Modern drama in verse: "Murder in the Cathedral" (1935) by T.S. Eliot

Abstract

T.S. Eliot (1888-1965) presented "Murder in the Cathedral" at the Annual Canterbury Festival in 1935. Canterbury was not only the archdiocese of Kent State, but also the oldest Christian shrine in Europe whose cult was the reason for the pilgrims' journey in Geoffrey Chaucer´s tales. Eliot chose Thomas Becket, the national and religious hero, as the object of his drama in verse. However, the playwright decided not to put, again, the focus of action in the well-known historical-political conflict between Henry II Plantagenet and his former chancellor. The twelfth century struggle of investiture which ended with the brutal murder of Becket in the Cathedral during the Christmas Day of 1170 was the exclusively the subject in these Anglo-Catholic festivals. On this occasion, the viewpoint was on the archbishop's moral conflict: his intimate reflections on the real nature of martyrdom. Eliot, who is, perhaps, the greatest of modern poets, offers us a commercial play for a modern audience, which, paradoxically, contains choral lines in the manner of Greek drama, liturgical tradition and abstractions in the style of English moralities. This play, with an air of old grandeur and scenes of slow and parsimonious rhythm, was written at the time of the beginning of fascism in central Europe, and can be understood as a protest aimed to encourage citizens from affected countries  to oppose the misrepresentation of the ideals of the Christian Church on the part of the Nazi regime.