T.S.Eliot
(1888-1965) was the most striking figure in the literary world in the Inter-War
years. He wrote seven dramas- Sweeney Agonists, The Rock, Murder in
the Cathedral, The Family Reunion, The Cocktail Party, The Confidential Clerk and The
Elder Statesman. Some of his famous poems are Prufrock and
Other Observations, The Wasteland, The Hollow-Man etc.
Eliot
wrote Murder in the Cathedral for the Canterbury
Festival of 1935. George Bell, Bishop of Chichester saw The Rock,
greatly admired Eliot and asked him to write a play for the festival. Thus, the
play premiered in 1935.
The play deals
with the martyrdom of Thomas Becket- one of the greatest of English saints, who
was the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1162-1170. He was murdered in his own
Cathedral by Knights who claimed to be loyal to the king. The allure of such a
story for a dramatist is obvious, there is great conflict between human and
divine power, a strong central character and a number of complicated spiritual
issues to be found in his death.
T.S.Eliot
(1888-1965) was the most striking figure in the literary world in the Inter-War
years. He wrote seven dramas- Sweeney Agonists, The Rock, Murder in
the Cathedral, The Family Reunion, The Cocktail Party, The Confidential Clerk and The
Elder Statesman. Some of his famous poems are Prufrock and
Other Observations, The Wasteland, The Hollow-Man etc.
Eliot
wrote Murder in the Cathedral for the Canterbury
Festival of 1935. George Bell, Bishop of Chichester saw The Rock,
greatly admired Eliot and asked him to write a play for the festival. Thus, the
play premiered in 1935.
The play deals
with the martyrdom of Thomas Becket- one of the greatest of English saints, who
was the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1162-1170. He was murdered in his own
Cathedral by Knights who claimed to be loyal to the king. The allure of such a
story for a dramatist is obvious, there is great conflict between human and
divine power, a strong central character and a number of complicated spiritual issues
to be found in his death.
Murder in
the Cathedral is called a ‘poetic play’ or indeed a ‘verse drama’
because the dialogues are patterned in a verse form. Poetic play means, the
lines all fit on a metrical grid, all follow a verse pattern. Shakespeare’s
plays, for example, are partly written in iambic pentameter and a proportion of
the lines fit to that rhythmic grid. Eliot’s poetic lines are more unusual,
longer, less regular line- but the plays are still written in verse. Here, we
take an example from the play. The lines depicted below are said by Becket
before his death.
It is not
in time that my death shall be known.
It is not
of time that my decision is taken.
If you
call that a decision,
To which
my whole being gives entire consent.
I give my
life
To the Law
of God above the Law of Man.
According to
Eliot, poetic form was the most apt form of expression in the theatre. In his
view, though Ibsen, Strindberg and Chekov were true poets, however, they
hampered with the limits of prose. Whereas, Yeats and Hofmannsthal kept alive
the ancient and traditional affinity between drama and poetry.
In ‘Poetry and
Drama’ Eliot states that the subject matter of Murder in the
Cathedral was well suited for verse drama. That means it should be
entirely in verse but here in the play, Eliot justifies two prose sections-
Becket’s sermon and the other, the Knight’s speaking.
Marianne Moore
states,
One
may merely mention the appropriateness of verse to subject matter.
Carol H.Smith is
also of the opinion that Murder in the Cathedral integrates
very effectively Eliot’s dramatic theories. Eliot gives a retrospective
attention to ‘poetry’ and ‘drama’ for development as a playwright. Also, he
finds himself writing variations on the theme of poetic drama throughout his
career. In words of Eliot,
Good
poetic drama is not simply a play translated into verse , rather it is a play
wholly conceived and composed in terms of poetry, embodying a pattern like that
of music.
And Murder in
the Cathedral holds a good example of poetic play, a form that had
not been widely employed for almost three hundred years. The dexterous use of
ritualised form, the verbal imagery, the varying flow of metrical rhythm
provides the play with its very spirit essentially poetic that concentrates
upon theme seen in singleness. Poetry in the play is not merely decorative. It
helps in revealing the personae of the characters as the objective correlative
of their minds, while its symbolism works out the thematic implications. Its
long speeches indeed shine with rhetoric but at the same time build up the
mood, the opening choric speech being the good example. Eliot emphasised that
instead of limiting the emotional range, the use of verse enlarges the appeal
of the play and can reach the most varied audience. However, the play is
dramatic in the truest essence as the story line has been taken from the
historical event Therefore, Eliot’s Murder in
the Cathedral is justified in being called a poetic play.Poetic
play means, the lines all fit on a metrical grid, all follow a verse pattern.
Shakespeare’s plays, for example, are partly written in iambic pentameter and a
proportion of the lines fit to that rhythmic grid. Eliot’s poetic lines are
more unusual, longer, less regular line- but the plays are still written in verse.
Here, we take an example from the play. The lines depicted below are said by
Becket before his death.
It is not
in time that my death shall be known.
It is not
of time that my decision is taken.
If you
call that a decision,
To which
my whole being gives entire consent.
I give my
life
To the Law
of God above the Law of Man.
According to
Eliot, poetic form was the most apt form of expression in the theatre. In his
view, though Ibsen, Strindberg and Chekov were true poets, however, they
hampered with the limits of prose. Whereas, Yeats and Hofmannsthal kept alive
the ancient and traditional affinity between drama and poetry.
In ‘Poetry and
Drama’ Eliot states that the subject matter of Murder in the
Cathedral was well suited for verse drama. That means it should be
entirely in verse but here in the play, Eliot justifies two prose sections-
Becket’s sermon and the other, the Knight’s speaking.
Marianne Moore
states,
One
may merely mention the appropriateness of verse to subject matter.
Carol H.Smith is
also of the opinion that Murder in the Cathedral integrates
very effectively Eliot’s dramatic theories. Eliot gives a retrospective
attention to ‘poetry’ and ‘drama’ for development as a playwright. Also, he
finds himself writing variations on the theme of poetic drama throughout his
career. In words of Eliot,
Good
poetic drama is not simply a play translated into verse , rather it is a play
wholly conceived and composed in terms of poetry, embodying a pattern like that
of music.
And Murder
in the Cathedral holds a good example of poetic play, a form that
had not been widely employed for almost three hundred years. The dexterous use
of ritualised form, the verbal imagery, the varying flow of metrical rhythm
provides the play with its very spirit essentially poetic that concentrates
upon theme seen in singleness. Poetry in the play is not merely decorative. It
helps in revealing the personae of the characters as the objective correlative
of their minds, while its symbolism works out the thematic implications. Its
long speeches indeed shine with rhetoric but at the same time build up the
mood, the opening choric speech being the good example. Eliot emphasised that
instead of limiting the emotional range, the use of verse enlarges the appeal
of the play and can reach the most varied audience. However, the play is
dramatic in the truest essence as the story line has been taken from the
historical event Therefore, Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral is
justified in being called a poetic play.
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