"Murder in the Cathedral" is a verse drama written by T. S. Eliot and first performed in 1935. He wrote the play during the rise of fascism in Central Europe. Eliot's play covers a small span of time, December second through the twenty-ninth of 1170. It follows the days leading up to the death and martyrdom of … [Read more...] about Murder in the Cathedral
Thomas Stearns Eliot
Thomas Stearns Eliot was born in September of 1888 in Saint Louis, Missouri. His father was Henry Ware Eliot, a successful businessman, president and treasurer of a hydraulic press brick company. His mother was Charlotte Champe Stearns who wrote poetry and was a social worker. Eliot was the youngest of six children.
As a child, he suffered from illness and therefore could not participate in physical activities and could not socialize with other children. Since he was so isolated he found his solace in literature. When he began to attend the school he studies included Latin, Ancient Greek, French and German. He began writing poetry at fourteen years of age. When he was seventeen his poem, "A Fable For Feasters" was published in the school paper. Later, while attending Harvard, his poetry continued to be published in the Harvard Advocate. Eliot earned his Bachelor's Degree from Harvard in three years instead of the usual four.
Eliot moved to Paris after working as a philosophy assistant at Harvard from 1909 to 1910. There he studied philosophy at the Sorbonne. He went back to Harvard to study Indian philosophy and Sanskrit from 1911 to 1914. In 1914 Eliot received a scholarship to Merton College, Oxford. Eliot had had plans to take a summer program at Marburg, Germany, but was stopped with the onset of World War I. He went back to Oxford, instead. During that time there were so many American students at the Merton College that the Junior Common Room proposed a motion to stop the Americanization of Oxford. But, Eliot was on the committee to stop the motion and reminded the students how much they owed to American culture.
While in London Eliot met the poet Ezra Pound who took an immediate interest in the young poet and helped him in his career. Pound took Eliot around to social events introducing him to the artist in London. He spent more time with these people than he spent at Oxford.
By 1915 he had taken a job teaching English at Birkbeck, University of London. Eliot's doctoral dissertation for Harvard on "Knowledge and Experience in the Philosophy of F. H. Bradley was finished by 1916, but he failed to return for the viva voce exam.
Less that three months after meeting Vivienne Haigh – Wood, a governess in Cambridge, she and Eliot married. Their marriage was not a happy one. He married in order to settle down and she married by the advice of Pound to entice Eliot to stay in London. While he was teaching at the University of London the couple stayed with philosopher Bertrand Russell. Rumors had it that Vivienne and Bertrand had an affair, but the rumors were never substantiated.
One of the main obstacles to their marriage was her health issues. She wrote often to Pound with extensive lists of real and imagined health issues. Her mental instability led to her being sent away for her health. By 1933 they had spent so much time apart that they finally became legally separated. In 1938 her brother had her formally and forcefully committed to a lunatic asylum, where she died of heart disease in 1947. The play Tom & Viv written by Michael Hastings in 1994 tells the story of their relationship.
T. S. Eliot died of emphysema in 1965. After being cremated his ashes were taken to St. Michael and All Angels' Church, East Coker in Somerset. It is the village his ancestors emigrated to America from. A plaque with the words, "East Coker. In my beginning is my end. In my end is my beginning."