1 / 12

Murder in the Cathedral - T.S. Eliot

G. PRIYA, Assistant Professor of English , E.G.S Pillay Arts and Science College, Nagapattinam. Murder in the Cathedral - T.S. Eliot. Thomas Stearns Eliot. T.S. Eliot Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888 – 1965) An essayist, publisher, playwright, literary and social critic.

cgolden
Download Presentation

Murder in the Cathedral - T.S. Eliot

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. G. PRIYA,Assistant Professor of English,E.G.S Pillay Arts and Science College, Nagapattinam.

  2. Murder in the Cathedral - T.S. Eliot

  3. Thomas Stearns Eliot

  4. T.S. Eliot • Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888 – 1965) • An essayist, publisher, playwright, literary and social critic. • Belongs to an English family. • Henry Ware Eliot & Charlotte Champe Stearns. • During masters, he contributes poem to a literary magazine “the Harvard Advocate”.

  5. Awards and Honours: • Order of Merit(1948) • Presidential Medal of Freedom (1964) • Nobel Prize in Literature(1948) • Hanseatic Goethe Prize (1955) • Dante Medal (1959)

  6. Notable Works: • Prufrock and Other Observations (1917) • The Waste Land (1922) • Ash Wednesday (1930) • Murder in the Cathedral (1935) • The Cocktail Party (1948) • The Confidential Clerk (1953)

  7. Historical Background • Quarrel Between King Henry II and Thomas Beckett in 12th Century • Argument centered over the crimes done by authority. • Leads to the assassination of Archbishop Thomas Beckett in Canterbury Cathedral.

  8. Characters of the drama • Thomas Beckett • Chorus • Herald • Three Priest • Four Tempters • Four Knights • King Henry II • Pope

  9. Plot Murder in the Cathedral opens with Beckett’s return from France to England after seven years. It is a play in two parts. After Beckett’s return to England, people of Canterbury get a premonition about him. The people are not happy with his arrival. Four Knights ride to Canterbury Cathedral to threaten Beckett on the behalf of King Henry II. They demand that Beckett should leave with them. Beckett then refuses to leave. They come back with weapons and killed Thomas Beckett and cut his head off on 1170.

  10. Themes • Flesh vs. Spirit • Politics • Obedience

  11. Famous Quotations • “Seven years and the summer is over/ seven year since the Archbishop left us,/He who was always kind to his people./But it would not be well if he should return”. (p. 176) • “ for good or ill, let the wheel turn./ the wheel has been still, these seven years, and no good./ for ill or good, let the wheel turn./ for who knows the end of good or evil?” (p. 179) • “real power/ Is purchased at price of a certain / submission./ your spiritual power is earthly perdition. / Power is present, for him who will/ wield.” (p. 186)

  12. Thank you

More Related