{"id":267,"date":"2019-05-07T10:43:31","date_gmt":"2019-05-07T10:43:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/engp04.epgpbooks.inflibnet.ac.in\/?post_type=chapter&p=267"},"modified":"2019-05-08T05:13:15","modified_gmt":"2019-05-08T05:13:15","slug":"t-s-eliot-murder-in-the-cathedral","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/ebooks.inflibnet.ac.in\/engp04\/chapter\/t-s-eliot-murder-in-the-cathedral\/","title":{"rendered":"T. S. Eliot: Murder in the Cathedral"},"content":{"raw":"
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\r\n\r\n\u00a0Eliot\u2019s Life andInfluences<\/strong>\r\n\r\n \r\n

Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888-1965) renowned poet, critic and dramatist was born in St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.A., in a strict Unitarian family. In 1906, he went to Harvard University where he studied Greek, Latin, Renaissance literature, French and German philosophy. There he was taught by George Santayana and Irving Babbitt. Babbitt profoundly influenced Eliot\u2019s views regarding the dynamic relationship between the past and the present as well as his bias against Romanticism. At Harvard, Eliot was exposed to the works of Dante, Laforgue and the French symbolists. Eliot had completed two of his earliest poetic works \u201cPortrait of a Lady\u201d and \u201cThe Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock\u201d<\/p>\r\n \r\n

\u00a0Influence of Philosophy<\/strong>: The next academic stint of Eliot was at the Sorbonne University in Paris, where he studied philosophy and French literature, and attended the classes held by the French Philosopher Henri Bergson. He\u00a0 went back to Harvard to prepare for his doctoral thesis on the English philosopher F.H. Bradley, but left without taking the degree. Later he went to Merton college, Oxford and finally took up permanent residence in England in 1915 by becoming a British citizen.<\/p>\r\n \r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

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\u00a0Journalistic Career<\/strong>: During his early years in London, Eliot taught at Highgate school reviewed books for the Times Literary Supplement<\/em>, and from 1917, worked for Lloyds Bank. He served a short stint as Assistant Editor of\u00a0 The Egoist<\/em>, and later became the editor of a newly founded quarterly review, The Criterion <\/em>in 1922 where he continued till it ceased publication in 1939. In 1925, he became the director of the publishing house Faber and Faber, aiding many young poets in their fledgling careers.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

\u00a0Influence of Religion<\/strong>: In 1927, Eliot became a member of the Church of England. The poems written, during this period include, \u2018The Hollow Men\u2019, \u2018The Journey of the Magi\u2019 and \u2018Ash Wednesday\u2019. The major achievement of his later career was Four Quartets <\/em>\u2013 consisting of four long poems , namely, Burnt Norton <\/em>(1933), East Coker <\/em>(1940) The Dry Salvages <\/em>(1941) and Little Gidding <\/em>(1942) \u2013 first published together in 1943. They are contemplative and religious poems, each concerned with one of the four elements namely air, earth, water and fire.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

The change from agnosticism to Christianity emerged gradually in Eliot\u2019s writing and was marked by the publication of a book of essays For Lancelot Andrews <\/em>(1928). Eliot\u2019s masterpiece The Waste Land <\/em>(1922) portrays the deeper desolation of a world declining into materialism.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

\u201cWho is the third who walks always beside you?\/I do not know whether a man or a woman \u2013 But who is that on the other side of you?\u201d in The Wasteland\u00a0<\/em>recalls Christ walking with two of his disciples to Emmaus as he walked on his mystical journey the refrain of quotations from the Lord\u2019s Prayer is echoed in <\/span>The Hollow Men <\/em>while Dante\u2019s \u201cIn His will is our peace\u201d is reflected in <\/span>Ash Wednesday <\/em>as \u2018Our peace in His Will\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\r\n \r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

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J.L. Styan has commented that T.S. Eliot \u2018came to the drama with an unlikely mission: to discover what made Elizabethan poetic stage workable and how to recreate in verse a moral or religious drama for a modern audience\u201d (377).<\/p>\r\n

II.\u00a0 As a Verse Dramatist<\/strong><\/p>\r\n \r\n

Eliot is one of the leading exponents of poetic drama who contributed much to its revival in the early twentieth century. The earliest attempt was Sweeney Agonistes <\/em>(1932) followed by the pageant play The Rock <\/em>(1934). His most successful enterprise was Murder in the Cathedral <\/em>(1935) which was commissioned for Canterbury Festival of June 1935. During the first two or\u00a0 three years, there were eight hundred performances of the play, a landmark in\u00a0 the history of modern English drama. Eliot\u2019s later plays were The Family Reunion <\/em>(1939), The Cocktail Party <\/em>(1950), The Confidential Clerk <\/em>(154) and The Elder Statesman <\/em>(1959).<\/p>\r\n \r\n

Many of Eliot\u2019s poems resemble dramatic monologues, like \u2018The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock\u2019 (1917), \u2018Gerontion\u2019 (1920) and others like \u2018Portrait of a Lady\u2019 (1917) and \u2018Sweeney Agonists\u2019 fragments (1926) embody dramatic situations.<\/p>\r\n \r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

\r\n\r\nThe ThreeVoices<\/strong>\r\n\r\n \r\n

J.L. Styan has raised certain questions regarding Eliot\u2019s discussions of poetic drama.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

1)Regarding how complex thoughts and feelings of a poet can be conveyed through characters in action, Eliot has distinguished three distinct voices in a lecture The Three Voices of Poetry <\/em>(1953).<\/p>\r\n\r\n