Synopses & Reviews
T. S. Eliot's verse dramatization of the murder of Thomas Becket at Canterbury, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature
The Archbishop Thomas Becket speaks fatal words before he is martyred in T. S. Eliot's best-known drama, based on the murder of the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1170. Praised for its poetically masterful handling of issues of faith, politics, and the common good, T. S. Eliot's play bolstered his reputation as the most significant poet of his time.
Synopsis
A dramatization in verse of the murder of Thomas Becket at Canterbury. “The theatre as well as the church is enriched by this poetic play of grave beauty and momentous decision” (New York Times). “Within its limits the play is a masterpiece.... Mr. Eliot has written no better poem than this and none which seems simpler” (Mark Van Doren, The Nation).
Synopsis
WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE
T. S. Eliot's most famous drama, a retelling of the murder of the archbishop of Canterbury
Written in 1934, Murder in the Cathedral tells of the assassination of Archbishop Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral during the reign of Henry II in 1170. Praised for its poetically masterful handling of issues of faith, politics, and the common good, T. S. Eliot's celebrated play solidified his reputation as the most significant poet of his time.
Synopsis
T. S. Eliot's most famous drama, a retelling of the murder of the archbishop of Canterbury
Murder in the Cathedral, written for the Canterbury Festival in 1935, was one of T. S. Eliot's first dramatic achievements, and it remains one of the great plays of the century. It takes as its subject matter the martyrdom of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, depicting the events that led to his assassination, in his own cathedral church, by the knights of Henry II in 1170. Like Greek drama, the play's theme and form are rooted in religion, ritual purgation and renewal, and it was this return to the earliest sources of drama that brought poetry triumphantly back to the English stage at the time.
"The theatre is enriched by this poetic play of grave beauty and momentous decision." --The New York Times
About the Author
Thomas Stearns Eliot was born in 1888 in St. Louis, Missouri, and became a British subject in 1927. The acclaimed poet of The Waste Land, Four Quartets, and Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, among numerous other poems, prose, and works of drama, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948. T.S. Eliot died in 1965 in London, England, and is buried in Westminster Abbey.