ABSTRACT
Eliot first cancels out our superficial notion of time as a straight line on which we move steadily forward from the past, through the present, to the future, in a series of mutually exclusive phases. In view of correspondences that emerge later, building up a firm theological framework, one is justified in reading into this moment a fiat lux (Let there be light). It is the primal creative moment and indicates the presence of the divine Creator in the background of Burnt Norton as surely as Christ the Redeemer, the Virgin Mary, and the Holy Spirit are respectively present in the subsequent quartets. As the cosmic order is a dance, so the dance is a symbol of order at the social and moral level. Time and Dancing, Measure and Movement, are the twin roots of all order — the children of Love. Non-dancing man would introduce an incongruous disorder into his world.
