East Coker
28 pages • 56-minute read
T. S. EliotEast Coker
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Themes
The Transience of All Things
The transience of all things on earth is a key theme in the poem and is stated mainly in the first section. Nothing lasts; all human creations—represented in the first 13 lines by the houses that “rise and fall” (Line 2) over many generations—eventually come to naught, and everything sinks back to the earth, “[w]hich is already flesh, fur and faeces / Bone of man and beast, cornstalk and leaf” (Lines 7-8). The earth is a universal graveyard, yet it continually regenerates itself, and human beings play their appointed role, rebuilding, living their lives, and passing on their heritage to the next generation. Everything has its time and place, its day in the sun, before oblivion comes.
The past continues, however, in the sense that it makes an imprint on the present day—past and present are thus inextricably linked. The past can also be conjured up in the mind’s eye by the speaker when he comes to an open field near the old village. The speaker evokes a rustic scene from the past, of dancing and merriment by country dwellers in tune with the rhythms of earth and the seasons, although they too are “long since under the earth” (Line 39). Again, there is—was—a time for everything: “Feet rising and falling / Eating and drinking. Dung and death” (Line 46-47). A chain from the past extends into the present as the speaker recalls his “beginning” (Line 51), the place of his ancestors, which also contains his “end” (Line 1) since all beginnings must also have endings.
The same theme and image of transience returns at the end of Section II: “The houses are all gone under the sea. / The dancers are all gone under the hill (Lines 100-01). In creating these repetitions, the speaker emphasizes the cyclical nature of life and death, using the parallel of nature’s changing seasons to illustrate how while individual creatures or elements pass away, new ones eternally take their place. This connection between past and present will also be reflected elsewhere in the poem, wherein the speaker criticizes how traditions and old ideas continue to be recycled in the present day even when they are no longer fit for the purpose.
In emphasizing the transience of life, the speaker also foreshadows the spiritual revitalization that he will advocate for later in the poem. In this way, the speaker suggests that the only way to transcend the limitations and failures of this cycle of life and death is to achieve salvation through a renewed faith in the Christian god.
The Failures of Society
The rise and fall of all things, as described in Section I, is completely natural; it is the way life is and cannot be avoided. However, people have choices about the form of social organization they construct and how they live in it. In “East Coker,” the society depicted carries the stench of failure. The speaker suggests that modern society is in desperate need of spiritual regeneration because it currently suffers from emptiness and apathy.
These societal failures become apparent in Sections II and III. If Section I shows an idyllic country scene from a time long ago, suggesting a society living in harmony with nature, the sections that follow are a sharp contrast. They show a society that has lost all direction; the path to wisdom and contentment has been obscured, and people wander
in a dark wood, in a bramble
On the edge of a grimpen, where is no secure foothold,
And menaced by monsters, fancy lights,
Risking enchantment (Lines 91-94).
In this society, there is no effective leadership. Those who hold authority “all go into the dark, / […] the vacant into the vacant” (Lines 102-03). This includes politicians, leaders of industry, “[d]istinguished civil servants, chairmen of many committees” (Line 106), and even literary men. They may hold influence, but they do not use their power to good effect. They cannot provide people with what they actually need: The superficial materialism they offer acts only as a temporary screen that hides the emptiness in the lives of the people.
The speaker depicts such leaders as being gripped by “[t]heir fear of fear and frenzy, their fear of possession / Of belonging to another, or to others, or to God” (Lines 96-97). In describing the leaders as fearing “belonging to […] others, or to God,” the speaker depicts modern society as fragmented and lacking a sense of social cohesion or higher spiritual purpose. The masses have no choice but to follow such leaders since they know no better, which enables the general malaise to spread to all levels of society.
The speaker suggests that the people of this decayed modern society can be rescued only by a complete reappraisal of life and a deep experience of the unchanging, eternal source of life—as the speaker will explain immediately after this picture of a collective aimlessness, in which “cold [is] the sense and lost the motive of action” (Line 110). In presenting the failures of society in such stark terms, the speaker lays the groundwork for a contrast between the apathy of the materialistic present and the more vibrant promise of a revitalized spiritual future.
Spiritual Knowledge and the Secure Foundation
The onward march of time and the passing of all things is one undeniable aspect of life, but a deeper principle emerges that can transcend life’s transience: This principle is spiritual knowledge, which is attained by deep contemplation that leads to an experience of the eternal, still, unchanging aspect of life, which in the poem is identified as God. That experience can then be used to transcend time, to create a new beginning based on striving with “another intensity” (Line 207) toward “a further union, a deeper communion” (Line 208) with God and bringing that wisdom to the task of living a fulfilling, authentic life even in the midst of change.
This transforming dimension of existence is introduced in Section III, after the description of the uselessness of the leaders of society. The speaker states, “I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you / Which shall be the darkness of God” (Lines 113-14). The individual soul plays both an active and passive role in this religious or spiritual experience. The speaker instructs his deeper self, the essence of his being, directing it onto a new quest. It is charged with discovering God—that is the active part.
Having resolved on a direction, the soul must then become passive and allow the process to unfold. The seeking soul goes beyond the senses, beyond individual mind and thought. Any such activity would only hinder the process; there must be no thinking at all—not even beautiful thoughts of hope or love since they would come merely from the limited, human point of view, which can never be entirely pure: “For love would be love of the wrong thing” (Line 126). The journey through the dark night, in which the soul strips itself of all its attributes that are less than the divine, is the necessary precondition to divine union. This is the nature of contemplative prayer.
The fruits of this experience are apparent in the last verse paragraph of Section V, which suggests that time, and the notion that all things pass, is undergirded by a more permanent dimension of existence that gives an anchor and goal to life and human endeavor—a secure foundation that is forever present. This explains the final perspective of the speaker: “We must be still and still moving / Into another intensity / For a further union, a deeper communion” (Lines 206-08). This is his “end,” which is also his “beginning” (Line 211)—a life infused with divine purpose. It is this divine purpose, the speaker asserts, that can give life true meaning and save modern mankind from its apathy and discontent.
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