The Turbulent Priest
N unusual recording from 3YL was the Christmas Day sermon from T. S. Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral, spoken by the eminent English actor Robert Speaight as Thomas a Becket. I thought Mr. Speaight too close to the sucking dove myself; Becket was above all the warrior, engrossed with a vision of martyrdom more stern and impersonal than’ most human ideals and, granted that Eliot intended this sermon (an interlude between the two acts of preparation and of crisis) to present Becket’s combining of the human and tender aspect with his heroic role, it seemed to me that Mr. Speaight relaxed and mellowed too far and resembled a
very good clergyman delivering a sermon much above the average, but no more. This was not without its value and (as part of the drama as a whole) might have been a necessary relief to an audience, but, isolated, it fell too far. Also, of course, Eliot’s Becket is a mystic, that is to say one who has an idea or vision quite incommunicable to other human beings; so-what was Mr. Speaight to do?
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19450323.2.17.7
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 300, 23 March 1945, Page 9
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185The Turbulent Priest New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 300, 23 March 1945, Page 9
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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