Murder in the Cathedral

Author: Thomas Stearns Eliot

The year of issue novel: Written in 1935
Important dates in the life and work of writer:
Thomas Stearns Eliot was born in Missouri on September 26, 1888. He lived in St. Louis
during the first eighteen years of his life and attended Harvard University. In 1910, he left the
United States for the Sorbonne, having earned both undergraduate and masters degrees and
having contributed several poems to the Harvard Advocate.
It was in London that Eliot came under the influence of his contemporary Ezra Pound, who
recognized his poetic genius at once, and assisted in the publication of his work in a number of
magazines, most notably "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" in Poetry in 1915. His first book
of poems, Prufrock and Other Observations, was published in 1917, and immediately established
him as a leading poet of the avant-garde. With the publication of The Waste Land in 1922, now
considered by many to be the single most influential poetic work of the twentieth century, Eliot's
reputation began to grow to nearly mythic proportions; by 1930, and for the next thirty years, he
was the most dominant figure in poetry and literary criticism in the English-speaking world.
As a poet, he transmuted his affinity for the English metaphysical poets of the 17th century
(most notably John Donne) and the 19th century French symbolist poets
(including Baudelaire and Laforgue) into radical innovations in poetic technique and subject
matter. His poems in many respects articulated the disillusionment of a younger post-World-WarI generation with the values and conventionsboth literary and socialof the Victorian era. As
a critic also, he had an enormous impact on contemporary literary taste, propounding views that,
after his conversion to orthodox Christianity in the late thirties, were increasingly based in social
and religious conservatism. His major later poems include Ash Wednesday (1930) and Four
Quartets(1943); his books of literary and social criticism include The Sacred Wood (1920), The
Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism(1933), After Strange Gods (1934), and Notes Towards the
Definition of Culture (1940). Eliot was also an important playwright, whose verse dramas
include Murder in the Cathedral, The Family Reunion, and The Cocktail Party.
He became a British citizen in 1927; long associated with the publishing house of Faber &
Faber, he published many younger poets, and eventually became director of the firm. After a
notoriously unhappy first marriage, Eliot separated from his first wife in 1933, and was
remarried, to Valerie Fletcher, in 1956. T. S. Eliot received the Nobel Prize for Literature in
1948, and died in London in 1965.
Another works of the author: Prufrock and Other Observations (1917),Poems (1919),The
Waste Land (1922),Poems, 1909-1925 (1925),Ash Wednesday (1930),East Coker (1940),Burnt
Norton (1941),The Dry Salvages (1941),Four Quartets (1943),The Complete Poems and
Plays (1952),Collected Poems (1962); The Sacred Wood (1920), Murder in the Cathedral (1935)
The Family Reunion (1939),The Cocktail Party (1950).
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Title of the literary work: Murder in the Cathedral

Literary genre: Lyric
Literary species: Verse drama
Summary :
Archbishop Becket preaches his Christmas morning sermon, taking as his text the
traditional narrative of the announcement of Christ's birth to the shepherds in Luke 2. Becket
makes several points in his brief homily. He tells his listeners that, through the bloodless
sacrifice of the Mass, the Christian community celebrates Jesus' death at the same time as they
celebrate his birth-thus, Christmas is an occasion in which mourning and rejoicing commingle.
He defines true peace in spiritual rather than temporal terms. He connects Christmas with the
liturgical feast that follows the next day, the feast of Saint Stephen, the first Christian martyr.
Becket reminds his listeners that martyrdoms are not mere happenstance, but the will of God,
and events through which God works out the divine purpose. Becket closes by invoking the
memory of his predecessor, Archbishop Elphege, and prophesying that Canterbury "in a short
time may yet have another martyr, and that one perhaps not the last."
Analysis
Although its text is Eliot's invention, Becket's sermon reflects a well-known tradition: "On
Christmas day Saint Thomas made a sermon at Canterbury in his own church, and weeping,
prayed the people to pray for him, for he knew well his time was nigh." (The Golden Legend). In
connection with this legend about Becket's foreknowledge of his death, recall the Messenger's
comment in Part I: "no one considers it a happy prognostic" [p. 16]. As archbishop, it is no doubt
certain that Becket preached on Christmas Day, 1170, and it is even highly probable that Becket
did indeed take Luke 2:14 and the surrounding verses as his text; it has been, for centuries, the
traditionally assigned reading for the celebration of Christmas. The themes of his sermon in this
Interlude, however, serve Eliot's dramatic aims, and should be understood as such.
First, Becket makes much of the fact that Christmas is a celebration not only of Jesus' birth,
but also his death: because of the theology underlying the Roman Catholic Mass (or Eucharist)namely, that the priest offers a "bloodless sacrifice" to God, literally re-presenting the body and
blood of Christ to God under the accidents (i.e., external attributes) of the consecrated bread and
wine-Becket can conclude that "we celebrate at once the Birth of Our Lord and His Passion and
Death upon the Cross" (p. 47). Birth and death, then, coexist quite closely in the Mass of the
Nativity. Becket states that, although "the World" (in the context of Eliot's play, a shorthand way
of referring to temporal structures and authorities) cannot comprehend such behavior, the
Christian community "can rejoice and mourn at once for the same reason" (p. 48). This emphasis
on the proximity of birth and death serves to help interpret for the play's audience the fact of
Becket's death during Christmastide: it is, again, that interrupting, apocalyptic event that will "for
good or ill" set the "wheel" of history turning once more (cf. p. 18). It is Becket's death that will,
paradoxically, give birth to a new existence for Canterbury and its people-and, by extension, for
the world itself. Becket's death will enable the world to be born out of the barren limbo of "living
and partly living" (the repeated refrain from Part I).
Second, Eliot uses Becket's sermon to return to an examination of the relationship-usually,
one of conflict-between the temporal and the spiritual. He asks his congregation to think about
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how Jesus spoke of peace; this portion of the sermon not only references John 14:27 but also
Becket's own initial greeting of peace upon his return to Canterbury in Part I. Becket denies that
Jesus was giving temporal peace: "the kingdom of England at peace with its neighbours, the
barons at peace with the King." (p. 48). Rather, Jesus meant a spiritual peace. It is that nontemporal kind of peace which Becket's death will bring. His death, a consequence of his not
being at temporal peace with King Henry, will nonetheless result in peace for the community and
the world by fulfilling God's "pattern," by allowing the wheel of fate to once again turn.
Finally, Becket's sermon offers explicit definitions of martyrdom. Eliot has the archbishop
comment on the fact that the two days after Christmas Day are, on the Western Christian
liturgical calendar, the feast of St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr (see Acts 7). Becket
reminds his listeners-and, thus, Eliot informs his audience-that "A Christian martyrdom is never
an accident, for Saints are not made by accident" (p. 49). Furthermore, "a Christian martyrdom
[is not] the effect of a man's will to become a Saint, as a man by willing and contriving may
become a ruler of men" (p. 49). Becket thus implicitly reiterates his rejection of the Fourth
Tempter's enticements in Part I, and also reinforces the intractable division between temporal and
spiritual power. He affirms that the true martyr "has lost his will in the will of God, and. no
longer desires anything for himself, not even the glory of becoming a martyr" (p. 49). He then
discusses the educative and even salvific purposes of a martyrdom: "to warn [men] and to lead
them, to bring them back to [God's] ways" (p. 49).
For these three reasons, then, Becket's sermon offers several interpretive keys to the whole
of Eliot's drama. In keeping with Eliot's presentation of Becket as a Christ-figure, it is notable
that Becket asks his congregation to keep his words "in your hearts" and "think of them at
another time" (p.50), for it was not until after Jesus' Resurrection that his disciples remembered
and understood his words about his own identity and role in God's pattern (see, e.g., Luke 24:4445; John 2:22).
Near the close of his sermon, Becket makes reference to "the blessed Archbishop Elphege" (p.
50). Elphege (sometimes spelled Alphege, and also known as Godwine) assumed the
archbishopric of Canterbury in 1006. "At this period England was much harassed by the Danes,
who, towards the end of September, 1011, having sacked and burned Canterbury, made Elphege
a prisoner. On 19 April, 1012, at Greenwich, his captors, drunk with wine, and enraged at ransom
being refused, pelted Elphege with bones of oxen and stones, till one Thurm dispatched him with
an axe. He is sometimes represented with an axe cleaving his skull" .
Murder in the Cathedral: Eliot's Writing Style
Tragedy
''Tragedy'' as a dramatic form is usually defined as the story of a noble individual who
struggles against himself or his fate in the face of almost certain defeat. Perhaps the ideal
example of tragedy is Sophocles's Oedipus the King (5th century BC) in which Oedipus, the
King of Thebes, attempts to cleanse his city against an evil that is plaguing it, only to learn that
this evil is found in himself. Eliot's play does employ several classical tragic conventions, such
as the use of a Chorus to comment on the action, the characters' speech written in verse, and a
plot which culminates in the hero's death.
Thomas is a tragic figure in his larger-than-life passion and search for what can be done to
solve the problem with which he is faced. Unlike many tragic heroes, however, Thomas's
character harbors no "flaw" or (as Hamlet called it) "mole of nature": he is not blind to his fate
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(like Oedipus), he is not the slave of passion (like Othello) and he is not a man destroyed by the
promises of his own imagination (like Willy Loman).
Instead, Thomas is steadfast and assured; even when he questions his own motives for
seeking martyrdom, he summons enough strength in himself to determine that he will allow
himself to be the "instrument" of God. While Thomas is eventually killed, something more
wonderful than terrible occurs when the Chorus finally understands the will of God and praises
Him for His wisdom and power. Unlike Hamlet, who dies amongst a litter of corpses and evokes
the audience's pity and fear, Thomas dies as he describes Christ as having done: bringing the '
'peace'' of God to the world. Murder in the Cathedral makes use of the tragic form, but the tragic
outcome is to be found in its physical plot onlythe spiritual life of its hero is stronger than
death.
Setting
Murder in the Cathedral was written especially for performance at the 1935 Canterbury
Festival and was performed in the Chapter House of the cathedral, only fifty yards away from the
very spot on which Becket was killed. Aside from its being written for the Festival, Eliot must
have had other artistic aims in having it be performed in a non-traditional theater space.
Foremost among these is the fact that anyone in the original audience would be conscious of
the fact that he was not in a theater as he viewed the play; instead, he was in a place resonant
with the history of the play' s protagonist. The effect of such a setting is obvious: by having the
action take place in the Chapter House, Eliot stressed the relationship between the past and
present. While the action of the play occurs in 1170, a 1935 audience member would become
more aware of the fact that the play's issues are as contemporary as its audience. As the cathedral
still stands, so are the issues explored by the play still relevant to modern life.
Rhetoric and Oratory
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 Thomas's sermon, he attempts to engage the congregation
in the same mental processes which he himself has been experiencing, specifically, to consider
the paradoxical nature of martyrdom. To do so, he offers a number of paradoxes for them to
consider, such as the idea that "at the same moment we rejoice'' at the birth of Christ, we do so
because we know that he would eventually "offer again to God His Body and Blood in sacrifice."
He similarly attempts to convince his followers that God creates martyrs upon a similar
paradoxical principle:' 'We mourn, for the sins of the world that has martyred them; we rejoice,
that another soul is numbered among the Saints in Heaven, for the glory of God and the salvation
of men." Because he suspects that his people will soon ' 'have yet another martyr," Thomas
wishes to convince them to consider the reasons forand bounties ofmartyrdom, which they
do at the very end of the play.
When directly addressing the audience, however, the Four Knights prove themselves to be
more adept at cliched political hustling than sincere attempts at public speaking. The First Knight
attempts to ingratiate himself to the audience by addressing its members as "Englishmen" who
"believe in fair play" and will certainly "not judge anybody without hearing both sides of the
case." The Third Knight stresses the point that the four of them "have been perfectly
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disinterested" in the murder; they are not lackeys of the King, but "four plain Englishmen who
put our country first." The Second Knight promises that, while defending their actions, he will'
'appeal not to your emotions but to your reason," since "You are hard-headed, sensible people ...
and not to be taken in by emotional clap-trap."
Again the viewer sees another example of a Knight attempting to ingratiate himself to the
audience through hollow rhetonc and .flattery. Following this lead, the Fourth Knight then
employs the language of pseudo-psychology in an attempt to offer a "logical" and "scientific"
view of Thomas's actions: he calls him "a monster of egoism" and explains that "This egoism
grew upon him, until it at last became an undoubted mama," as found in the "unimpeachable
evidence" that the Fourth Knight has gathered. He concludes his speech (and the Knights'
presentation of their' 'case'') with the aplomb of a trial lawyer: "I think, with these facts before
you, you will unhesitatingly render a verdict of Suicide while of Unsound Mind. It is the only
charitable verdict you can give, upon one who was, after all, a great man."
Despite these attempts at sounding logical ("with these facts before you")? proclaiming
their confidence in the audience's judgment ("you will unhesitatingly render" a "charitable
verdict"), use of jargon ("Suicide while of Unsound Mind") and attempt to seem dispassionate
and logical about the murder ("who was, after all, a great man"), the Fourth Knight, like his
companions, stands as an example of one who uses language to defend his temporal action and
fulfill a political agenda unlike Thomas, who uses his rhetorical skills to help his listeners
understand the will of God.
Character Profiles
The Chorus: an unspecified number of Canterbury's women, is a corporate character serving
the same purposes as does the chorus in Greek drama: to develop and, more importantly, to
comment on the action of the play. The women's initial speech fairly defines their dramaturgic
role: "We are forced to bear witness." And yet this chorus, like its ancient Greek predecessors, is
no mere, dispassionate, objective "eyewitness"; rather, it is a witness bearing testimony to truthalmost as in a legal proceeding, but that analogy fails to capture the nature of the testimony the
chorus offers. In commenting upon the action of Thomas Becket's murder, the women are
voicing insights into, reflections on, and conclusions about time, destiny, and life and death. In
the end, they emerge as representatives of ordinary people-such as those who make up the
audience of the play, or its readership-people who, mired in and having settled for an existence of
"living and partly living," are unable to greet transcendence when it is offered to them. As they
state in the play's final moments, not everyone can bear the "loneliness. surrender. deprivation"
necessary to become a saint. Not all can be saints-but all can pray for their intercession.
Thomas Becket: is the Archbishop of Canterbury, former Chancellor to King Henry II, now
estranged from the monarch because he insists upon the right of the Church to rule in spiritual
matters-a rule that, in practice, has ramifications for how the king ought to rule in temporal
matters. Unlike the Chorus, Becket is able to stare into the existential abyss-that "Void" behind
death and judgment, mentioned in Part II, that is "more horrid than active shapes of hell." Becket
is often accused of pride in the play, but he is actually humble in submitting himself completely
to the will of God as he comprehends it. His death offers a glimpse of how transcendence can be
achieved: the only question that remains is whether the rest of humanity is able to trace the same
path, to "give [its] life / To the Law of God above the Law of Man."
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The Four Tempters: present Becket, in Part I of the drama, with various ways of avoiding his
impending death as a martyr. Their temptations correlate, to one degree or another, with the
justifications of Becket's assassination offered to the audience by The Four Knights at the end of
the play. In a prefatory note to the play's third edition (1937), Eliot indicated that the roles of the
Tempters had been intended to be doubled-that is, played by the same actors-as the roles of the
Knights, thus underscoring the connection between the two quartets in an even stronger fashion.
The Three Priests: serve the (admittedly little) dramatic action of Eliot's play, particularly in
Part II, when they urge Becket to bar the doors of the Cathedral against the knights-although they
characterize them as savage beasts-who seek his life. They could thus be seen as representing the
temporal order: indeed, Becket at one point accuses them of thinking only as the world
does-"You argue by results, as this world does." On the other hand, the Priests also are capable of
offering insight into the spiritual order. For example, the Third Priest affirms the Church's
endurance in the face of world built on the ruins of the presumed absence of God; and earlier, he
offers a key interpretive insight by stating, "Even now, in sordid particulars / The eternal design
may appear." Like so many of us, then, the priests have one foot, so to speak, in the spiritual and
the other in the temporal; and they struggle to balance the two orders as best they can, as do we
all. Unfortunately, according to the argument of Eliot's drama, there can ultimately be no
balancing: peace-that is to say, transcendence-is to be found only in the complete submission to
God's design, God's pattern, God's wheel of providence. Mortals, say both Jesus and Eliot,
cannot serve two masters-and so the Priests are fundamentally impotent, unable to do anything
but to pray to God with heavy reliance upon the intercession of Saint Becket, as they, in their
own way but like the Chorus, go on "living and partly living."
Theme Analysis
In its assessment of Eliot's importance to modern English literature, A Literary History of
England (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1967; ed. Albert C. Baugh) argues that a shift
from despair to hope-a change from "the 'inert resignation' of those who breathe the small, dry
air of modern spiritual emptiness" to something more positive and potentially transcendent-can
first be detected in Eliot's "Ash-Wednesday" (1930), "of which the theme is the search for peace
found in humble and quiet submission to God's Will" (p. 1587).
This theme, clearly an expression of the Anglo-Catholicism Eliot embraced during his life,
appears again throughout Murder in the Cathedral. It informs and breathes through the entire text
of the play, as the commentary above has demonstrated. In Murder in the Cathedral, the "inert
resignation" of modern life manifests itself in the Chorus' refusal to embrace transcendence: the
women of Canterbury are content to go on "living and partly living." As they state, even
imploringly to Becket, on several occasions, they "do not wish anything to happen." They do not
want the wheel of God's pattern to begin turning. As do all moderns in Eliot's estimation, they
"fear the injustice of men less than the justice of God." They are not ready to live, as Becket was,
"out of time."
Yet, through Becket as he portrays him, Eliot forcefully argues that such transcendence must be
achieved. In keeping with biblical testimony about the nature of spiritual power versus temporal
power, however, Eliot posits that transcendence cannot be achieved by force. It arises, not
through utilitarian machinations (such as those the Four Tempters propose to Becket in Part I),
but by, in the Literary History's words, "humble and quiet submission to God's Will." As Becket
himself declares, "I give my life / To the Law of God above the Law of Man." His triumphant
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affirmation of faith echoes the words of the New Testament: "Whether it is right in God's sight to
listen to you rather than to God, you must judge; for we cannot keep from speaking about what
we have seen and heard" (Acts 4:19-20); or again, "Do you not know that friendship with the
world is enmity with God?" (James 4:4). Only by valuing "friendship"-i.e., a total alignment of
mind and soul and will-with the spiritual, with God, over such friendship with the world or the
temporal order of the status quo, can "peace"-that elusive goal referred to throughout the play: in
Becket's fragile relationship with King Henry; as Becket's greeting to the Chorus in Parts I and
II; as the turning of God's wheel of providence-be found.
In this way, the themes of Murder in the Cathedral aptly crystallize the themes of Eliot's
own life-long work.
Metaphor Analysis
The wheel was a symbol, in medieval times, of the "wheel of life" or the "wheel of fortune,"
"which never stands still, being constantly subject to the turns of fate" (Dictionary of Symbolism,
p. 379). No doubt Eliot draws on these ancient associations in his text's multiple references to the
wheel, but he also subverts them by stating that, in fact, the wheel of fate-or, in Eliot's AngloCatholic worldview, of God's providence and plan for history-has in fact been standing still
during Becket's seven-year absence from Canterbury. (As discussed earlier, the length of
Becket's exile is itself of metaphorical importance, since seven symbolizes totality and
completeness.) Becket's task is to set the wheel turning again: to take his part, willingly and
completely, in God's "pattern" (another word-image that occurs frequently in the text) so that the
wheel can resume turning and that "peace" can replace the mere existence of "living and partly
living."
The seasons also carry symbolic freight in Eliot's play. The most notable example is the
Chorus' invocations of the passage of the seasons at the beginning of Part I and then at the end of
Part II. At the beginning of the play, the passing seasons are in actuality one long season of
waiting, one endless Advent. But by the play's end, after Becket's martyrdom, the seasons in their
cycle have become part of human beings: "Even in us the voices of seasons . praise Thee." Eliot's
use of seasonal imagery will no doubt remind readers of his work in The Waste Land (1922).
That epic poem's first line, "April is the cruelest month," reinforces the poem's dominant mood
of pessimism in the face of what Eliot sees as the moral and spiritual bankruptcy of the then stillyoung twentieth century. As in Murder in the Cathedral, the passage of the seasons in The Waste
Land is not a healthy cycle of life, death, and rebirth. Life has become stuck in "living and partly
living." Still, even The Waste Land was "not merely a poem of despair of the present but of hope
and promise for the future, since at the close the thunder speaks, foretelling the coming of the
life-giving rain" (Baugh, p. 1586).
In a similar way, Murder in the Cathedral ends in hope-although more tempered by a
realization of humanity's reluctance and inability to, in Becket's words, "bear too much reality."
Still, the "redemption" of the seasons is an important symbolic motif in the play, as it was in
Eliot's earlier work.
Quotes:
1.

For good or ill, let the wheel turn.

The wheel has been still, these seven years, and no good.
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For ill or good, let the wheel turn.

For who knows the end of good or evil?
-Third Priest, Part I, p. 18
2. Temporal power, to build a good world,
To keep order, as the world knows order.
Those who put their faith in worldly order
Not controlled by the order of God,
In confident ignorance, but arrest disorder,
Make it fast, breed fatal disease,
Degrade what they exalt.
-Thomas, Part I, p. 30
3. Every day is the day we should fear from or hope from. One moment
Weighs like another. Only in retrospection, selection,
We say, that was the day. The critical moment
That is always now, and here. Even now, in sordid particulars
The eternal design may appear.
-Third Priest, Part II, p. 57