ELIOT ON DRAMA
POETRY AND DRAMA, by T. S. Eliot; Faber and Faber. English price, 7/6.
(Reviewed by
J.
B.
N Wellington recentlyeMr. Eric Linklater read to a small group some extracts from contemporary British plays-James Bridie, Christopher Fry, T. S. Eliot. Roll- | ing each extract round his tongue | like a wine-taster, he asked the same | series of questions: "What is it? Is it prose? Is it verse? Is it poetry?" The | piéce-de-résistance, of course, was the _last act of The Cocktail Party. Those who have been fascinated, repelled or merely disconcerted by Mr. Eliot’s adventures in the theatre since Sweeney Agonistes will find the chief interest of this short essay (originally delivered as the Theodore Spencer Memorial Lecture at Harvard) in its second part, which is both a report on experience and a remarkably candid piece of self-criticism. The first part, relatively slight but necessary to provide some balance and an escape from academic egoism, examines briefly the function of speech and style in drama. A triple distinction is established between prose, verse and ordinary speech: "It will appéar that prose, on the stage, is as artificial as verse: or altern ely, that verse can be as natural as prose." Hamlet, the play that Mr. Eliot once described as "an artistic failure,’ is then drawn upon to illustrate Shakespeare’s mature control of verse and poetry in supreme dramatic speech. But it is when he reviews his own technique, and its comparative success or failure in his three full-length plays from Murder in the Cathedral to The
Cocktail Party, that Mr. Eliot becomes immediately arresting, in that professorial manner of his that is such a bland mixture of Aristotle and Old Possum. Here are personal judgments and admissions that will be quoted (probably ad nauseam) so long as the poetic drama of the 20th Century is found worthy of serious discussion. Who would have supposed that the pattern of behaviour of Mr. Eliot’s improbable psychiatrist was suggested by Herakles in the Alcestis é6f Euripides? Does it matter? Not very much, perhaps, but it will be a relief to producers to know that the Furies need no longer appear visibly tu the audiénce in The Family Reunion, and it may be some consolation to much-tried actors to know that the hero of the same play now "strikes its author as "an insufferable prig." The general reader may wonder if 30odd pages of well-printed causerie are worth the money; but this is the perfect present for anyone seriously interested in modern drama. And as a startingpoint for argument, Mr. Eliot’s text has something of the virtue of those earlier lecture-notes of Aristotle on which no two subsequent ages have been in agreement, but which no age that values poetry can afford to neglect.
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 26, Issue 657, 8 February 1952, Page 12
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461ELIOT ON DRAMA New Zealand Listener, Volume 26, Issue 657, 8 February 1952, Page 12
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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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