T. S. Eliot, Hugh Kenner, and Star Trek

                       
                       human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.

        T.S. Eliot    "Burnt Norton"  Four Quartets

Reading Eric's story about his miraculous find of Four Quartets, (comments of the last entry - read for yourselves, Eric tells it better) recalled a time when T.S. Eliot and especially "Burnt Norton" were the center of discovery for me.  1963, UC Santa Barbara, graduate course in Eliot with Hugh Kenner, leading Eliot scholar.  He loved Eliot's "Burnt Norton" and he handed this poem to us as the gift it was - one that always surprises me with yet more to give.

"Burnt Norton" diddles the mind: time past and time future are always in time present.  But, to be conscious is not to be in time, because time constantly flows and consciousness implies a fixed center around which time must move.  Fool around with that idea for awhile and you become a writer for Star Trek, a quantum physicist, or at the very least - appreciative of a poem written in 1943 by a poet known for his astute aesthetic, not scientific, understanding. 

"Burnt Norton" arose from a war-torn England, from a poet questioning the place of religion - God's presence among the burning buldings and the dying.  If he turned to the abstraction of indefinable time as evasion, or as hope, or merely for survival, we understand, and are grateful.  What we learn is how  prevailing the reach of poetry.  How persistent. It brings new ideas forth in the worst of times, and these ideas can transform us many, many years later when there is no longer any connection to the times that precipitated them. 

Is this what Hugh Kenner taught me about T.S. Eliot?  Yes, one tiny aspect, perhaps.  Because of his teaching, reading Eliot is part of my life.   "Ash Wednesday" is a reading I place above ritual each Lent.  I seem to pick up "Prufrock" at the end of summer, before the new term begins.  I read Eliot.

As I grow older, certain poets become more meaningful to me; I am grateful for their continued presence.  Interesting that they may have written those poems I now love when they were in their twenties.  How could they have been so wise?