Four Quartets and the Christian Calendar

Abstract

T N EACH SECTION of Four Quartets Eliot alludes to holy days of the JI Christian calendar. Just as each section is said to represent a particular element (air, earth, water, and fire) so Burnt Norton suggests Ascension Day; East Coker, Good Friday; Dry Salvages, the Annunciation; and Little Gidding, Pentecost. Attention has been drawn to Eliot's allusion in Little Gidding to Pentecost,' but no one has attempted to view all four sections in relation to the Christian calendar. two references to in Burnt Norton suggest the Ascension: Then a cloud passed, and the pool was empty (B.N. I); and The black cloud carries the (B.N. IV). Eliot's allusion to the loss of water (with its baptismal associations) through the agency of a cloud parallels the seeming loss of Christ through a similar agent, as described in the Acts of the Apostles, a parallel that is embellished by the second reference which may contain a pun referring to the biblical description of the Ascension: And when he had spoken ... he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight (Acts I:9). sun (Son) has been carried away by the cloud. Then, too, Eliot uses the verb ascend in the second section of Burnt Norton: Ascend' to summer in the tree. It is clear that East Coker suggests Good Friday. Eliot refers implicitly to it: we call this Friday good (E.C. IV). This reference, as well as the allusion to the wounded surgeon (E.C. IV), firmly fixes Good Friday in the reader's mind. evidence for establishing the Annunciation as a temporal signpost in Dry Salvages is contained in Eliot's use of the noun annunciation in Dry Salvages II: Prayer of the one Annunciation. Moreover, the reference to the Virgin Mary supports my interpretation: Lady, whose shrine stands on the promontory .... Queen of Heaven (D.S. IV). For Annunciation is also known as Lady Day. Finally, the references to the angelus, commemorative