UNIT 13: ORIGIN OF POETIC DRAMA

IN THE EARLY TWENTIETH

CENTURY
Structure
13.0 Objectives
13.1 Introduction
13.2 Revival Of The Poetic Drama In The Early 20th Century
13.3 Forms of Poetic Drama
13.4 Classification of Twentieth Century Poetic Drama
13.5 Closet Drama
13.6 Eliot’s Contribution To The Revival Of Poetic Drama In The 20th
Century
13.7 Failure of Prose Drama: The Rise Of Poetic Drama
13.8 Poetic Devices Used In Early Modern Poetic Drama
13.9 Summing Up
13.10 Check Your Progress: Possible Questions
13.11 Select Reading list

13.0 OBJECTIVES
The objective of reading drama is to encourage and develop confidence,
communication, social awareness, working autonomy and as part of a team,
time management, creative performance and writing skills. Besides, it
helps build knowledge and appreciation of theatre, dramatic literature, and
performance in their cultural, historical, and interdisciplinary contexts with
special proficiency in at least one area of theatrical endeavor. When there
was no other impressive medium of amusement and entertainment like TV,
cinema, opera, internet and android set, drama had the tremendous effect on
society to exercise the interdependence of artistic practice and intellectual
knowledge. Then by that time understanding theatre as a collaborative art
form with social impact and ability to handle a range of analytical, research
and practical methodologies in critical studies, playwrights as path showers
started performance, design, and productions of plays to create awareness
of contemporary developments and controversies within the field. Reading
poetic drama of early 20th century takes us back to refresh our student minds
not only through literature but also to apply what has been learned through
opportunities for performance, production, internships, and independent study.
Poetic drama as it is conjunctive of both poetry and drama is also considered
as a literary genre. Poetry is the written form that expresses emotions,
observations and feelings through rhythmic cadence. It is this combination
of cadence and words that draws the reader or listener in. drama, by contrast,
presents the actions and words of characters on the stage. Poetry is a type
of literature based on the interplay of words and rhythm. It often employs
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The Twentieth Century rhyme and meter (a set of rules leading the number and arrangement of
Poetic Drama syllables in each line). In poetry, words are woven together to form sounds,
images, and ideas that might be too complex or abstract to describe directly.
The literary device verse denotes a single line of poetry. The term can also
be used to refer to a stanza or other parts of poetry. Generally, the device
is stated to encompass three possible meanings, namely a line of metrical
writing, a stanza, or a piece written in meter. The twentieth century poetic
drama is marked by excessive realism as well as naturalism that contain
witty, serious, pathetic, or ironical substances as the accepted medium.

13.1 INTRODUCTION
The English poetic drama in the early twentieth century appears as a
reaction to the naturalistic prose drama of Ibsen, Shaw and Galsworthy.
The language used by the dramatist while presenting social problems was
tough and because of that drama was prosaic rather than poetic in the early
decades of the twentieth century. Poetic drama has a long and respectable
history, so much so that surveys of its poetic drama movement of the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The poetic drama had a late start in
England. During the thirty years from 1890 to 1920 the pure poetic play was
almost non-existent in England. However, in Ireland, it attracted some of
the Abbey theatre authors. Stephen Philips remained strictly faithful to the
verse form. The English poetic drama had its heyday during the Elizabethan
age. Poetic drama was revived only at the beginning of the 20th century and
reached to make poetic drama a source of moral and spiritual uplift of the
secular audience. And early in the 20th century, everyone was making a lot
of fuss about the fact that Shakespeare wrote in verse. Everyone got very
excited about the meaning. The versification of drama is any drama written
as verse to be spoken; another possible general term is in the second half
of the twentieth century verse drama falls almost completely out of fashion
with dramatists writing in history. 19th Century failure of poetic drama
marks the beginning of the revival of poetic drama in the 20th century in
the history of a nation there can be only one great age of poetic drama.

13.2 REVIVAL OF THE POETIC DRAMA IN

THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY
The revival of the earliest plays focus on the greatest epics of the world, the
Divine Comedy, the Bible, the establishment of theatre, imagery, history,
religion, comedies of seasons. The poetic drama has a long and respectable
history, so much so that surveys of its twentieth-century practitioners tend to
begin with discussions of the parameters laid down by critics from Aristotle
to Dryden. However, classical poetics is of limited relevance to modern
practice: whereas the Renaissance dramatists in Britain were working
within a strong tradition of verse drama, against the background of surviving
classical works in verse and the native heritage of religious and morality
plays, also in verse, this tradition did not persist to the present. Though verse
drama continued to be written and revived after the seventeenth century,
its dominance as a creative force declined, and this eclipse was of great
importance to the poetic drama movement of the late nineteenth and early
twentieth century. First, there was no vital, continuing verse drama form,
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so that would-be verse dramatists had no close models to develop or react Origin of Poetic Drama in
against; and second, the nineteenth-century preoccupation with realism the Early Twentieth Century
and naturalism in the arts undermined the conventions of theatre that were
necessary for a non-naturalistic style of dramatic writing, which meant that
verse dramatists have to reinvent conventions that would suit their work.

13.3 FORMS OF POETIC DRAMA

The forms of poetic drama are so various that few critics are able to hold
more than one or two in mind pronouncing judgment of both dramatic and
non-dramatic. They have a late start in England during the thirty years from
1890 to 1920 as the pure poetic play was almost non-existent in England.
However, in Ireland, it attracted some of the Abbey theatre authors. Stephen
Philips remained strictly realistic to the verse form. His Paolo and Francesca,
which was modeled upon Dante’s famous episode in Inferno, was a great
success in 1900. His other plays were Herrod, A Tragedy, Ulysses, The Sin
of David and Nero. John Drinkwater also endeavored to re-establish the
poetic play in his earlier career. His notable plays Rebellion and The Storm
are written in this style. W.B. Yeats, the great poet, whose work belongs to
the Irish Literary Movement and the Abbey Theatre also wrote plays in this
style. His finest achievement in this sphere is The Countess Kathleen. J.M.
Synge is the other important name in the history of the poetic drama. He
evolved a new from more closely in accord with the spirit of his age. He
contributed immensely to the development of Irish school of imaginative
plays. His Riders to The Sea and The Shadow of the Glen are masters in
prose-poetry.
The modern poetic drama in England owes its steady development to
Gordon Bottomley, Abercrombie, T.S. Eliot and W.H. Auden. Abercrombie
and Bottomley come forward for the salvage of the English dramatists
when it was on the verge of decline. Abercrombie’s attempt is remarkable
to the earlier verse-forms to make more vital means of dramatic expression.
Debora, The Adder, The End of the World, The Staircase, The Deserter and
Phoenix are his amorous play in this style. Abercrombie endeavors to bring
his poetry into close contact with reality who appreciates and who knows
the stage very well. Bottomley tries to make a new start. He looks in to the
classical drama of Greece. His most notable plays are King Liar’s Wife, The
Crier by Night, Midsummer Eve, Laodice and Danae and Kate Kennedy.
Eliot’s Murder in The cathedral is a landmark in the history of the modern
poetic drama. Here in it is applied poetry to the stage most powerfully and
artistically. There is real exhibition of the emotional power in the play. It
has been a great success ever since its first appearance in 1935. Eliot’s
Family Reunion is another beautiful play. W.H. Auden and Christopher
Isherwood produce The Dog Beneath The Skin in collaboration in 1935.
Stephen Spender’s Trial of A Judge is another play worthy of note in this
spear. For his creative imagination, the subtle manipulation of the conflicts
of souls, the powerful expression of incommunicable thoughts, Christopher
Fry seems to have few rivals in English verse drama. It is also perhaps for
these very reasons that Fry has no followers in verse drama.

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The Twentieth Century The basic features of poetic drama are its technicality, diction, language and
Poetic Drama the art of speaking. In fact, poetry is a powerful medium of expression. The
rhythm of life can be best tuned to the conscience of poetic imagination.
Further, the language in commonplace has greater a symphony which the
dramatists of this genre have tried to capture. But by doing so, a fair amount
of theatricality, poetry, action and characterization become weak in force.
Truly speaking, in modern time, the poetic drama has lost its grandeur for
proper theatrical exhibition as an action itself is the soul of drama, which
has been violated. One cannot survive by violating it.
Poetic drama has one definition but many forms. In India Parsi theatre has
been known for its unique Element of Poetic drama. Inclusion of songs and
Music in a modern Parsi Theatre in a poetic drama, characters do talk to
each other in verses, both poetry and drama are considered literary genres.
Poetry is written form that expresses emotions, observations and feelings
through rhythmic cadence. It is this combination of cadence and words that
draws the reader or listener in drama, by contrast, presents the actions and
words of characters on the stage.

13.4 CLASSIFICATIONS OF TWENTIETH

CENTURY POETIC DRAMA
Verse drama is a kind of drama written in verse to be spoken; another
possible general term is poetic drama. For a very long period, verse drama
was the dominant form of drama in Europe and was also important in non-
European cultures as well. Greek tragedy and Racine’s plays are written in
verse, as is almost all of Shakespeare’s drama, Ben Jonson, John Fletcher
and others like Goethe’s Faust. Verse drama is mainly associated with
the seriousness of tragedy, providing an artistic reason to write in this
form, as well as the practical one that verse lines are easier for the actors
to memorize exactly. In the second half of the twentieth century verse
drama seems almost completely out of fashion with dramatists writing in
English possibly the plays of Christopher Fry and T. S. Eliot are the end of
a long tradition. Dramatic verse occurs in a dramatic work, such as a play,
composed in poetic form. The tradition of dramatic verse extends at least as
far back as ancient Greece. The English Renaissance witnesses the height of
dramatic verse in the English-speaking world, with playwrights including
Ben Jonson, Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare developing
new techniques, both for dramatic structure and poetic form. Though a few
plays, for example A Midsummer Night›s Dream, mark extended passages
of rhymed verse, the majority of dramatic verse is composed as blank
verse; there are also passages of prose. Dramatic verse begins to decline in
popularity in the nineteenth century, when the prosaic and conversational
styles of playwrights such as Henrik Ibsen becomes more prevalent, and are
adapted in English by George Bernard Shaw. Verse drama has a role in the
development of Irish theatre.

13.5 CLOSET DRAMA

An important trend from around 1800 was the closet drama: a verse drama
intended to be read from the page, rather than performed. Byron and Shelley,
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as well as a host of followers devoted much time to the closet drama, in a Origin of Poetic Drama in
signal that the verse tragedy was already in a state of obsolescence. That the Early Twentieth Century
is, while poets of the eighteenth century could write poetic dramas, the
public taste for new examples was already moving away by the start of the
nineteenth century, and there was little commercial appeal in staging them.
Instead, opera would take up verse drama, as something to be sung: it is
still the case that a verse libretto can be successful. Verse drama as such,
however, in becoming closet drama, became simply a longer poetic form,
without the connection to practical theatre and performance. According to
Robertson Davies in A Voice From the Attic, closet drama is “Dreariest of
literature, most second hand and fusty of experience!” But indeed a great
deal of it was written in Victorian times, and afterwards, to the extent that it
became a more popular long form at least than the faded epic. Prolific in the
form were, for example, Michael Field and Gordon Bottomley. However,
the counter version of poetic drama resists the dramatic poetry in general
where any poetry that uses the discourse of the characters involved telling a
story or portraying a situation. The major types of dramatic poetry are those
already discussed, to be found in plays written for the theatre, and libretti.
There are further dramatic verse forms: these include dramatic monologues,
such as those written by Robert Browning and Alfred Tennyson and
Shakespeare.

13.6 ELIOT’S CONTRIBUTION TO THE

REVIVAL OF POETIC DRAMA IN THE
20TH CENTURY
T. S. Eliot’s greatest contributions to English drama are his challenge to both
criticism and practice. Yet there appears lack too. The lack stems from the
lack of poetry and style; and failure or the degree of failure due to continued
adherence to false ideals. From these two concepts, Eliot finds it necessary to
search elsewhere for the foundations of the art of drama. His search starts as
early as 1919 with the essay “Rhetoric and Poetic Drama.” This is followed
with “The Possibility of Poetic Drama,” published in a collection of essays
entitled The Sacred Grove, in 1920. Eliot’s one attempt at strict drama from
this early period, Sweeney Agonistes, 1926, retains its value as a fragment.
Here Eliot has not found the right relationship between theme, subject,
and form that is required to compose a complete drama. It is after “Ash
Wednesday” in 1930. Soon after finishing Sweeney Agonistes, Eliot writes
one of his most important early essays on drama entitled, “A Dialogue on
Dramatic Poetry” in 1928. With these early essays Eliot performs the task of
restating with precision and authority some first principles, which serves as
guidelines for his later development. The interplay between Eliot’s creative
work and his criticism, which is valuable to the comprehension of his
poetry, is a different matter in the case of his dramas. His theory of poetry
has been borne out by his practice, and both have been influential during the
present generation. But his conception of drama, particularly his belief in
the need for poetic drama, has not fared so well, and is still more theoretical
than the fact are given. It is with this aspect of Eliot that this paper will be
concerned, rather than his accepted position as a leading twentieth-century
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The Twentieth Century English poet. Eliot’s The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism contains
Poetic Drama the remark:
“The ideal medium for poetry, to my mind, and the most direct means of
social ‘usefulness’ for poetry, is the theatre.” By 1933, when this was written,
he had already studied the problem of the verse play in his Introduction to
Charlotte Eliot’s Savonarola (1926) and in his “A Dialogue on Dramatic
Poetry.” As he observed in his ‘Dialogue,” which he wrote as a preface to
Dryden’s great discussion of the subject, “It is one thing to discuss the rules
of an art when that art is alive, and quite another when it is dead.” In his
Introduction, where he was pursuing an inquiry into the limits of dramatic
form, he adopted the premise that such form “may occur at various points
along a line the termini of which are liturgy and realism” —the former being
associated with the incantation of poetry and the latter with a “prosaic”
The third important condition is that poetry must not be used as a mere
decoration. Poetry is not embroidery to look at, but a medium to be looked
through. Eliot distinguishes between false and true rhetoric and says that the
employment of false rhetorical utterances is mismatched with the concept
of poetry as a medium. The presence of false rhetoric not only brings to
consciousness the remoteness of the rhetorical dialogue from the spoken
language, but also exploits the sentiments of the auditors, and in this way
destroys the dramatic detachment of the audience. The contention that
poetry should become a medium, and not a decoration, implies that it should
serve the following purposes: first through poetic images as the objective
correlatives of the states of mind, poetry should help in the revelation of the
personality—pattern of the characters; secondly, through poetic symbolism
it should work out the implications of the theme; thirdly, the scenic setting
of the play should be revealed through poetic manipulations of references.
Poetic plays on contemporary themes conditioned the response of the
audience
The fourth and the last condition for the successful revival of poetic drama,
according to Eliot, is the re-orientation of the attitude of the audience. The
Elizabethan audience accepted with, “willing suspension of disbelief, the
convention of making the high personages speak in verse and the low in
prose. No such frame of mind exists today, with the result that the attention
of audience is distracted from the play to poetry, the moment any character
starts speaking in verse. The situation is worsened by mixture of poetry
and prose in the same play, because the transition from the one to the
other mode of speaking makes the audience much more conscious of the
difference between the two; in juxtaposition with the prose, the poetic mode
of speaking looks all the more artificial. Thus a dramatist should avoid any
mixture of the two. “As I have said”, writes T.S. Eliot, “people are prepared
to put up with verse from the lips of personages dressed in the fashion of
some distant age; they should be made to hear it from people dressed like
ourselves, living in houses and apartments like ours, and using telephones
and motor cars and radio sets what we have to do is to bring poetry into the
world in which the audience lives and to which it returns when it leaves
the theatre; not to transport the audience into some imaginary world totally
unlike its own, an unreal world in which poetry is tolerated……”. It was in
keeping with this theory that after The Murder in the Cathedral, he wrote
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four plays in contemporary setting with remarkable success. In this way says Origin of Poetic Drama in
T.S. Pearce, “in choosing to write poetic dramas about common, everyday the Early Twentieth Century
experiences, Eliot was undertaking the most startling experiment of all his
works. At no period, had any previous writer attempted to do anything like
this.”
Fifthly, Eliot, through his critical writings, demolished the fallacy that in
the history of a nation there can be only one great age of poetic drama.
The age of Elizabeth in England, the 5th century in Greece, and the 17th
century in France, were great ages of poetic drama, and there had not been
another greater age of verse plays in any of these countries. Eliot rejected
such fatalistic philosophies, as he called them, and emphasized that verse is
the natural language of men at moments of intense, emotional excitement.
A poetic dramatist makes articulate the deeper passions of men. Besides, he
emphasized, “the craving for poetic drama is permanent in human nature.”
Poetic drama, he said, is possible in the 20th century, but, “it cannot be
the work of one man or of one generation working together, but has to
evolve by the small contributions of a number of people in succession,
each contributing a little.” Poetic drama in the modern age must be a
social creation. He placed a high ideal of verse drama before his age, an
ideal which he said was unattainable. But constant experimentation and
exploration were necessary for greater and greater approximation to the
ideal. Every age has own requirements and its own tools. Verse dramatists
in the modern age must avoid looking like Shakespeare. They should work
within the framework of naturalism, and transform it by constant effort. He
could achieve such success only because his approach to the problem was
a practical one.
Another popular fallacy was the belief that verse is artificial, and the use of
prose is natural and realistic. He pointed out that prose as used for dramatic
dialogue is as different from conversational speech as verse. The drama
itself is an illusion; it is something artificial. Verse is equally suitable for
drama; only the playwright should use the contemporary idiom, and try
to make his verse flexible enough to suit all situations and all characters.
This flexibility can be acquired only through long and painstaking efforts.
In his own practice, he demonstrated that a verse can be achieved which
allows the dramatist, “to modulate deftly from passages of light and rapid
conversation, in the key of comedy, to passages expressing grave disquiet or,
as at the end of Elder Statesman, grave serenity.” Further, Eliot emphasized
that instead of limiting the emotional range, the use of verse enlarges the
appeal and influence of the play. Verse drama can appeal to the most varied
audience: “For the simplest auditors there is the plot, for the more literary
the words and phrasing, for more musically sensitive the rhythm, and for
auditors of greater sensitiveness and understanding a meaning which reveals
itself gradually.”
His own plays bear out this increased range and capability of poetic drama.
On the surface, they have many of the characteristics of contemporary
farces, comedies of manner, and melodramas. Beneath the surface, there is
an under pattern for the more sensitive and conscious among the audience.
There is thus a doublings of action, as if it took place on two planes at once.
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The Twentieth Century This sense of a higher pattern is conveyed through phrase and imagery; it
Poetic Drama cannot be conveyed through the use of prose.
Eliot took a considerable step forward towards establishing a tradition of
poetic drama in the 20th century. He demonstrated that contemporary setting
and themes can be the subjects of poetic drama, and in this way enlarged
the scope of the verse-play. He solved the medium of communication. He
succeeded in developing a verse-form which has grown from contemporary
idiom, which suggests the contemporary environment, which approaches
prose very closely—yet remains sufficiently far from it so as not jar on
the ears when a more heightened verse is used—and which can be spoken
to an ordinary audience by an ordinary actor. He could invent plots which
entertain, but which also put across a Christian vision of the world without
becoming didactic or sentimental. He could succeed in dramatizing
complex states of our spiritual and moral being. He could do all this, and
it is a creditable achievement. A long step forward has been taken. But, as
he himself emphasized, the creation of a poetic drama is a social function.
Eliot’s work must be taken up and carried on by his successors, before his
dream of a powerful tradition of verse drama in the modern age can be
realized.

13.7 FAILURE OF PROSE DRAMA: THE RISE

OF POETIC DRAMA
The failure of the prose drama, in a depraved stage after the best work of
Shaw, had failed to clutch the depth, tension and complexity of contemporary
life. It was a mere entertainment and did not maintain any high levels. It
concerned itself entirely with social and economic problems to the entire
exclusion of deeper and more fundamental issues. It aimed at photographic
realism, avoided the romantic and the poetic, and had grown too intellectual
and sophisticated. It appealed to the mind rather than to the heart. The result
was that a number of writers, who had made their first reputation as poets,
and not as dramatists, tried to revive the tradition of verse play for the “Little
Theatre”, i.e. theatre for specialized audiences. Herod, the first poetic-play
of Stephen Phillips, appeared in 1901, and this marks the beginning of the
revival of poetic drama in the 20th century. Irish dramatists, like W.B. Yeats,
J.M. Synge, Sean O’Casey, also played a significant part in the moment for
the revival of verse play. Other great names in the revival movement are
John Masefield, Cristopher Isherwood, W.H. Auden, Stephen Spender, and
Cristopher Fry. However, it is T.S. Eliot who, both through his theory and
practice of poetic drama, has achieved considerable success in establishing
tradition of poetic plays in the 20th century.

13.8 POETIC DEVICES USED IN EARLY

MODERN POETIC DRAMA
Modern poetic drama like the rest of the literature of the twentieth century
is marked by excessive realism-almost naturalism- Prose-witty, serious,
pathetic, or ironical-was the accepted medium of drama. “Drama of Ideas”,
pioneered by George Bernard Shaw, is a type of discussion play in which
the clash of ideas and hostile ideologies reveals the most acute problems
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of social and personal morality. This type of comedy is different from the Origin of Poetic Drama in
conventional comedy such as Shakespearean comedies. Henrik Ibsen is in the Early Twentieth Century
particular known as the Father of Modern Drama, and it is worth noting
how literal an assessment that is the two main types of drama - comedy and
tragedy.
The first and foremost device is repetition. Repetition can be used for
full verses, single lines or even just a single word or sound, alliteration,
metaphor, assonance, similes, onomatopoeia, hyperbole, personification.
Later in the satirical plays, which is a part of comedy are mainly mocked
men in power for their vanity and foolishness. The first master of comedy
was the playwright Aristophanes. The next, we can take into account
six Aristotelian elements of drama are, plot, character, thought, diction,
spectacle, and song. Drama can be then defined as a dramatic work because
actors are present on stage. Through the characters involved, the story has a
message to give theme, plot, characters, dialogue, and setting.
Secondly, a dramatic monologue is a type of poem in which the speaker is
directly addressing and talking to some other person. The speaker in such
poems usually speaks alone, in a one way conversation, and so it is called a
monologue. The setting of such poems is dramatic.
Thirdly, the theater of the absurd, which is a form of drama that emphasizes
the absurdity of human existence by employing disjointed, repetitious, and
meaningless dialogue, purposeless and confusing situations, and plots that
lack realistic or logical development.
There are four main forms of drama. These are comedy, tragedy, tragicomedy
and melodrama. All these types have the common characteristics of drama
genre; they are- plot, characters, conflict, music and dialogue. The purpose
of drama in general, is to express need for a change, to communicate
universal theme, to recreate and interpret ideas and emotions, to pass on
tradition and culture. A drama is basically a piece of writing, which is
artistically presented with dialogues, which is attractive, full of impact and
real as it presents characters along with a natural and credible aspects. It is
very similar to a short story as it also comprises characters, plot, setting as
well as symbolism.

13.9 SUMMING UP
T. S. Eliot and W. B. Yeats are two tallest, most towering and influential
figures in the early twentieth century drama. Both of them are very fond of
making the theater once more poetical, not merely a place of entertainment
and superficial imitation of the contemporary society, but a center of spiritual
discipline. The direct impact is that the spectators may have a chance of
searching their souls and realizing the hidden depth below the surface.
Again both are determined to liberate the modern poetic drama from the
manacles of the Elizabethan imitation on the one hand and the supremacy
of the commercial management and ambitious star actors on the other. But
while Yeats begins with the Irish legend, myth and folklore and ends with
the highly symbolical and ritualistic short musical plays in the manner of the
Japanese Noh plays, Eliot is however, rooted in religious drama, classical
themes and conventions in his plays that have social realistic surface,
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The Twentieth Century steadily denuding the poetic medium of all its music, color and marked
Poetic Drama beauties till it becomes assimilated with the elements of common prose.
W.B. Yeats escapes into the depth of the soul and supernatural mystery
with the help of the legend, folklore, myth, symbol and the occult systems
of East and West. His plays therefore, are mythical and symbolical. The
result is that in plays like A the Hawke’s Well and The Dreaming of the
Bones the external human and narrative surface has been refined away.
The lyrical element, the dramatic and the symbolical have subjugated the
human appeal. W.B. Yeats, thus, showed the great possibility of the poetic
drama but failed to produce a play in which dramatic action, movement and
vital characterization, blended with the music and symbolism of poetry, are
effective alike with the small coterie of the literary elite and the common
body of the less enlightened people.
It makes drama at once poetical and popular, as it was in the age of
Shakespeare. It sanctions every level of mind in the audience that also
lauds Eliot to turn from poetry to play. He starts as a religious dramatist
and develops the social comedy with spiritual and psychological chore in
blending the popular and serious elements. In his first phase of writing plays,
Murder in Cathedral reaches its the peak of achievement along with the
Christian idea of martyrdom and the Greek device of chorus, in which some
of the most splendid poetic passages ever produced on the contemporary
stage. Truly speaking, this play represents the high watermark of religious
drama in our secular age.
In The Family Reunion, the theme is domestic and the characters are realistic
yet the sense of sin and punishment presented in terms of the Greek idea
dealing with the story of Agamemnon, his murder and the dark consequence.
Poetry is flexible and subdued here and the tension is well sustained, yet
the play is vitiated by the introduction of the Furies on the stage and the
vagueness about the element of expiation on the part of Harry, who elects to
himself the scapegoat for the sin of his family. In his later social comedies,
Cocktail Party and Confidential Clerk, T.S. Eliot illustrates his own percept
that a modern poetic play highly needs to have a musical pattern with a
double plane of action, the outer and the inner. The last play, the Elderman
Statesman, is a romantic play with a pervasive warmth and subdued but
fine lyricism, dealing with the profound truth of old king Oedipus’s dictum
that love is the only salvation for man on his earth. The protagonist is
redeemed by the pure love between his young daughter and her man and
with awakened insight he faces his past resolutely and exercises its ghost
which had darkened his life. To give certain concluding remark to the early
poetic drama, one can easily find the poetic drama ‘beyond the sphere of our
sorrows’ in the early 20th century, which is an age of inexpensive mechanical
entertainment and utter spiritual disintegration is bound to be limited in
size and number. Its success finally depends on the dramatist’s capability
to animate and enliven the dramatic and theatrical outer structure with
the vitality and vigorousness of poetry. This basic movement of early 20th
century drama remains away from the realistic, rationalist approach of the
modern mind that thrills the world of myths, contributed to the development
of the allegorical, symbolical style of writers
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 Origin of Poetic Drama in
13.10  CHECK YOUR PROGRESS: POSSIBLE the Early Twentieth Century
QUESTIONS
1. Give a short account of American poetic drama in the early 20th
Century.
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2. Discuss on the Revival of Poetic Drama in the early 20th Century: A
Late Start in England.
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3. Discuss from Eliot to Fry on Revival of Poetic Drama.
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4. Give an account of early 20th century Dramatic Poetry with definition
and examples.
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13.11   SELECT READING LIST

Denis Donoghue. The Third Voice: Modern British and American Verse
Drama, (1959)
Lodwick Hartley. Patterns in Modern Drama: Ibsen, Chekhov, Galsworthy,
O’Neill, Kelly, Thurber, Nugent, Hellman; Arthur LaduPrentice-Hall, 1948
K. S. MISRA: Twentieth Century English Poetic Drama (New Delhi: Vikas,
1981)
A. C. WARD: Twentieth Century English Literature (Delhi, 1974)
K. S. MISRA: Twentieth Century English Poetic Drama, (New Delhi:
Vikas, 1981)
JOHN GASSNER: Introduction, Playwrights on Playwriting: The Meaning
and Making of Modem Drama From Ibsen to Ionesco. (New York, 1977)
WILLIAM L. SHARP: “W. B. Yeats: A Poet Not in the Theatre”, The Tulane
Drama Review, IV, 2, 1959.
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The Twentieth Century T. S. ELIOT: The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism (London, 1964)
Poetic Drama
T. S. ELIOT: Selected Essays (London: 1951
JOSEPH CHIARI: The Landmarks of Contemporary Drama
MARIUS BEWLEY: “The Verse of Christopher Fry” Scrutiny, XVII, (1951)
Brown, Alec. The Lyrical Impulse in Eliot’s Poetry, Scrutinies, vol. 2.
Bush, Ronald. T. S. Eliot: A Study in Character and Style (1984).
Bush, Ronald, ‘The Presence of the Past: Ethnographic Thinking/ Literary
Politics’.
In Prehistories of the Future, ed. Elzar Barkan and Ronald Bush, Stanford
University Press (1995).
Crawford, Robert. The Savage and the City in the Work of T. S. Eliot (1987).
____. Young Eliot: From St Louis to “The Waste Land” (2015).
Christensen, Karen. “Dear Mrs. Eliot”, The Guardian Review (29 January
2005).
Dawson, J. L., P. D. Holland & D. J. McKitterick, A Concordance to
“The Complete Poems and Plays of T.S. Eliot”Ithaca & London: Cornell
University Press, 1995.
Forster, E. M. Essay on T. S. Eliot, in Life and Letters, June 1929.
Gardner, Helen. The Art of T. S. Eliot (1949).

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