness cannot be bound within time, humans cannot actually escape from time on their own. The scene beneath London is filled with the time-bound people who are similar to the spiritually empty populace of The Hollow Men; they are empty because they do not understand the Logos or the order of the universe. The conclusion of the poem emphasizes that God is the only one that is truly able to exist out of time and have knowledge of all times and places, but humankind is still capable of redemption through belief in Him and His ability to save them from the bounds of the material universe.[16]
Imaginative space also serves an important function within the poem. Part one contains a rose garden that allegorically represents potential within human existence. Although the garden does not exist, it is described in realistic manner and is portrayed as an imagined reality. Also, the narrator's statement that words exist in the mind allows this imagined reality to be shared between the narrator and the reader. This is then destroyed by the narrator claiming that such a place has no purpose.[17] The garden image has other uses within the poem beyond creating a shared imaginative space; it serves to invoke memories within the poem, and it functions in a similar manner in other works by Eliot, including The Family Reunion.[18]
Sources[edit]
A key source for many of the images that appear in Burnt Norton is Eliot's childhood and his experience at Burnt Norton.[19] Other sources include Stéphane Mallarmé's poetry, especially "Le Tombeau de Charles Baudelaire" and "M'introduire dans ton histoire"[20] and St. Augustine's Confessions.[21] Likewise, many of the lines are fragments that were removed from his earlier works.[22]
Structurally, Eliot relied on The Waste Land to put together the fragments of poetry as one set. Bernard Bergonzi argued that "it was a new departure in Eliot's poetry, and it inevitably resulted in the presence of the manipulatory will that [C. K. Stead] has observed at works in the Quartets, and in the necessity for low-pressure linking passages. As I have previously remarked, Eliot was capable of expressing the most intense moments of experience, but had little capacity for sustained structure."[23]
In popular media[edit]
Singer Lana Del Rey recites an excerpt of the poem as an interlude on her fourth studio album, Honeymoon.[33]
In the 2020 science fiction comedy film Palm Springs, main character Nyles, played by Andy Samberg, quotes the lines “What might have been and what has been/Point to one end, which is always present” to Roy, played by J.K. Simmons, during a flash back depicting the night Nyles got Roy stuck in a timeloop.
A portion of the poem was the influence for Awadagin Pratt's 2023 album Stillpoint. Pratt commissioned six pieces to be performed by him, Roomful of Teeth, and A Far Cry.[34] The record was named one of NPR's 50 best albums of the year.[35]