The Structure and the Form of “Burnt Norton” by Thomas Stearns Eliot

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“Burnt Norton” by T.S. Eliot
“Burnt Norton” is the first poem in T.S. Eliot’s collection of poems titled Four Quartets, first published in 1936. It takes its title from the manor house in Gloucestershire, which Eliot visited together with Emily Hale in earlier times. The manor’s garden features prominently throughout the work. The primary motifs in the poem are the nature of time, its connection to salvation, and the difference between the knowledge of modern man and spirituality. Eliot insists on the importance of understanding the nature of time and subscribing to the universal order. Just like the other poems in the Four Quartets, “Burnt Norton” is split into five sections: the first part focuses on the transcendence of time and its relation to salvation, the second part takes a contrasting approach and explores the theme of salvation, but from opposite standpoints, the third part explores the ideas explored in the two movements, the fourth part takes the form of a brief lyric, while the fifth part resolves the contrasts and contradictions presented in earlier sections.
The structure and form of “Burnt Norton” are similar to Eliot’s other poem, The Wasteland, in that several pieces of poetry are merged together and set as one where both rhyme and meter are founded on the circularity of language as well as repetition. In the first section of the poem, Eliot stresses the connection between different temporalities of time: For instance, in the opening lines, he asserts: “Time present and time past/Are both perhaps present in time future/And time future contained in time past/If all time is eternally present/All time is unredeemable” (Eliot). Both the future and past are associated with the present, thereby illustrating the importance of living in the present. Men can only control the present, and therefore obsessing over the past or the future is futile. The first part of the poem also revolves around a rose garden, which evokes the Garden of Eden and, to some extent, the Virgin Mary. Here, Eliot examines the possibility of alternate transience (“Down the passage which we did not take/Towards the door we never opened/Into the rose-garden”) (Eliot). It is possible that Eliot was referring to his failed relationship with Emily Hale. A bird guides the poet through the rose garden as he chases after the laughing children, but it later commands him to leave, explaining that humans are unable to bear reality. Eliot concludes that even alternate realities are connected to the here and now: “What might have been and what has been/Point to one end, which is always present” (Eliot).
The second section begins with irregular tetrameters and various pagan images (“Garlic and sapphires in the mud/Clot the bedded axle-tree”), where the relationship between ...