Aspects of verse drama in Murder in the cathedral

Murder in the Cathedral, poetic drama in two parts, with a prose sermon interlude, the most successful play by American English poet T.S.
Eliot. The play was performed at Canterbury Cathedral in 1935 and published the same year. Set in December 1170, it is a modern miracle
play on the martyrdom of St. Thomas Becket, archbishop of Canterbury.

The need of the Modern Age was thus not just a revival of poetic drama but poetic drama of a new order. Eliot sensibly decided to eschew
the example of Shakespeare and turn to ancient Greek drama and the English plays of the Medieval Age. Thus the play Murder in
Cathedral has distinct classical influences in it. It could be called classical both in its form and content.

The play opens and ends with the Chorus. There is a parallel for four Tempters in the four Knights and their role. Dramatic intensity is
gained by the concentration on musical notes.

 It has a ritual pattern and its theme is of martyrdom and as such appeals strongly to a sense of the religious.

The Chorus

A very important influence of classical drama on Murder in tho Cathedral is the use of the Chorus. Eliot does not copy the Greek use of
Chorus completely, but he borrows their main functions;

Eliot thus restores "the full throated Chorus of Greek tragedy" but enlarges its original function in the light of the Christian liturgy. It
represents the common people and mediates between audience and action, as in Greek drama. But as Raymond Williams notes, it is a
choir as well - "the articulate voice of the body of worshippers."

The critics have been unanimous in according praise to the Chorus in Murder in The Cathedral. In the Chorus we find a development from
an initial fear to the ultimate acceptance of Thomas's martyrdom and, its true significance. The Chorus provides both background and
counterpoint to the action, and it is through its reaction to the events of the martyrdom of Thomas, that the tension and atmosphere are
built up and maintained. As John Peter says, "Like their equivalent in Greek tragedies they present a commentary on the action,
anticipating and preparing us for developments, rousing us with their passionate dithyrambs to participate whole-heartedly in the
emotional crisis, supplying the action with the background that is like music; pervasive". Also some of the play's best poetry is to be found
in the passages chanted by the Chorus

There are only two sections in the play in which characters do not speak in verse: Thomas’s sermon on Christmas Day and the “apologies”
by the Knights to the audience. Both of these sections feature a speaker (or speakers) attempting to manipulate language in order to
convince their listeners of a certain point (rhetoric) and trying to deliver the words in a way that gives them the greatest impact (oratory).

In staging T. S. Eliot’s poetic drama Murder in the Cathedral, one of the principal technical and artistic-interpretive problems involves the
presentation of the choral speeches. Textually they appear as odes with no specific instructions to indicate differentiation of voices. But
the first staging of the play set the precedent for assigning parts within the choral odes to individual voices or varying ensembles. The
decision is in part a musical one, involving an assessment of the voices available and an orchestration of those voices to produce a pattern
of sound that enhances the aural effect of the language. Obviously, however, the arrangement of voices must also relate to the thematic
development of the odes as well. We cannot separate sound and meaning. Thus, while the individual director has some freedom in
designating parts of the choral speeches, the poetry itself places strictures on that freedom. What I seek to do here is to provide a reading
of the choral odes which identifies the principal thematic and dramatic voices in them.

In Part Two of the play, several musical cues are mentioned, such as “a Dies Irae is sung in Latin by a choir in the distance.” Together they
mean day of ire, or as the phrase is translated in this context, the day of wrath. Dies Irae is the name of a devoutly religious thirteenth
century Latin hymn that was originally sung only by and for monks. Its subject is the end of the world, God's wrath on the Last Day, the
Day of Judgment.
Poetic drama had to deal with intense emotions basic to the human heart. Poetic drama has a richness in it and this was due to the
presence of an "under- pattern" - a kind of doubleness in the action as if it took place on two planes at once. Poetic drama also had the
ability to achieve a better concentration and unity - because verse by its very nature gave richness, depth and unity to a play. 

The versification had to be of a flexible or elastic kind that could be modulated to suit the different characters in different situations. The
poetry had to be integral to the drama, i.e. it had to be dramatically justified and not be merely incidental or just an embellishment or a
decoration. In such a light, even rhetorical speech had its place in poetic drama if it suited the occasion.

owhere in the play do we find any versification which is not dramatically valid.