Analyse The Cocktail Party as Revival of Poetic Drama

 Theme of The Cocktail Party

Significance of Last Act

Alchemist as Comedy

T.S.Eliot the most important and Significant dramatist of the twentieth made a permanent name in the history of poetic drama by his Murder in the Cathedral, The Family Reunion, The Cocktail Party and The Confidential Clerk. Infact, Eliot along with W.B.Yeats and J.M.Synge took upon himself the task of reviving the verse drama. He says,

I believe…that poetry is the natural and complete medium for drama; that the prose play is a kind of abstraction capable of giving you only a part of what the theatre can give, and that the verse play is capable of something much more intense and exciting.

The Cocktail Party is a landmark in the history of poetic drama because in the play Eliot comes very near to solving the problems of poetic drama in the modern age. The main problems are two- a suitable theme and a suitable medium of communication. Traditionally, mythological and historical subjects were considered suitable for poetic drama. For his first play-Murder in the Cathedral, Eliot also had chosen a medieval subject. But he soon realised that if poetic drama is to be revived in the present age, poetry must be brought into the world in which the audience lives and to which it returns when it leaves the theatre.

Hence, in The Cocktail Party he took theme from contemporary life with realistic characters; demonstrating very clearly that poetic plays could be written with success on contemporary subjects. The Chamberlaynes, though they are aristocrats live and move in a world with which we all are familiar. Eliot shows an awareness of a way of life different from that of a saint and comes to the conclusion that both ways are necessary and none of the two is better. The play is concerned primarily with the spiritual well of ordinary men and women which is quiet significant.

The other problem is that of a suitable medium of communication. Since contemporary audiences are used to prose, the dramatist should follow the ascetic rule of using the minimum decoration. In the present play, Eliot solved this problem. He has gone back to the root principle of English prosody, organisation by stresses, normally three. He has used a language and a verse which has grown out of contemporary idiom and rhythm. He has made it flexible enough to express every kind of mental state, situation and character. Moreover, he has used extreme austerity in the use of imagery. This is remarkable. Eliot introduced no chorus, no lyrical duets, no soliloquies and no ghosts in The Cocktail Party. All earlier conventions of poetic drama have been discarded. The play does not transport us into an artificial world. It is the first poetic play to deal successfully with our own sordid, dreary, daily world and to illuminate and transfigure it.

We all know a play must entertain primarily, it must have dramatic effectiveness. The Cocktail party is a Comedy of Manners in the modern style. There is plenty of false wit made fashionable by Noel Coward; and Julia is a masterpiece of comic characterisation. There is enough of plot, mystery and suspense to keep the audience happy and engaged. There is also enough of romantic intrigue. There are two closely interlinked love triangles- Peter in love with Celia; Celia in love with Edward, Edward married to Lavinia and Lavinia in love with Peter. However, behind this surface comedy, there is the serious theme which provokes thought and stimulates the emotions. The superiority of poetic drama lies in the fact that it can appeal to a wider audience and to people of most varied tastes.

 Hence, The Cocktail Party demonstrates this superiority of poetic drama. It is a remarkable achievement, a major breakthrough in the history of poetic drama in the 20^th century.