Murder in the Cathedral is a
poeticPoetic may refer to:* Poetry, or a relation thereof.* Too Poetic, a deceased rapper and hip hop producer....
dramaDrama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a collective...
by
T. S. EliotThomas Stearns Eliot, OM , was a poet, playwright, and literary critic. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948. Among his most famous writings are The Love Song of J...
that portrays the assassination of
ArchbishopIn Christianity, an archbishop is an elevated bishop. In many Christian Churches, this means that they lead a diocese of particular importance called an archdiocese, or in the Anglican Communion an Ecclesiastical Province, but this is not always the case. An archbishop is equivalent to a bishop in...
Thomas BecketThomas Becket was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1162 to his death. He is venerated as a saint and martyr by both the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion...
in
Canterbury CathedralCanterbury Cathedral in Canterbury, Kent, is one of the oldest and most famous Christian structures in England and forms part of a World Heritage Site. It is the cathedral of the Archbishop of Canterbury, leader of the Church of England and symbolic leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion...
in 1170, first performed in 1935. Eliot drew heavily on the writing of
Edward GrimEdward Grim was a clerk from Cambridge who was visiting Canterbury Cathedral on Tuesday 29 December 1170 when Thomas Becket was murdered. He subsequently researched and published a book, Vita S. Thomae , published in about 1180, which is today known chiefly for a short section in which he gives an...
, a clerk who was an eyewitness to the event.
The play, dealing with an individual's opposition to authority,
was written at the time of rising
FascismFascism, , comprises a radical and authoritarian nationalist political ideology and a corporatist economic ideology developed in Italy. Fascists believe that nations and/or races are in perpetual conflict whereby only the strong can survive by being healthy, vital, and by asserting themselves in...
in
Central EuropeCentral Europe is the region lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe. The term and widespread interest in the region itself came back into fashion after the end of the Cold War, which, along with the Iron Curtain, had divided Europe politically into East and West,...
, and can be taken as a protest to individuals in affected countries to oppose the Nazi regime's subversion of the ideals of the Christian Church.
Some material that the producer asked Eliot to remove or replace during the writing was transformed into the poem "
Burnt Norton"Burnt Norton" is the first poem of T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets. He created it while working on his play Murder in the Cathedral and it was first published in his Collected Poems 1909–1935 . The poem's title refers to a manor house Eliot visited. The manor's garden served as an important image...
".
Murder in the Cathedral is a
poeticPoetic may refer to:* Poetry, or a relation thereof.* Too Poetic, a deceased rapper and hip hop producer....
dramaDrama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a collective...
by
T. S. EliotThomas Stearns Eliot, OM , was a poet, playwright, and literary critic. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948. Among his most famous writings are The Love Song of J...
that portrays the assassination of
ArchbishopIn Christianity, an archbishop is an elevated bishop. In many Christian Churches, this means that they lead a diocese of particular importance called an archdiocese, or in the Anglican Communion an Ecclesiastical Province, but this is not always the case. An archbishop is equivalent to a bishop in...
Thomas BecketThomas Becket was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1162 to his death. He is venerated as a saint and martyr by both the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion...
in
Canterbury CathedralCanterbury Cathedral in Canterbury, Kent, is one of the oldest and most famous Christian structures in England and forms part of a World Heritage Site. It is the cathedral of the Archbishop of Canterbury, leader of the Church of England and symbolic leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion...
in 1170, first performed in 1935. Eliot drew heavily on the writing of
Edward GrimEdward Grim was a clerk from Cambridge who was visiting Canterbury Cathedral on Tuesday 29 December 1170 when Thomas Becket was murdered. He subsequently researched and published a book, Vita S. Thomae , published in about 1180, which is today known chiefly for a short section in which he gives an...
, a clerk who was an eyewitness to the event.
The play, dealing with an individual's opposition to authority,
was written at the time of rising
FascismFascism, , comprises a radical and authoritarian nationalist political ideology and a corporatist economic ideology developed in Italy. Fascists believe that nations and/or races are in perpetual conflict whereby only the strong can survive by being healthy, vital, and by asserting themselves in...
in
Central EuropeCentral Europe is the region lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe. The term and widespread interest in the region itself came back into fashion after the end of the Cold War, which, along with the Iron Curtain, had divided Europe politically into East and West,...
, and can be taken as a protest to individuals in affected countries to oppose the Nazi regime's subversion of the ideals of the Christian Church.
Some material that the producer asked Eliot to remove or replace during the writing was transformed into the poem "
Burnt Norton"Burnt Norton" is the first poem of T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets. He created it while working on his play Murder in the Cathedral and it was first published in his Collected Poems 1909–1935 . The poem's title refers to a manor house Eliot visited. The manor's garden served as an important image...
".
Plot
The action occurs between December 2 and December 29, 1170, chronicling the days leading up to the martyrdom of Thomas Becket following his absence of seven years in
FranceFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
. Becket's internal struggle is the main focus of the play.
The play is divided into two "parts" separated by an "interlude". Part one takes place in the Archbishop's hall on December 2, 1170. The play begins with a Chorus singing, foreshadowing the coming violence. The Chorus is a key part of the drama, with its voice changing and developing during the play, offering comments about the action and providing a link between the audience and the characters and action, as in Greek drama. Three priests are present, and they reflect on the absence of Becket and the rise of temporal power. A herald announces Becket’s arrival. Becket is immediately reflective about his coming martyrdom, which he embraces, and which is understood to be a sign of his own selfishness--his fatal weakness. The tempters arrive, three of whom parallel the Temptations of Christ.
The first tempter offers the prospect of physical safety.
- Take a friend's advice. Leave well alone,
- Or your goose may be cooked and eaten to the bone.
The second offers power, riches and fame in serving the King.
- To set down the great, protect the poor,
- Beneath the throne of God can man do more?
The third tempter suggests a coalition with the barons and a chance to resist the King.
- For us, Church favour would be an advantage,
- Blessing of Pope powerful protection
- In the fight for liberty. You, my Lord,
- In being with us, would fight a good stroke
Finally, a fourth tempter urges him to seek the glory of martyrdom.
- You hold the keys of heaven and hell.
- Power to bind and loose : bind, Thomas, bind,
- King and bishop under your heel.
- King, emperor, bishop, baron, king:
Becket responds to all of the tempters and specifically addresses the immoral suggestions of the fourth tempter at the end of the first act:
- Now is my way clear, now is the meaning plain:
- Temptation shall not come in this kind again.
- The last temptation is the greatest treason:
- To do the right deed for the wrong reason.
The Interlude of the play is a sermon given by Becket on Christmas morning 1170. It is about the strange contradiction that Christmas is a day both of mourning and rejoicing, which Christians also do for martyrs. He announces at the end of his sermon, "it is possible that in a short time you may have yet another martyr." We see in the sermon something of Becket's ultimate peace of mind, as he elects not to seek sainthood, but to accept his death as inevitable and part of a better whole.
Part II of the play takes place in the Archbishop's Hall and in the Cathedral, December 29, 1170. Four knights arrive with "urgent business" from the king. These knights had heard the king speak of his frustration with Becket, and had interpreted this as an order to kill Becket. They accuse him of betrayal, and he claims to be loyal. He tells them to accuse him in public, and they make to attack him, but priests intervene. The priests insist that he leave and protect himself, but he refuses. The knights leave and Becket again says he is ready to die. The chorus sings that they knew this conflict was coming, that it had long been in the fabric of their lives, both temporal and spiritual. The chorus again reflects on the coming devastation. Thomas is taken to the Cathedral, where the knights break in and kill him. The chorus laments: “Clean the air! Clean the sky!", and "The land is foul, the water is foul, our beats and ourselves defiled with blood." At the close of the play, the knights step up, address the audience, and defend their actions. The murder was all right and for the best: it was in the right spirit, sober, and justified so that the church's power would not undermine stability and state power.
Performances
First performance
George BellGeorge Kennedy Allen Bell was an Anglican theologian, Dean of Canterbury , Bishop of Chichester, member of the House of Lords and a pioneer of the Ecumenical Movement.-Early career:...
, the
Bishop of ChichesterThe Bishop of Chichester is the Ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Chichester in the Province of Canterbury. The diocese covers the Counties of East and West Sussex. The see is in the City of Chichester where the seat is located at the Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity...
, was instrumental in getting Eliot to work as writer with producer E. Martin Browne in producing the pageant play
The Rock (1934.) Bell then asked Eliot to write another play for the
Canterbury FestivalThe Canterbury Festival is Kent's international festival of the arts. It takes place in Canterbury and surrounding towns and villages each October and includes performances of a variety of types of music, ranging from Opera and Oratorio to art, comedy and theatre...
in 1935. Eliot agreed to do so if Browne once again produced (he did). The first performance was given on June 15, 1935 in the Chapter House of Canterbury Cathedral.
Robert SpeaightRobert Speaight was a British actor and writer, and the brother of George Speaight the puppeteer.He was an early performer in radio plays. He came to prominence as Becket in the first production of T. S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral. He went on to Shakespearean roles, and to direct.He also...
played the part of Becket. The production then moved to London and ran there for several months.
Other performances
Robert DonatFriedrich Robert Donat , was an English film and stage actor. He is best-known for his roles in Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps and Goodbye, Mr...
played Becket at the
Old VicThe Old Vic is a theatre located just south-east of Waterloo Station in London on the corner of The Cut and Waterloo Road. Established in 1818 as the Royal Coburg Theatre, it was taken over by Emma Cons in 1880 when it was known formally as the Royal Victoria Hall. In 1898, a niece of Cons, Lilian...
in 1953 in a production directed by
Robert HelpmannSir Robert Murray Helpmann CBE was an Australian dancer, actor, director and choreographer. Born Robert Murray Helpman, he added the extra 'n' to avoid his name having 13 letters, at the suggestion of Anna Pavlova, who was a devotee of numerology. He was born in Mount Gambier and also boarded at...
.
The
RSCRSC is a three-letter initialism that can stand for several things:*RuneScape Community or RuneScape Classic*Chromatin Structure Remodeling Complex...
staged revivals in 1972 at the
Aldwych TheatreThe Aldwych Theatre is a West End theatre, located on Aldwych in the City of Westminster. The theatre was listed Grade II on 20 July 1971. Its seating capacity is 1,200.-Origins:...
, with
Richard PascoRichard Edward Pasco CBE is a British stage, screen and TV actor.- Early life :He attended the King's College School, Wimbledon and became an apprentice stage manager at the Q theatre, before studying at the Central School of Speech and Drama, where he won the gold medal...
as Becket, and at
The SwanThe Swan Theatre is a theatre belonging to the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. It is built on to the side of the larger Royal Shakespeare Theatre, occupying the Victorian Gothic structure that formerly housed the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre that preceded the RST but was...
in 1993 transferring to
The PitBarbican Centre is the largest performing arts centre in Europe. Located in the north of the City of London, England, in the heart of the Barbican Estate, the Centre hosts classical and contemporary music concerts, theatre performances, film screenings and art exhibitions. It also houses a library,...
in 1994 with Michael Feast.
Television and Film
The play, starring
Robert SpeaightRobert Speaight was a British actor and writer, and the brother of George Speaight the puppeteer.He was an early performer in radio plays. He came to prominence as Becket in the first production of T. S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral. He went on to Shakespearean roles, and to direct.He also...
, was broadcast live on British television by the
BBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation, usually referred to by its abbreviation as the "BBC", is the longest established and largest broadcaster in the world...
in 1936 in its first few months of broadcasting TV.
The play was later made into a black and white film. It was directed by the
AustriaAustria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.3 million people in Central Europe. It borders both Germany and the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west...
n director George Hoellering with music by the
HungarianHungary , in English officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in the Carpathian Basin of Central Europe, bordered by Austria, Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia. Its capital is Budapest. Hungary is a member of OECD, NATO, EU, V4 and is a Schengen state...
composer
Laszlo LajthaLászló Lajtha was a Hungarian composer, ethnomusicologist and conductor.-Career:...
and won the Grand Prix at the
Venice Film FestivalThe Venice Film Festival is the oldest film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi di Misurata in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the Lido, Venice,...
in 1951. It was released in the UK in 1952. In the film the fourth tempter is not seen. His voice was that of Eliot himself.
The 1964 colour film
BecketBecket is a 1964 film adaptation of the play Becket or the Honour of God by Jean Anouilh made by Hal Wallis Productions and released by Paramount Pictures. It was directed by Peter Glenville and produced by Hal B. Wallis with Joseph H. Hazen as executive producer. The screenplay was written by...
dealt with the same story, but was based on a play written by the French dramatist
Jean AnouilhJean Marie Lucien Pierre Anouilh was a French dramatist.-Early years:Anouilh was born in Cérisole, a small village on the outskirts of Bordeaux and had Basque ancestry. His father was a tailor and Anouilh maintained that he inherited from him a pride in conscientious craftmanship...
.
Eliot's own criticism
In 1951, in the first
Theodore Spencer-Life:He graduated from Princeton University in 1923, and a Ph.D from Harvard University in 1928. He then taught there, from 1927 to 1949. He was appointed lecturer in English literature at Cambridge University, England, in 1939. In 1942, Spencer gave the Lowell lectures on Shakespeare, published...
Memorial Lecture at
Harvard UniversityHarvard University is a private university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1636 by the colonial Massachusetts legislature, Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and currently comprises ten separate academic units...
, Eliot criticized his own plays in the second half of the lecture, explicitly the plays
Murder in the Cathedral,
The Family ReunionThe Family Reunion is a play by T. S. Eliot. Written mostly in blank verse, it incorporates elements from Greek drama and mid-twentieth-century detective plays to portray the hero's journey from guilt to redemption. The play was unsuccessful when first presented in 1939, and was later regarded as...
, and
The Cocktail PartyThe Cocktail Party is a play by T. S. Eliot. Elements of the play are based on Alcestis, by the Ancient Greek playwright Euripides. The play was the most popular of Eliot's seven plays in his lifetime, although his 1935 play, Murder in the Cathedral, is better remembered today.The Cocktail Party...
. The lecture was published as
Poetry and Drama and later included in Eliot's 1957 collection
On Poetry and Poets.
Parodies
The play was lampooned by the Canadian/U.S. TV comedy show
SCTV Second City Television is a Canadian television sketch comedy show offshoot from Toronto's The Second City troupe that ran between 1976 and 1984.- Premise :...
. In a typically surreal SCTV sketch, the play is presented by
NASAThe National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an agency of the United States government, responsible for the nation's public space program. NASA was established by the National Aeronautics and Space Act on July 29, 1958, replacing its predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for...
with space-suited astronauts as the actors, and the proceedings narrated by
Walter CronkiteWalter Leland Cronkite, Jr. was an American broadcast journalist, best known as anchorman for the CBS Evening News for 19 years . During the heyday of CBS News in the 1960s and 1970s, he was often cited as "the most trusted man in America" after being so named in an opinion poll...
as if it were a NASA moon mission. "[Spacesuit transmission from astronaut] Mission control ... I think we've found a body."
Further reading
- Browne, E. Martin. The Making of T.S. Eliot's Plays. London: Cambridge University Press, 1969.
- Hoellering, George. "Filming Murder in the Cathedral." T.S. Eliot: A Symposium for His Seventieth Birthday. Ed. Neville Braybrooke. New York: Books for Libraries, 1968. pp. 81-84