Last weekend’s meeting of the Notting Hill Napoleons was an abbreviated one of sorts; specifically, it involved only about half of our noble little company. It isn’t easy finding the best evening for our book discussion. After all, though regular readers, the Napoleons have plenty of activities, responsibilities and travel schedules besides books that we have to work around. Still, though the numbers were small, the discussion was terrific, most relevantly because the book under review was T.S. Eliot’s compelling religious drama, Murder in the Cathedral.
Written for a Canterbury church festival in 1935, Eliot used both lyric verse and prose narrative to tell the story of Thomas Becket’s martyrdom at the behest of King Henry II. And although the tale is widely known, Eliot is remarkably creative in bringing the audience out of a mere spectator’s role and truly into the emotional tension and the universal spiritual meaning of this historic event.
T.S. Eliot had only a few years earlier converted to Christianity after a childhood of Unitarianism and an adulthood of acclaim in the liberal academic and literary circles of the U.S., London and Paris. While his embrace of orthodox Christianity, his acceptance into the Anglican Church and his change of citizenship from America to England had certainly made him less popular among his old pals, Murder in the Cathedral is proof that both his perceptions of life and writing talents had actually sharpened since his landmark success with “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” The Waste Land and other early works.
Murder in the Cathedral is a profound religious play but, make no mistake, it is also high art.
The play is a short one and is easy to appreciate by all readers. Even if you’re leery of verse, or adaptations from Greek tragedy, or historical models, Murder in the Cathedral is entry-level stuff. But beware; once you enter the world of Thomas Becket (through the magic of T.S. Eliot), you will likely be changed.
But since the changes wrought are most certainly to be positive ones, I pass on an enthusiastic recommendation for Murder in the Cathedral.
And, one other thing – this last re-reading I did of Eliot’s play was greatly enhanced by an earlier re-reading a few days previous of a play covering the same historic event written by Jean Anouilh. This play, Becket: The Honour of God, gives a much fuller account of the relationship between Thomas Becket and King Henry and so it made for a great complement. Becket doesn’t have quite the same spiritual power that Murder in the Cathedral does but, nevertheless, it too is a very informative, stimulating read.
By the way, the latter play was the basis for the movie Becket which starred two of the finest actors of the 20th century, Richard Burton and Peter O’Toole. If you can find a copy, that too would provide an inspirational experience.
