TSE gave erroneous dates to Norman Foerster, 30 Apr 1946: “I was working on the whole poem of The Dry Salvages during the latter part of 1942 and the beginning of 1943. The last section, like all the others, was drafted in the summer of 1942 and I was revising this section, like the others, up to the time of its publication, first in The New English Weekly and second in the Partisan Review.”
1. THE DRY SALVAGES: GEOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
Faber Autumn List 1941: “The Dry Salvages is the third of a sequence of four long poems. The first two were Burnt Norton and East Coker, both of which are well understood to mark a new stage in Mr. Eliot’s poetic achievement. The fourth is still to come. The title of the poem, like the titles of the two earlier poems, is a place-name. ‘The Dry Salvages’ are a group of rocks off the American coast well known to sailors. The name is a corruption of ‘Les Trois Sauvages’. The word ‘Salvages’ is locally pronounced to rhyme with ‘ages’, and this pronunciation is intended in the title of the poem.”
The Dry Salvages are north of Gloucester, Massachusetts, three miles from Rockport Harbor, off the coast of Cape Ann. Hands: “The Dry Salvages are a line of black granite rocks some hundred yards long which rise up sheer from the sea bed 100 feet below. They project about 20 feet above the sea at low tide and half that at high tide. They are white above the tide-mark from the droppings of sea birds. A bell-buoy is located some quarter-mile to seaward ([I] 37) and there is a foghorn on Cape Ann itself ([I] 33). The Dry Salvages, seen from the seaward side through the fog · · · resemble a jagged line of teeth ([I] 30).”
[Poem I 193–200 · Textual History II 500–11]
Presenting a copy of the Faber pamphlet to the Sawyer Library in Gloucester, Henry Eliot wrote: “My brother · · · spent some 20 summers as a child and youth at Eastern Point, where my father had a house at the top of the hill back of the old Beachcroft hotel · · · I do not myself remember the reefs being called anything but ‘Dry Salvags,’ nor did I ever hear ‘Salvages’ accented on the second syllable.” This was printed in Gloucester Daily Times 27 Feb 1942, with a comment: “Rockport folks do accent the later syllable in ‘Salvages,’ even though the name appears to be a corruption of the word ‘savages’.” In late 1946, Gunnar Ekelof wrote to TSE suggesting that the name might be corrupted from “droit(s) de salvages”, a kind of informal salvage tax. TSE, 5 Nov: “Your suggestion of the origin of Salvages strikes me as extremely plausible. I admit that I have no reason for supposing that the original name was Les Trois Sauvages beyond my own ingenuity. Your explanation seems to me very much more likely.” However, Worthen 242–43 cites a map of 1785 at Yale where “they are simply named the ‘Salvage Rocks’ (‘salvage’ being a common English spelling of ‘savage’ in the 17th and 18th centuries) while the appellation ‘Dry’ dates only from the mid-19th century, when French (or German) influence on the name would have been extremely unlikely.” The derivation had previously been challenged by TSE’s relative, Rear-Admiral Samuel Eliot Morison, to whom TSE wrote in 1964: “I imagine that it was to my brother that I owe the explanation of the title, and I seem to remember that the rocks were known to the local fishermen as the ‘Dry Salvages’. But I myself can give no further explanation and it may be that mine owes more to my imagination than to any explanation that I heard.” Morison also pointed out that TSE appeared, over the years, to have confused his ancestor Andrew Eliot of East Coker with “Mr. William Eliot, sometime of New Sarum”, who was lost in a famous wreck in the 1630s (see Morison, The American Neptune Oct 1965, Howarth 118 and Composition FQ 51–54, 120–21).
2. “THE RIVER IS WITHIN US, THE SEA IS ALL ABOUT US”
A century after the end of the Colonial Period with the defeat of TSE’s distant cousin, President John Quincy Adams, TSE wrote to Herbert Read, “St. George’s Day” [23 Apr 1928]: “Some day I want to write an essay about the point of view of an American who wasnt an American, because his America ended in 1829; and who wasnt a Yankee, because he was born in the South and went to school in New England as a small boy with a nigger drawl, but who wasnt a southerner in the South because his people were northerners in a border state and looked down on all southerners and Virginians, and who so was never anything anywhere and who therefore felt himself to be more a Frenchman than an American and more an Englishman than a Frenchman and yet felt that the U.S.A. up to a hundred years ago was a family extension. It is almost too difficult even for H. J. [Henry James] who for that matter, wasnt an American at all, in that sense.” Quoting this in Tate ed., Read adds that “on one or two later occasions when in a mood of solemn gaiety he would sing a ballad like The Reconstructed Rebel” (chorus: “I’m a reconstructed rebel and I don’t give a damn, | I hate the reconstruction and I hate Uncle Sam”). Ian Cox to TSE, 14 Oct 1938: “I kept recalling the sound of conversations between Frank Morley and yourself, varied with Frankie and Johnnie and The reconstructed rebel” (BBC Written Archives). (Such songs would have appalled TSE’s grandfather, William Greenleaf Eliot, the “unflinching supporter of the temperance cause, of woman suffrage, and of all movements to elevate the poor and ignorant · · · one of the staunchest supporters of the Union”, Walter Graeme Eliot 110.)
[Poem I 193–200 · Textual History II 500–11]
TSE’s Preface for This American World (1928) calls up much of the land- and seascape that figures in the poems: “My family were New Englanders, who had been settled—my branch of it—for two generations in the South West—which was, in my own time, rapidly becoming merely the Middle West. The family guarded jealously its connexions with New England; but it was not until years of maturity that I perceived that I myself had always been a New Englander in the South West, and a South Westerner in New England; when I was sent to school in New England I lost my southern accent without ever acquiring the accent of the native Bostonian. In New England I missed the long dark river, the ailanthus trees, the flaming cardinal birds, the high limestone bluffs where we searched for fossil shell-fish; in Missouri I missed the fir trees, the bay and goldenrod, the song-sparrows, the red granite and the blue sea of Massachusetts.” To Marquis W. Childs, Missouri Historical Society, 8 Aug 1930: “Of course my people were Northerners and New Englanders, and of course I have spent many years out of America altogether; but Missouri and the Mississippi have made a deeper impression on me than any other part of the world”, quoted in From a Distinguished Former St. Louisan (1930). TSE wrote, anonymously, of Gloucester as “the most beautiful harbour for small ships on the whole of that coast”, Fishermen of the Banks by James B. Connolly (1928), Publisher’s Preface. When he was 15, his mother “hired a retired mariner to teach her two sons sailing”, according to Braybrooke.
To Herbert Read, 15 Sept 1932, on his prose memoir of childhood, The Innocent Eye: “Long ago I had the half formed opinion of trying something of the same sort myself which I was going to call The River and the Sea, but I think that my point of view would have been more definitely, or shall we say less subtly symbolical.” Ash-Wednesday VI 32–34:
Sister, mother
And spirit of the river, spirit of the sea,
Suffer me not to be separated
In 1952: “Au dix-septième siècle, mes aieux ont quitté, un peu précipitamment, l’Ouest de l’Angleterre pour se refugier aux côtes de la Nouvelle Ang[le]terre. À ma première vue des côtes de la terre armoricaine, j’ai cru constater une ressemblance au paysage de mon enfance. Côtes granitiques, exposées aux orages de l’Atlantique, pays de marins hardis, habiles et courageux. Et au dix-septième, une autre ressemblance: la Nouv. Angl. hébergeant aussi bon nombre de sorcières—que mon aieul s’est mis immédiatement à exterminer” [In the 17th century my ancestors left, rather hurriedly, the west of England to seek refuge on the New England coast. When I first saw the coast of the Armorican land, I thought I noticed a resemblance to the landscape of my childhood. Granite coastlines, exposed to the tempests from the Atlantic, land of daring sailors, skilful and brave. And in the 17th century, another similarit
y: New England providing shelter also for a number of witches whom my forebear set out right away to exterminate”], notes for a speech at U. Rennes, 21 Apr 1952 (King’s; tr. Javadi).
3. COMPOSITION
[Poem I 193–200 · Textual History II 500–11]
TSE complimented Roy Campbell on his poem Tristan da Cunha in a letter on the day of its publication to the New Statesman (15 Oct; pub. 22 Oct 1927): “The poem has a curious resemblance—not in detail, but in rhythm and in general spirit—to a German poem which is almost unknown even in Germany, the Tristan da Cunha of Johannes Th. Kuhlemann (Der Strom, Cologne, 1919). I once attempted to translate this poem, which is very fine, but abandoned the attempt.” Campbell’s poem has: “mist about your shoulders”, 2 (TSE: “fogs conceal it”, II 71); “gulls” 6 (TSE, I 6); “shattered mast”, 72 (TSE: “shattered lobsterpot”, I 23); “you have no hope or fear”, 31 (TSE: “Having hoped for the wrong things or dreaded the wrong things”, II 58); “thunder swings its bells”, 50 (TSE: “the ground swell · · · Clangs | The bell”, I 46–48); “what long regrets”, 43 (TSE: “regret · · · regret”, III 4); “Plunge forward · · · Plunge forward”, 61–65 (TSE: “Fare forward”, III 14, 26, 39, 45); “granite”, 93 (TSE, I 16); “generations” 102 (TSE, II 51); see McCue 2014d.
As well as John Hayward’s archive of drafts, King’s has the letters between TSE and Hayward, and a professional photograph of the Dry Salvages.
In response to this first sight of the poem, on receiving ts2 in Dec 1940, Hayward jotted a sheet of notes (King’s HB/V14b). He evidently set his thoughts down for TSE, who replied on 4 Jan 1941: “Thank you very much for your helpful letter, and for its promptitude: I was surprised at hearing from you so soon. There are some, perhaps most, of your suggestions which I accept at once; some which I must think about; some which my first impulse is to reject. That is the normal and proper mixture. One or two (‘spell lasts’) I had discovered for myself in the meantime” (see V 29). These notes by Hayward for TSE during composition are printed either in the Commentary below or, where variants are crucial, in the Textual History (designated Hayward’s Queries). They are distinct from Hayward’s later notes of 1950 for readers of Pierre Leyris’s French translation Quatre Quatuors (designated Hayward).
For TSE’s letter to Philip Mairet, 5 Jan 1941, enclosing ts3b, see headnote to Four Quartets, 3. COMPOSITION.
NEW 13 Feb 1941 ran an advertisement: “A New Poem by T. S. Eliot similar in form to East Coker (which was printed in our Easter Number of last year) will appear in our issue of February 27. Will readers who wish to obtain extra copies of this number please send in their orders now. We are unable in present circumstances to print a very much larger edition. Those who book extra copies now will not only be lending us useful co-operation, but will prevent disappointment to themselves.”
4. AFTER PUBLICATION
Hayward to TSE, 5 Mar 1941: “The Dry Salvages, with its revisions and additions—particularly the extra lines where I hoped you might add something—is a splendid piece and I long to see it dressed up to match Burnt Norton & East Coker of which there are substantial piles prominently displayed at Bowes & Bowes and Heffer’s [bookshops]. When the poem is published separately I think the note should be removed to the verso of the leaf facing the first page of the text.”
TSE to Desmond MacCarthy, 10 Dec 1941: “it seems to me a much better poem than East Coker · · · I have been puzzled by the suggestion of lassitude which the reviewers so far seem to have found in its rhythm.”
[Poem I 193–200 · Textual History II 500–11]
To Marguerite Caetani [late Sept 1941]: “It matters much to me that what I write at this time should be good, because I think that a good poem is more important now than at any previous time, and on the other hand a second‑rate one seems to have less excuse than ever. But it is hard to maintain the conviction that one is right in spending so much time and energy on writing verse! I have written a final poem with which I am not satisfied, and to which I shall return when other duties permit” (Little Gidding).
In 1953: “the Mississippi of Mark Twain is not only the river known to those who voyage on it or live beside it, but the universal river of human life”, American Literature and the American Language 17.
Title] Hayward’s Queries: “Title (Dry Salvages is a quotation?)” TSE to Hayward, 4 Jan 1941: “‘The Dry Salvages’ is a place name (rhymes with ‘rampages’). It is (‘Les trois sauvages’) the name of a group of three rocks off the eastern corner of Cape Ann, Massachusetts, with a beacon: convenient for laying a course to the eastward, Maine or Nova Scotia. It happens to have just the right denotation and association for my purpose; and therefore I am the more disturbed by your comment. It doesnt matter that it should be obscure, but if it is going to lead people quite on the wrong track, then something must be done. I dont like the idea of a note of explanation. Please advise.” Hayward to TSE, 7 Jan: “I deplore my ignorance · · · But I took Dry Salvages—for you omitted the inverted commas that might have suggested to me that it was a place name—to be in some sense a reference to what the sea gives up—the torn seine and the dead, and, by extension, memories of a dead life · · · I think the least you can do is to place single quotation marks round the title. This, I think, should at once suggest a proper name—and one that, perhaps, requires to be defined in this way · · · because it is not, like East Coker, a place-name so much as the name of a place · · · (Cf ‘The Hard’ Lyme Regis: ‘Fastnet’ c.) You could, alternatively, add Cape Ann, viz. ‘The Dry Salvages’ Cape Ann · · · I do think there is a danger of some people making my mistake about wet dry salvage, so I hope you will consider adopting one or other of my suggestions if none better occurs to you.” The exchange prompted TSE’s parenthetical note at the head of the poem.
Prefatory note Cape Ann, Massachusetts: “We beat around the cape and laid our course | From the Dry Salvages to the eastern banks”, WLComposite 489–90. Cape Ann is the last of TSE’s Landscapes. with a beacon: it was removed in 1945 (Boyd). Groaner: see note to I 32.
[Poem I 193 · Textual History II 503]
I 1–14] Hayward: “The poet was born and brought up in St. Louis, Mo., U.S.A., which lies below the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. It is clear from 11–14 how deeply the presence of this great waterway was felt in his own home.” The confluence gives the water a visible brownness (Worthen 6). Sherwood Anderson: “land of many rivers running down to the brown slow strong mother of rivers · · · the river powerful as ever, strange as ever, but silent now, forgotten, neglected”, Dark Laughter, quoted by Wyndham Lewis in Paleface (1929) 213, 215 (E. W. F. Tomlin, N&Q June 1980). TSE to Allen Tate, 18 May 1933, after visiting Charlottesville: “I hope to return in 1935 and visit Richmond, Charleston, Savannah, and so on via Tennessee to New Orleans and then up the River to St. Loouss.” On Mark Twain: “A river, a very big and powerful river, is the only natural force that can wholly determine the course of human peregrination · · · the river with its strong, swift current is the dictator to the raft or to the steamboat. It is a treacherous and capricious dictator · · · Twain is a native, and the River God is his God. It is as a native that he accepts the River God, and it is the subjection of Man that gives to Man his dignity. For without some kind of God, Man is not even very interesting”, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1950), Introduction.
I 1 I do not know much about gods; but I think: to Bonamy Dobrée, 20 Mar 1928: “I do not know about Ramadan very much but am writing in mid-lent.” On discussing problems in a vacuum: “I do not know much about Man, but I am sure that our minds do not work like that”, The Aims of Education (1950) (Ricks 274).
I 1–3 gods · · · the river · · · a strong brown god · · · intractable · · · recognised as a frontier: Alexis de Tocqueville: “The Mississippi takes its source at the boundary of the two great regions · · · like a god of antiquity · · · inexhaustible”, Democracy in America (tr. Henry Reeve, rev. Francis Bowen, 1876)
ch. I (Owen Boynton, personal communication). the river | Is a strong brown god: Hindus regard the Ganges as a goddess; the river carries millions of tons of fertilising sediment (“Ganga was sunken”, The Waste Land [V] 395). J. Milton Hayes’s poem The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God (1911), with its Indian setting and the phrase “the little yellow god”, 24 (after “strong”, 14), was a music hall favourite.
I 3 a frontier: the Mississippi formed the western boundary of the United States until the Louisiana Purchase of 1803–04, and is still part of the boundaries of ten states.
I 3 variant for a time: Hayward’s Queries: “for a while (time confusing)”.
I 5 a problem confronting the builder of bridges: innovative engineering was required to build the Eads Bridge, St. Louis (1874), then the world’s longest arch bridge. See note to I 11. Another bridge was constructed in the city in the 1890s. Raine 106 compares Kipling’s story The Bridge Builders, with its line “The end shall be as it was in the beginning” (“In my end is my beginning”, East Coker V 38).
I 5–6 only a problem · · · solved: TSE told A. L. Rowse that “he could never write a poem unless he tricked himself into the belief that it was only a technical problem to be solved” (Rowse, A Cornish Childhood, 1942, 218).
I 6–7 the brown god is almost forgotten | By the dwellers in cities—ever, however, implacable: St. Louis was flooded in 1892 and 1903. In 1927, down the length of the Mississippi, some 26,000 square miles were flooded.
I 7 ever, however, implacable: to A. L. Rowse, 22 Mar 1941: “The two internal rhymes had already been commented on adversely by Geoffrey and John Hayward, but (although I accepted most of their suggestions) I remained obdurate · · · I can’t defend them except by affirming that they seem to my ear the right hiccup in the right place.” Geoffrey Faber had commented on “ever, however” (see Textual History) and Hayward had marked “tosses up our losses” ([I] 22), though neither marked “reaches, the beaches” ([I] 17). To Rowse, 25 Feb 1943, on his poem Invocation to a Cornish House: “I am bothered by the rhymes (and especially one triple rhyme) in an unrhymed poem. I mean that it should have no rhymes, or regular rhyme, or, what is most difficult of all, rhymes just where they have a particular justification in altering the tone for a moment. The rhymes here seem to me to come just because they happened so, and therefore jar.”
The Poems of T. S. Eliot Volume I Page 140
