Michelle Lee

E0010849
Assignment 3
Title: Telling the Dancer from the Dance: dance as a metaphor for human existence and consciousness
in Eliots Burnt Norton and Yeats Among School Children

Both Eliot and Yeats use an idea of a universal dance as a metaphor for human existence. The
two poets use the dance as a metaphor for the nature of time, as well as for the burden of the human
condition. Yet, while Eliot appears to rest his hopes of escaping the dance to God, Yeats yearns for a
lost innocence that would allow him to attain the state of the dancer. Ultimately, both pin their hopes on
that which will allow them to escape their selves, which is Love - whether for others, or for the divine.
In both poems, the dance serves as a metaphor for the human experience of time. The motion of
the dancer, who fluidly passes from one moment to the next, represents the idea that we only
consciously exist within the present moment. For both Yeats and Eliot, a consciousness of being in the
present is a crucial aspect of the dance.
To Eliot, the dance represents not fixity/ Where past and future are gathered;, but rather the
enchainment of past and future. The contrast of enchainment with fixity suggests that a crucial part
of the dance is its fluidity, as caused by the continuity of past with future. The nature of the present can
be used to understand the idea of the dance as simultaneously fluid and yet a still point, as the present
moment is both constantly changing as time progresses, and yet the only constant in ones perception of
the world.
In the following stanza, Eliot goes on to state that To be conscious is not to be in time, and
also asserts that Only through time is time conquered. Time is dependent upon human consciousness;
it is through our awareness of the moment that we experience the present. As such, time can be
interpreted in this line as being the time that consists of past and future, or a conceptual time that is
independent of our conscious experience of the real and present. This is supported by the line, Time
past and time future/ Allow but a little consciousness. Being caught up in the memory of time past, or
the imagination of time future, takes away from our

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consciousness of the present moment. Eliot then describes three specific moments in time, starting each
line with the moment to lend emphasis to each as discrete instances. These moments in time can only
be remembered when they are involved with past and future. He thus links the two different types of
time: the conceptual time of past and present, and the experienced time of the present, which passes into
conceptual time in memory. As such, he demonstrates time as a whole to be dependent upon the
experience of the present, stating that Only through time time is conquered. As such, time in the form
of memories is reliant upon our experience of time in the present, but time in the present is also only
contextualized and linked to past and future through the idea of conceptual time, through memories.
Yeats similarly suggests the importance of consciously remaining in the present moment by
contrasting the bliss of the dance with his current state, as he is unhappily consumed by images of the
past. Throughout the poem, Yeats compares age with youth. Even though the woman he longs for is not
young in the present, she stands before [the speaker] like a living child. Youth and old age is similarly
collapsed into one in the image of the young mother with an infant upon her lap, who is one and the
same with the sixty-year old man of the present day. The comparison between age and youth suggests
that the inevitable passing of time is part of the human condition, present even in the infant who from
his birth is destined to grow old. The collapsing of time in the speakers memory suggests that if one
does not consciously remain in the present, one runs the risk of getting lost in the past, unmoored from
the present moment; this is supported by the structure of the poem, where the speaker moves from the
present moment (where he is even then self-conscious about his age, viewing himself from outside
himself and not fully present) through his memories of the past. Yeats compares these memories to
images and idols; he states that like religious icons, the images of memories too break hearts. Yeats
discredits the fantasies, whether related to the divine or the mortal world, which take us away from the
reality of the present moment. While the fluidity of the memories that animate a mothers reveries
may seem realistic, they are ultimately as still and cold as the religious idols that keep a marble or

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bronze repose. The images created by mans imagination are self-born mockers of mans enterprise,
and offer no hope for redemption despite our worship of them.
In Burnt Norton, escape from the dance seems to be possible in the form of losing oneself in a
higher plane of existence. Eliot suggests that there is something outside the dance, which serves as its
reference point. Understanding this is the consciousness he earlier refers to as being necessary to
conquer time. The still point, apart from being the present, is described as inhuman; it is Neither
flesh nor fleshless, in contrast to the human weakness of the changing body, and associated with
white light and grace. Given Eliots return to religion around the time the poem was written, this
entity could be interpreted as the divine; his image of the turning world with the point at its centre is
reminiscent of the heliocentric model of the universe. Yet at the same time, the fixed point seems to
imply a loss of self, potentially in death. Eliot describes what seems to be the consequence of
apprehending time as the release from action and suffering. This can be understood as a reference to
Indian ideas of the non-existent self, as a new self dies and is reborn with every passing moment; as
such, there is no self to either act or to suffer. However, this loss of the self is presented as terrible to
bear, and is associated with death. It is marked both by release and fear, by completion of its partial
ecstasy and resolution of its partial horror. Eliot reconciles the image of loss of self or death with the
divine with the idea of heaven and damnation. The dance with all its contradictions is thus the human
condition; to escape the dance is only possible through death, which the speaker states flesh cannot
endure. Eliots allusions to heaven and the divine as existing outside the dance are in contrast to Among
School Children, which describes heavenly glory as merely a symbol, and as much a hollow image as

anything else man imagines.

In Among School Children, Yeats yearns not to escape the dance, but to become immersed more
fully in it, inseparable from it. The final stanza is filled with the idea of unity and wholeness. Yeats
describes an unknown place where there are no internal divisions, where the body is not separated from

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soul. Here, beauty [is not] born out of its own despair/ Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil.
This is reminiscent of Yeats earlier poem, Adams Curse, where the speaker longs for a time when
beauty and courtly love did not have to be toiled for. The idea of Adams curse, much like the betrayal
which infants must bear1 , suggests that what Yeats longs for may be impossible; that there is an
irreversible fall from innocence and that this place where the dance is does not exist. The burden of the
human condition is present throughout the poem in the form of a keen sense of loss and sexual longing,
particularly present in the image of the woman Yeats longs for, as well as the death immanent in the
contrast of age and youth. In contrast to the loss and brokenness of human existence, the chestnut tree is
another example of wholeness, with the speaker unable to tell whether it is the leaf, the blossom, or the
bole. The chestnut tree can be taken as being a metaphor for the self, which undergoes constant
divisions, torn as it is between past and present, from each moment to the next. The parallel to the self is
seen more clearly in the next line, when Yeats similarly questions whether the dancer is made up of the
body swayed to music and the brightening glance. Whether or not a direct reference, this is
reminiscent of the Indian philosopher Nagasenas chariot metaphor, where the chariot is not the axle,
the wheel, or the carriage, nor merely a collection of these things; rather, it is something that exists
beyond the material, a metaphysical essence which makes a whole more than the sum of its parts.
Where Eliot seems to fear the loss of self, Yeats embraces it. Rather than it occurring outside the
realm of human existence, in death or the divine, Yeats seems to see the loss of self as humanistic in
nature, and perhaps the highest plane of human existence. The one glimpse of escape from the self in the
poem exists in stanza II, when the speaker and his love interests two natures blent/ Into a sphere from
youthful sympathy. The tale the Ledean figure tells him takes place while she is bent/ Above a
sinking fire, which is reminiscent of hell. Yet at the same moment of this reminder of certain death, an

The betrayal through honey is a reference to Porphyry, who suggests that sex drugs infants and causes
them to forget the honey-like bliss of innocence, introducing them to decay and death; this is similar to the
idea that humanity like Adam is cursed at birth, particularly by the selfishness of our relations with others.

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escape from his nature is possible. The cause for this escape is his sympathy upon hearing her tale of a
harsh reproof, or trivial event/ That changed some childish day to tragedy. Yeats delves deeper into the
symbol of Leda in his poem Leda and the Swan. What is here reduced to a harsh reproof, or trivial
event is the rape of Leda; its reduction suggests that all things are made equal not in their severity but
in their implication, which is the loss of innocence. In Leda and the Swan, it is the birth of her
children - here, the eggs, and later, the infant the mother holds - which are the reminder of the human
condition, with birth being mingled with certain coming death, portrayed through the sudden collapsing
of the future - Agamemnons death - with the present moment. But here, the speaker manages to find
life in the midst of death, his nature blending with his loves into the yolk and white of one shell. The
parable of Plato he refers to is that of humankind being created in merged pairs, before being separated
into man and woman. This suggests that it is sympathy, or the understanding of others sorrows, that can
return us to an initial state of innocence before our division from one another.
Yet, upon second reading, Eliot appears to also find a way to confront the loss of self. His
answer to escaping the dance, while still predicated on images of the divine, is similarly Love [...] itself
unmoving. He contrasts this to desire, which itself is movement. The opposition of love with desire,
which can be considered essentially selfish, suggests that unmoving love is that which escapes
selfishness. To him, love and the unmoving point is the pattern to which desire and movement is
merely a detail. The pattern lends meaning and an overall fixity to the movements of the dance. While
Eliot makes references to the divine, in contrast to the way Yeats disparages the images worshipped by
the religious, their fundamental idea - that time is dependent upon the selfs consciousness, which can
only be escaped through some kind of compassion, love, or selflessness - is the same. Whether or not
there exists something outside the dance, a repudiation of the conscious self is thus necessary to master
it.