The Complete Plays of T. S. Eliot

T. S. Eliot

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9780544358454
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: American Drama
• Index: Literature

The collected dramatic works of the Nobel Prize winner, from Murder in the Cathedral to The Elder Statesman.
 
T. S. Eliot's plays— Murder in the Cathedral, The Family Reunion, The Cocktail Party (which won a Tony Award for its Broadway production), The Confidential Clerk, and The Elder Statesman—are brought together for the first time in this volume. They summarize the Nobel Prize winner's achievements in restoring dramatic verse to the English and American stages, an effort of great significance both for the theater and for the development of Eliot's art.
 
Between 1935, when Murder in the Cathedral was first produced at the Canterbury Festival, and 1958, when The Elder Statesman opened at the Edinburgh Festival prior to engagements in London and New York, Eliot had given three other plays to the theater. His paramount concerns can be traced through all five works. They have been said to be closely related, marking stages in the development of a new and individual form of drama, in which the poet worked out his intention "to take a form of entertainment, and subject it to the process that would leave it a form of art." What Mark Van Doren said, in reviewing Murder in the Cathedral, is true of all these plays: "Mr. Eliot adapts himself to the stage with dignity, simplicity, and skill."

Part I

Chorus. Here let us stand, close by the cathedral. Here let us wait.

Are we drawn by danger? Is it the knowledge of safety, that draws our feet

Towards the cathedral? What danger can be

For us, the poor, the poor women of Canterbury? what tribulation

With which we are not already familiar? There is no danger

For us, and there is no safety in the cathedral. Some presage of an act

Which our eyes are compelled to witness, has forced our feet

Towards the cathedral. We are forced to bear witness.

Since golden October declined into sombre November

And the apples were gathered and stored, and the land became brown sharp points of death in a waste of water and mud,

The New Year waits, breathes, waits, whispers in darkness.

While the labourer kicks off a muddy boot and stretches his hand to the fire,

The New Year waits, destiny waits for the coming.

Who has stretched out his hand to the fire and remembered the Saints at All Hallows,

Remembered the martyrs and saints who wait? and who shall

Stretch out his hand to the fire, and deny his master? who shall be warm

By the fire, and deny his master?

Seven years and the summer is over

Seven years since the Archbishop left us,

He who was always kind to his people.

But it would not be well if he should return.

King rules or barons rule;

We have suffered various oppression,

But mostly we are left to our own devices,

And we are content if we are left alone.

We try to keep our households in order;

The merchant, shy and cautious, tries to compile a little fortune,

And the labourer bends to his piece of earth, earth-colour, his own colour,

Preferring to pass unobserved.

Now I fear disturbance of the quiet seasons:

Winter shall come bringing death from the sea,

Ruinous spring shall beat at our doors,

Root and shoot shall eat our eyes and our ears.

Disastrous summer burn up the beds of our streams

And the poor shall wait for another decaying October.

Why should the summer bring consolation

For autumn fires and winter fogs?

What shall we do in the heat of summer

But wait in barren orchards for another October?

Some malady is coming upon us. We wait, we wait,

And the saints and martyrs wait, for those who shall be martyrs and saints.

Destiny waits in the hand of God, shaping the still unshapen:

I have seen these things in a shaft of sunlight.

Destiny waits in the hand of God, not in the hands of statesmen

Who do, some well, some ill, planning and guessing,

Having their aims which turn in their hands in the pattern of time.

Come, happy December, who shall observe you, who shall preserve you?

Shall the Son of Man be born again in the litter of scorn?

For us, the poor, there is no action,

But only to wait and to witness.

[Enter Priests]

First Priest. Seven years and the summer is over.

Seven years since the Archbishop left us.

Second Priest. What does the Archbishop do, and our Sovereign

Lord the Pope

With the stubborn King and the French King

In ceaseless intrigue, combinations,

In conference, meetings accepted, meetings refused,

Meetings unended or endless

At one place or another in France?

Third Priest. I see nothing quite conclusive in the art of temporal

government,

But violence, duplicity and frequent malversation.

King rules or barons rule:

The strong man strongly and the weak man by caprice.

They have but one law, to seize the power and keep it,

And the steadfast can manipulate the greed and lust of others,

The feeble is devoured by his own.

First Priest. Shall these things not end

Until the poor at the gate

Have forgotten their friend, their Father in God, have forgotten

That they had a friend?

[Enter Messenger]

Messenger. Servants of God, and watchers of the temple,

I am here to inform you, without circumlocution:

The Archbishop is in England, and is dose outside the city.

I was sent before in haste

To give you notice of his coming, as much as was possible,

That you may prepare to meet him.

First Priest. What, is the exile ended, is our Lord Archbishop

Reunited with the King? what reconciliation

Of two proud men?

Third Priest. What peace can be found

To grow between the hammer and the anvil?

Second Priest. Tell...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Contents
• Copyright
• Murder in the Cathedral
• Part I
• Part II
• The Family Reunion
• Part I
• Part II
• The Cocktail Party
• The Confidential Clerk
• The Elder Statesman
• About the Author
• Connect with HMH
• Footnotes