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Murder in the Cathedral

The action occurs between December 2 and December 29, 1170, chronicling the days leading

up to the martyrdom of Thomas Becket following his absence of seven years inFrance.

Becket's internal struggle is the main focus of the play.

The play is divided into two "parts" separated by an "interlude". Part one takes place in the

Archbishop's hall on December 2, 1170. The play begins with a Chorus singing,

foreshadowing the coming violence. The Chorus is a key part of the drama, with its voice

changing and developing during the play, offering comments about the action and providing a

link between the audience and the characters and action, as in Greek drama. Three priests are

present, and they reflect on the absence of Becket and the rise of temporal power. A herald

announces Beckets arrival. Becket is immediately reflective about his coming martyrdom,

which he embraces, and which is understood to be a sign of his own selfishnesshis fatal

weakness. The tempters arrive, three of whom parallel theTemptations of Christ.

The first tempter offers the prospect of physical safety.

Take a friend's advice. Leave well alone,

Or your goose may be cooked and eaten to the bone.

The second offers power, riches and fame in serving the King.

To set down the great, protect the poor,

Beneath the throne of God can man do more?

The third tempter suggests a coalition with the barons and a chance to resist the King.

For us, Church favour would be an advantage,

Blessing of Pope powerful protection

In the fight for liberty. You, my Lord,

In being with us, would fight a good stroke

Finally, a fourth tempter urges him to seek the glory ofmartyrdom.

You hold the keys of heaven and hell.

Power to bind and loose : bind, Thomas, bind,

King and bishop under your heel.King, emperor, bishop, baron, king:

Becket responds to all of the tempters and specifically addresses the immoral suggestions of

the fourth tempter at the end of the first act:

Now is my way clear, now is the meaning plain:

Temptation shall not come in this kind again.

The last temptation is the greatest treason:

To do the right deed for the wrong reason.

The Interlude of the play is a sermon given by Becket on Christmas morning 1170. It is aboutthe strange contradiction that Christmas is a day both of mourning and rejoicing, which

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Christians also do for martyrs. He announces at the end of his sermon, "it is possible that in a

short time you may have yet another martyr". We see in the sermon something of Becket's

ultimate peace of mind, as he elects not to seek sainthood, but to accept his death as

inevitable and part of a better whole.

Part II of the play takes place in the Archbishop's Hall and in the Cathedral, December 29,1170. Four knights arrive with "Urgent business" from the king. These knights had heard the

king speak of his frustration with Becket, and had interpreted this as an order to kill Becket.

They accuse him of betrayal, and he claims to be loyal. He tells them to accuse him in public,

and they make to attack him, but priests intervene. The priests insist that he leave and protect

himself, but he refuses. The knights leave and Becket again says he is ready to die. The

chorus sings that they knew this conflict was coming, that it had long been in the fabric of

their lives, both temporal and spiritual. The chorus again reflects on the coming devastation.

Thomas is taken to the Cathedral, where the knights break in and kill him. The chorus

laments: Clean the air! Clean the sky!", and "The land is foul, the water is foul, our beasts

and ourselves defiled with blood." At the close of the play, the knights step up, address the

audience, and defend their actions. The murder was all right and for the best: it was in theright spirit, sober, and justified so that the church's power would not undermine stability and

state power.

The Family Reunion is a play byT. S. Eliot. Written mostly inblank verse(though not

iambic pentameter), it incorporates elements fromGreek dramaand mid-twentieth-century

detective playsto portray the hero's journey from guilt to redemption. The play was

unsuccessful when first presented in 1939, and was later regarded as unsatisfactory by its

author, but has been successfully revived since the 1940s. Some critics have thought aspects

of the tormented hero reflect Eliot's own difficulties with his estrangement from his first wife.

The play is in two acts, set in Wishwood, a stately home in the north of England. At the

beginning, the family of Amy,DowagerLady Monchensey are assembling for her birthday

party. She is, as her doctor later explains, clinging on to life by sheer willpower:

...........I keep Wishwood alive

To keep the family alive, to keep them together,

To keep me alive, and I keep them.

Lady Monchensey's two brothers and three sisters are present, and a younger relation, Mary,

but none of Lady Monchensey's three sons. Among other things they discuss the sudden, and

not to them wholly unwelcome, death at sea of the wife of the eldest son Harry, the present

Lord Monchensey. Neither of the younger sons ever appears, both being slightly injured in

motoring accidents, but Harry soon arrives, his first appearance at Wishwood for eight years.

He is haunted by the belief that he pushed his wife off the ship. In fact Harry has an alibi for

the time, but whether he killed her or not he wished her dead and his feelings of guilt are the

driving force in the rest of the play.[10]

Lady Monchensey decides that Harry's state warrants

the discreet observation of the family doctor, who is invited to join the party, ostensibly as a

dinner guest. Mary, who has been earmarked by Amy as a future wife for Harry, wishes to

escape from life at Wishwood, but her aunt Agatha tells her that she must wait:

...........You and I, Mary

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Are only watchers and waiters, not the easiest role,

Agatha reveals to Harry that his father attempted to kill Amy while Harry was in her womb,

and that Agatha prevented him. Far from being grateful, Amy resented and still resents

Agatha's depriving her of her husband. Harry, with Agatha's encouragement, announces his

intention to go away from Wishwood, leaving his steady younger brother John to take over.Amy, despairing at Harry's renunciation of Wishwood, dies (offstage), "An old woman alone

in a damned house", and Harry and his faithful servant, Downing, leave.[11]

Structure

The play is partly in blank verse (though Eliot uses a stress-based metre, with usually four or

five stresses per line and not the iambic pentameter) and partly in prose. Eliot had already

experimented with verse drama inMurder in the Cathedral, and continued to use the form in

his post-war stage works.[12]

Though the work has superficial resemblances to a conventional

1930s drawing room drama, Eliot uses two devices from ancient Greek drama:

Harry's uncles and aunts occasionally detach themselves from the action and chant acommentary on the plot, in the manner of a Greek chorus

Harry is pursued by theEumenidesthe avenging Furies who pursueOrestesin theOresteia; they are seen not only by Harry but by his servant and the most perceptive

member of his family, Agatha[13]

Despite these Greek themes,Stephen Spendercommented that the whole play was "about the

hero's discovery of his religious vocation as a result of his sense of guilt."[14]

[edit] Critical reception

Critical reception after the premire was cautious.The Manchester Guardianopened its

review:

The heart, even of the formidable swarm of intelligence that gathered tonight at the

Westminster to see Mr. T. S. Eliot's "The Family Reunion," went out audibly to the

family's stupid Uncle Charles when, near curtain-fall, he had the remark: "It's very

odd, but I'm beginning to feel that there is something I could understand if I were told

it."

The review added that apart from the chorus of baffled uncles and aunts, "one lookselsewhere in vain for any articulate philosophy."

[15]The Timescommented on the lack of

drama in the play, but concluded, "But the play as a whole, though it lacks something of stage

force, is still one which Mr Eliot may be proud to have written."[1]

The director of the play,E.

Martin Brownesummed up the critical response:

The play was received with incomprehension, exemplified inJames Agate's silly-

clever review in a parody of its verse. March 1939 was not the best moment for a

work which pulls off blinkers: England was still trying too hard to keep them on.[16]

In 1951, in the first Theodore Spencer Memorial Lecture atHarvard University, Eliot

criticised his own plays, specificallyMurder in the Cathedral, The Family Reunion, andThe

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Cocktail Party.[17]

Eliot regarded The Family Reunion as seriously flawed for reasons that

may be summarised as follows:[8]

The play is badly paced, coming to an excessively abrupt conclusion after "aninterminable amount of preparation."

The Greek elements are not successfully integrated into the work:o the attempt to portray the House of Monchensey as a BritishHouse of Atreus

poisoned to its roots by sins both recent and long ago fails either to stick

closely toAeschylusor to venture far enough away from him, and so remains

marooned in an artistic no man's land

o the attempt to transform the aunts and uncles into a Greek chorus isunsuccessful

o the Furies are a failure, as they look like uninvited guests from a fancy dressball

It is hard for an audience to sympathise with a hero who renounces his mother, hishouse and his heritage for the spiritual life, when he is plainly, in Eliot's words, "an

insufferable prig."

By the time of the 1956 revival,Kenneth Tynanwas referring to "this has-been, would-be

masterpiece": "though Mr Eliot can always lower the dramatic temperature, he can never

raise it: and this is why the theatre, an impure assembly that loves strong emotions, must

ultimately reject him."[18]

Acknowledging the flaws in the work, the Eliot scholarHelen Gardnerwrote, "Both plot and

persons fail to reveal to us, as drama must, a spectacle for our contemplation. Because there

is no real action there are no real persons." However, Gardner added, "The progress from

Burnt NortontoLittle Giddingwould hardly have been possible without The Family

Reunion.[19]

[edit] Harry

A contemporary review described Harry as "an unresolved amalgam ofOrestesandHamlet"

and Eliot himself had vetoed the casting ofJohn Gielgudbecause he thought him "not

religious enough to understand the character's motivation."[8][15]

Some modern critics see in

Harry a parallel with Eliot's own emotional difficulties of the time, with his estrangement

from his first wife.[8]

The director of the first production, and Michael Redgrave who first

played Harry, both asked Eliot, "What happens to Harry after he leaves?" Eliot responded

with an additional fifty lines to Harry's scene with Amy and Agatha (Part II, scene 2) inwhich his destination is said to be "somewhere on the other side of despair".

[16]

[edit] Chorus

In the 1930s, the verse chorus was enjoying a revival begun byGilbert Murray's well-

received translations of Greek drama, presented byHarley Granville Barker.[20]

Eliot himself

had already employed such a chorus inMurder in the Cathedral but his chorus of uncles and

aunts in The Family Reunion differs radically from the Greek model and his own earlier

version in that their comments are not for the enlightenment of the audience but are

expressions of their own perplexity:

There is nothing at all to be done about it;

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There is nothing to do about anything.

And now it is nearly time for the News;

We must listen to the Weather Report

And the international catastrophes

Their absurdity acts as comic relief.[21]

Although Eliot came to think that the chorus was afailure, reviewers in the present century have commented more favourably: "The

transformation of Harry's buffoonish aunts and uncles into a Greek chorus is at once absurd

and compelling."[22]

"The chorus are doubly effective when retreating into the spotlight

from their own amusingly stereotyped personalities.".[23]

[edit] Text

Before the 1946 revival, Eliot considered revising the play, but "as soon as I start thinking

about the play, I have inklings of altering it still further" and rather than completely rewrite

his 1939 text Eliot felt "it would be healthier to leave it alone" and he started work on a new

play, "One-Eyed Riley", which became The Cocktail Party.[24]Despite his own criticism of

The Family Reunion in his 1951 lecture, Eliot let the original text stand.

The Cocktail Party is a play byT. S. Eliot. Elements of the play are based onAlcestis, by the

Ancient GreekplaywrightEuripides. The play was the most popular of Eliot's seven plays in

his lifetime, although his 1935 play,Murder in the Cathedral, is better remembered today.

The Cocktail Party was first performed at theEdinburgh Festivalin 1949. In 1950 the play

had successful runs in London and New York theaters (theBroadwayproduction received the

1950Tony Awardfor Best Play.) It focuses on a troubled married couple who, through the

intervention of a mysterious stranger, settle their problems and move on with their lives. Theplay starts out seeming to be a light satire of the traditional Britishdrawing roomcomedy. As

it progresses, however, the work becomes a darker philosophical treatment of human

relations. As in many of Eliot's works, the play uses absurdist elements to expose the

isolation of the human condition. In another recurring theme of Eliot's plays, the Christian

martyrdom of the mistress character is seen as a sacrifice that permits the predominantly

secular life of the community to continue.

In 1951, in the first Theodore Spencer Memorial Lecture atHarvard UniversityEliot

criticized his own plays in the second half of the lecture, explicitly the playsMurder in the

Cathedral,The Family Reunion, and The Cocktail Party. The lecture was published as

"Poetry and Drama" and later included in Eliot's 1957 collection On Poetry and Poets.

Synopsis

Edward and Lavinia Chamberlayne are separated after five years of marriage. She leaves Edward just

as they are about to host a cocktail party at their London home, and he has to come up with an

explanation for why Lavinia is not present, in order to keep up social appearances. Lavinia is brought

back by a mysterious Unidentified Guest at the party, who turns out to be a psychiatrist whom

Edward and Lavinia both consult. They each learn that they have been deceiving themselves and

must face life's realities. They learn that their life together, though hollow and superficial, is

preferable to life apart. This message is difficult for the play's third main character, Edward'smistress, to accept. She, with the psychiatrist's urging, also moves on towards a life of greater

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honesty and salvation and becomes a Christian martyr in Africa. Two years later, Edward and Lavinia,

now better adjusted, host another cocktail party

The Confdential Clerk

Synopsis

Sir Claude Mulhammer, a wealthy entrepreneur, decides to smuggle his illegitimate son

Colby into the household by employing him as his confidential clerk. He hopes that his

eccentric wife, Lady Elizabeth Mulhammer, will take a liking to the boy and allow him to

live as her adopted son. She in fact becomes convinced that Colby is actually her own son.

Meanwhile Lucasta Angel wants to marry B. Kaghan, but neither seems to have any parents

at all. A drama of mistaken identity and confusion ensues. The 'confidential clerk' of the title

refers both to Colby, in his new job, and Eggerson, Sir Claude's old clerk who is seen retiring

at the start of the play but returns in the final act in order to resolve the situation. As in his

other plays, Eliot's interests in classical drama are obvious from the formal structures, the

subject-matter, and the judgement-scene ending. On the other hand, the influence of drawingroom comedy is also paramount and the play is blessed not only with an entertaining if

convoluted plot, but a regular peppering of witty one-liners.

T. S. Eliot once quipped: A play should give you something to think about. When I see a

play and understand it the first time, then I know it can't be much good.

It was a self-adopted method for Eliot to start from the known and the familiar and work his

way into the unfamiliar and the unknown. Eliot realized that the modern man, in the daily

hustle-bustle of his existence, is unknowingly gasping for breath, looking for an escape from

the quagmire of daily life, which is devoid ofall meaning. Eliots drawing room dramaThe

Elder Statesman, is the last of hisdrawing room playsin which he attempts to give a final

expression to his vision of life. In many ways, therefore, The Elder Statesman marks the

culmination of Eliots philosophy of life.Murder in the Cathedraldeals with the theme of

spirituality.The Cocktail Partydeals with the theme of misplaced priorities and skewed

spiritual visions.The Family Reunionshows us the process by which a man, pre-disposed to

sainthood, is made aware of his destiny. In the last drawing room drama, Eliot shows us how

no man is rich enough to buy his past, how no one can escape the memories of things gone

by. One cannot flee from a guilt-ridden past and can only gain salvation from the same

through admittance, contrition and expiation.

The Elder Statesman, as a play, is not particularly poetic or dramatic. But its written inpowerful verse, which is apt for Eliots theme and expression. What Eliot wishes to tell us is

something profoundly true and important: that we cannot flee the past or retire from

responsibility. At best, we can off-load it by contrition. And that to find the truth that shall

set you free you must strip yourself of all pretense, all acting and become again, a little

child. Eliot also shows us that to enter into reality is only possible through others; so that

totally shared love is the supreme road to reality, and that as such, love is capable of being

self-sufficient, provided it is love which is founded on true confession, resignation and trust.

[edit] Synopsis

When the play opens, the setting is that of Lord Clavertons drawing room. Lord Claverton is

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man of distinction, who is well known and well respected in society, where he exerts

considerable influence. As the play opens, we see Clavertons daughter Monica, bantering

with her beau, Charles Hemington. From their conversation, it becomes evident that Lord

Claverton is fiercely possessive of Monica - a fact that Charles grudges. Through the course

of the play, we see that Claverton has been forced to retire for medical reasons. He is

hounded by revelations from his past - a man (Gomez), who as a student he led into badcompany, a singer (Mrs. Carghill), with whom he had an affair and who was bought off by

his father. These people unexpectedly make a comeback in Clavertons life, and bring with

them all the memories that Claverton has conveniently chosen to forget or overlook.

Claverton and Monicas first impression is that Gomez and Mrs. Carghill have returned to

claim money from the wealthy Claverton. But it is made abundantly clear to the reader that

Gomez and Mrs. Carghill are well enough off on their own account, and have not come back

to blackmail Claverton for his money. They only want to spend their time with Claverton.

Eliots underlying message is that these two people are the twin agents of conscience that

have come back to constantly remind Claverton of his guilt, of how his public image does not

match the real man underneath it. Back in his college days, Claverton had a hit and run

incident, a fact which Gomez is privy to. As for Mrs. Carghill, she was the love of

Clavertons life but she was bought off by Clavertons disapproving father. As a result,

Claverton could not make good his promise of marrying Mrs. Carghill. Gomez, who has

made a fortune since then and Mrs. Carghill, who is now a wealthy widow, have both come

back to Clavertons life as agents of Eliots message.

As the play progresses, we see that Gomez manages to lure away Clavertons son Michael,

according to whom his father never understood him. It is only Monica, who stands beside her

father, offering all the support he needs. She is indeed the spiritual guide who brings

Claverton to the light of self-knowledge. It is only by shamefully confessing to Monica that

her father is able to gain salvation. Claverton confesses that he never told her about the pastas he always wanted Monica and Michael to admire him. Monica assures him that her

admiration for her father is irrespective of his past. As for Michael, he is given a farewell so

that he may go with Gomez and chart his own destiny. They are both hopeful that Michael

will either be successful in his pursuits, or will return home eventually, like theprodigal son.

After his confession to Monica and her re-assurance to her father, Claverton expresses his

desire to go for a walk. It doesnt take the reader too long to realize that Claverton dies off-

stage, leaving Monica to Charles. The couple will together lead and be led towards the goal

of spirituality and illumination.

Early life and education

Eliot was born into theEliot family, a middle class family originally fromNew England, who

had moved toSt. Louis, Missouri.[4][6]

His father,Henry Ware Eliot(18431919), was a

successful businessman, president and treasurer of the Hydraulic-Press Brick Company in St.

Louis. His mother,Charlotte Champe Stearns(18431929), wrote poetry and was asocial

worker, a new profession in the early twentieth century. Eliot was the last of six surviving

children; his parents were both 44 years old when he was born. His four sisters were between

eleven and nineteen years older; his brother was eight years older. Known to family and

friends as Tom, he was the namesake of his maternal grandfather Thomas Stearns.

Several factors are responsible for Eliot's infatuation with literature during his childhood.First, Eliot had to overcome physical limitations as a child. Struggling from a congenital

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double hernia, a condition in which ones intestines jut through the bowel wall and causes an

abdominal rupture, Eliot was unable to participate in many physical activities and thus was

prevented from interacting socially with his peers. As Eliot was often isolated, his love of

literature developed. Once he learned to read, the young boy immediately became obsessed

with books and was completely absorbed in tales depicting savages, the Wild West, orMark

Twainsthrill-seekingTom Sawyer.[7]In his memoir of T.S. Eliot, Eliots friend RobertSencourt comments that young Eliot would often curl up in the window-seat behind an

enormous book, setting the drug of dreams against the pain of living.[8]

Secondly, Eliot also

credited his hometown with seeding his literary vision: "It is self-evident that St. Louis

affected me more deeply than any other environment has ever done. I feel that there is

something in having passed one's childhood beside thebig river, which is incommunicable to

those people who have not. I consider myself fortunate to have been born here, rather than in

Boston, or New York, or London."[9]

Thus, from the onset, literature was an essential part of

Eliot's childhood and both his disability and location influenced him.

From 1898 to 1905, Eliot attendedSmith Academy, where his studies included Latin, Ancient

Greek, French, and German. He began to write poetry when he was fourteen under the

influence ofEdward Fitzgerald'sRubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, a translation of the poetry of

Omar Khayyam. He said the results were gloomy and despairing, and he destroyed them.[10]

His first poem published, "A Fable For Feasters," was written as a school exercise and was

published in the Smith Academy Recordin February 1905.[11]

Also published there in April

1905 was his oldest surviving poem in manuscript, an untitled lyric, later revised and

reprinted as "Song" inThe Harvard Advocate,Harvard University's student magazine.[12]

He

also published three short stories in 1905, "Birds of Prey," "A Tale of a Whale" and "The

Man Who Was King." The last mentioned story significantly reflects his exploration ofIgorot

Village while visiting the1904 World's Fairof St. Louis.[13][14]

Such a link with primitive

people importantly antedates his anthropological studies at Harvard.

[15]

After graduation, Eliot attendedMilton AcademyinMassachusettsfor a preparatory year,

where he metScofield Thayer, who would later publishThe Waste Land. He studied

philosophy atHarvard Collegefrom 1906 to 1909, earning hisbachelor's degreeafter three

years, instead of the usual four.[4]

Frank Kermodewrites that the most important moment of

Eliot's undergraduate career was in 1908, when he discoveredArthur Symons'sThe Symbolist

Movement in Literature(1899). This introduced him toJules Laforgue,Arthur Rimbaud, and

Paul Verlaine. Without Verlaine, Eliot wrote, he might never have heard ofTristan Corbire

and his bookLes amours jaunes, a work that affected the course of Eliot's life.[16]

The

Harvard Advocate published some of his poems, and he became lifelong friends withConrad

Aiken, the American novelist.

After working as a philosophy assistant at Harvard from 1909 to 1910, Eliot moved to Paris,

where from 1910 to 1911, he studied philosophy at theSorbonne. He attended lectures by

Henri Bergsonand read poetry with Alain-Fournier.[4][16]

From 1911 to 1914, he was back at

Harvard studying Indian philosophy andSanskrit.[4][17]

Eliot was awarded a scholarship to

Merton College, Oxfordin 1914. He first visitedMarburg, Germany, where he planned to

take a summer program, but when theFirst World Warbroke out, he went to Oxford instead.

At the time, so many American students attended Merton that theJunior Common Room

proposed a motion "that this society abhors theAmericanizationof Oxford." It was defeated

by two votes, after Eliot reminded the students how much they owedAmerican culture.[18]

Eliot wrote toConrad Aikenon New Year's Eve 1914: "I hate university towns and

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university people, who are the same everywhere, with pregnant wives, sprawling children,

many books and hideous pictures on the walls ... Oxford is very pretty, but I don't like to be

dead."[18]

Escaping Oxford, Eliot actually spent much of his time in London. This city had a

monumental and life-altering impact on Eliot for multiple reasons, the most significant of

which was his introduction to the acclaimed literary figureEzra Pound. A connection through

Aiken resulted in an arranged meeting and on September 22, 1914, Eliot paid a visit toPounds flat. Pound instantly deemed Eliot worth watching and was imperative to Eliots

beginning career as a poet as he is credited with promoting Eliot through social events and

literary gatherings. Thus, according to biographer John Worthen, during his time in England

Eliot was seeing as little of Oxford as possible. He was instead spending long periods of

time in London, in the company of Ezra Pound and "some of the modern artists whom the

war has so far spared . . . . It was Pound who helped most, introducing him everywhere.[19]

In the end, Eliot did not settle atMerton, and left after a year. In 1915 he taught English at

Birkbeck, University of London.

By 1916, he had completed a doctoral dissertation for Harvard on Knowledge and Experience

in the Philosophy ofF. H. Bradley, but he failed to return for theviva voceexam.[4][20]

[edit] Marriage

See also:Tom and Viv

Vivienne Haigh-Wood Eliot(left), with Peter Stainer and Mildred Woodruff, photographed byLady

Ottoline Morrell.

In a letter to Aiken late in December, 1914, Eliot, aged 26, wrote, "I am very dependent uponwomen (I mean female society)."

[21]Less than four months later, Thayer introduced Eliot to

Vivienne Haigh-Wood, a Cambridgegoverness. They were married at Hampstead Register

Office on June 26, 1915.[22]

After a short visit alone to his family in the United States, Eliot returned to London and took

several teaching jobs, such as lecturing atBirkbeck College,University of London. The

philosopherBertrand Russelltook an interest in Vivienne while the newlyweds stayed in his

flat. Some scholars have suggested that she and Russell had an affair, but the allegations were

never confirmed.[23]

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The marriage was markedly unhappy, in part because of Vivienne's health issues. In a letter

addressed to Ezra Pound, she covers an extensive list of her symptoms, which included a

habitually high temperature, fatigue, insomnia, migraines, and colitis.[24]

This, coupled with

apparent mental instability, meant that she was often sent away by Eliot and her doctors for

extended periods of time in the hope of improving her health, and as time went on, he became

increasingly more detached from her. Their relationship became the subject of a 1984 playTom and Viv, which in 1994 was adapted as a film.

In a private paper written in his sixties, Eliot confessed: "I came to persuade myself that I was

in love with Vivienne simply because I wanted to burn my boats and commit myself to

staying in England. And she persuaded herself (also under the influence of [Ezra] Pound) that

she would save the poet by keeping him in England. To her, the marriage brought no

happiness. To me, it brought the state of mind out of which came The Waste Land."[25]

[edit] Teaching, Lloyds, Faber and Faber

A plaque atSOAS's Faber Building, 24Russell Square, London.

After leaving Merton, Eliot worked as a schoolteacher, most notably atHighgate School, a

private school in London, where he taught French and Latinhis students included the young

John Betjeman.[4]

Later he taught at theRoyal Grammar School, High Wycombe, a state

school inBuckinghamshire. To earn extra money, he wrote book reviews and lectured at

evening extension courses. In 1917, he took a position atLloyds Bankin London, working on

foreign accounts. On a trip to Paris in August of 1920 with the artistWyndham Lewis, he met

the writerJames Joyce. Eliot said he found Joyce arrogantJoyce doubted Eliot's ability as a

poet at the timebut the two soon became friends, with Eliot visiting Joyce whenever he was

in Paris.[26]

Eliot andWyndham Lewisalso maintained a close friendship, leading to Lewis's

later making his well-known portrait painting of Eliot in 1938.

In 1925, Eliot left Lloyds to join the publishing firmFaber and Gwyer, laterFaber and Faber,

where he remained for the rest of his career, eventually becoming a director. At Faber and

Faber, he was responsible for publishing important English poets likeW.H. Auden,Stephen

Spender, andTed Hughes.[27]

[edit] Conversion to Anglicanism and British citizenship

On June 29, 1927, Eliot converted toAnglicanismfromUnitarianism, and in November that

year he tookBritish citizenship. He became awardenof his parish church, Saint Stephen's,

Gloucester Road, London, and a life member of theSociety of King Charles the Martyr.[28][29]

He specifically identified asAnglo-Catholic, proclaiming himself "classicist in literature,

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royalist in politics, and anglo-catholic [sic] in religion." About thirty years later Eliot

commented on his religious views that he combined "a Catholic cast of mind, a Calvinist

heritage, and a Puritanical temperament."[32]

One of Eliot's biographers,Peter Ackroyd, commented that "the purposes of [Eliot's

conversion] were two-fold. One: the Church of England offered Eliot some hope for himself,and I think Eliot needed some resting place. But secondly, it attached Eliot to the English

community and English culture."[33]

[edit] Separation and remarriage

By 1932, Eliot had been contemplating a separation from his wife for some time. When

Harvard offered him theCharles Eliot Nortonprofessorship for the 1932-1933 academic

year, he accepted and left Vivienne in England. Upon his return, he arranged for a formal

separation from her, avoiding all but one meeting with her between his leaving for America

in 1932 and her death in 1947. Vivienne was committed to the Northumberland House mental

hospital,Stoke Newington, in 1938, and remained there until she died. Although Eliot was

still legally her husband, he never visited her.[34]

From 1946 to 1957, Eliot shared a flat with his friendJohn Davy Hayward, who gathered and

archived Eliot's papers, styling himself "Keeper of the Eliot Archive."[35]

Hayward also

collected Eliot's pre-Prufrock verse, commercially published after Eliot's death as Poems

Written in Early Youth. When Eliot and Hayward separated their household in 1957,

Hayward retained his collection of Eliot's papers, which he bequeathed toKing's College,

Cambridge, in 1965.

On January 10, 1957, Eliot at the age of 68, marriedEsm Valerie Fletcher, who was 30. Incontrast to his first marriage, Eliot knew Fletcher well, as she had been his secretary atFaber

and Fabersince August, 1949. They kept their wedding secret; the ceremony was held in a

church at 6:15 A.M., with virtually no one in attendance other than his wife's parents. Since

Eliot's death, Valerie has dedicated her time to preserving his legacy; she has edited and

annotated The Letters of T. S. Eliotand a facsimile of the draft ofThe Waste Land. Eliot

never had children with either of his wives. In the early 1960s, by then in failing health, Eliot

worked as an editor for theWesleyan University Press, seeking new poets in Europe for

publication.[36]

[edit] Death and honours

Eliot died ofemphysemain London on January 4, 1965. For many years he had had health

problems caused by his heavy smoking, and had often been laid low withbronchitisor

tachycardia. He was cremated atGolders Green Crematorium. In accordance with Eliot's

wishes, his ashes were taken to St. Michael's Church inEast Coker, the village from which

his ancestors had emigrated to America.

A wall plaque commemorates him with a quotation from his poem "East Coker," "In mybeginning is my end. In my end is my beginning."

In 1967, on the second anniversary of his death, Eliot was commemorated by the installationof a large stone in the floor ofPoets' Cornerin London'sWestminster Abbey. The stone, cut

by designerReynolds Stone, is inscribed with his life dates, hisOrder of Merit, and a

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quotation from his poem "Little Gidding", "the communication / of the dead is tongued with

fire beyond / the language of the living."[37]

[edit] Poetry

For a poet of his stature, Eliot produced a relatively small amount of poetry and he was aware

of this early in his career. He wrote to J.H. Woods, one of his former Harvard professors,

"My reputation in London is built upon one small volume of verse, and is kept up by printing

two or three more poems in a year. The only thing that matters is that these should be perfect

in their kind, so that each should be an event."[38]

Typically, Eliot first published his poems individually in periodicals or in small books or

pamphlets, and then collected them in books. His first collection was Prufrock and Other

Observations (1917). In 1920, he published more poems inAra Vos Prec (London) and

Poems: 1920 (New York). These had the same poems (in a different order) except that "Ode"

in the British edition was replaced with "Hysteria" in the American edition. In 1925, hecollected The Waste Landand the poems in Prufrockand Poems into one volume and addedThe Hollow Men to form Poems: 19091925. From then on, he updated this work as

Collected Poems. Exceptions are Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (1939), a collection of

light verse; Poems Written in Early Youth, posthumously published in 1967 and consisting

mainly of poems published between 1907 and 1910 inThe Harvard Advocate, andInventions

of the March Hare: Poems 19091917, material Eliot never intended to have published,

which appeared posthumously in 1997.[39]

During an interview in 1959, Eliot said of his nationality and its role in his work: "I'd say that

my poetry has obviously more in common with my distinguished contemporaries in America

than with anything written in my generation in England. That I'm sure of. ... It wouldn't bewhat it is, and I imagine it wouldn't be so good; putting it as modestly as I can, it wouldn't be

what it is if I'd been born in England, and it wouldn't be what it is if I'd stayed in America. It's

a combination of things. But in its sources, in its emotional springs, it comes from

America."[40]

[edit]The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

Main article:The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

In 1915,Ezra Pound, overseas editor ofPoetry magazine, recommended toHarriet Monroe,the magazine's founder, that she publish "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." Although the

character Prufrock seems to be middle-aged, Eliot wrote most of the poem when he was only

twenty-two. Its now-famous opening lines, comparing the evening sky to "a patient etherised

upon a table," were considered shocking and offensive, especially at a time whenGeorgian

Poetrywas hailed for its derivations of the nineteenth centuryRomantic Poets.

The poem follows the conscious experience of a man, Prufrock (relayed in the "stream of

consciousness" form characteristic of theModernists), lamenting his physical and intellectual

inertia, the lost opportunities in his life and lack of spiritual progress, with the recurrent

theme of carnal love unattained. Critical opinion is divided as to whether the narrator leaves

his residence during the course of the narration. The locations described can be interpretedeither as actual physical experiences, mental recollections, or as symbolic images from the

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unconscious mind, as, for example, in the refrain "In the room the women come and go."

The poem's structure was heavily influenced by Eliot's extensive reading ofDante Alighieri

and refers to a number of literary works, includingHamletand those of the French

Symbolists. Its reception in London can be gauged from an unsigned review inThe Times

Literary Supplementon June 21, 1917. "The fact that these things occurred to the mind of Mr.Eliot is surely of the very smallest importance to anyone, even to himself. They certainly

have no relation topoetry."[41]

[edit]The Waste Land

T. S. Eliot in 1923 byLady Ottoline Morrell.

Main article:The Waste Land

In October, 1922, Eliot published The Waste LandinThe Criterion. Eliot's dedication to il

miglior fabbro ("the better craftsman") refers to Ezra Pound's significant hand in editing and

reshaping the poem from a longer Eliot manuscript to the shortened version that appears in

publication.[42]

It was composed during a period of personal difficulty for Eliothis marriage was failing,and both he and Vivienne were suffering from nervous disorders. The poem is often read as a

representation of the disillusionment of the post-war generation. Before the poem's

publication as a book in December, 1922, Eliot distanced himself from its vision of despair.

On November 15, 1922, he wrote toRichard Aldington, saying, "As for The Waste Land, that

is a thing of the past so far as I am concerned and I am now feeling toward a new form and

style."[43]

The poem is known for its obscure natureits slippage between satire and prophecy; its

abrupt changes of speaker, location, and time. Despite this, it has become a touchstone of

modern literature, a poetic counterpart to a novel published in the same year,James Joyce's

Ulysses.[44]

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