Murder in the Cathedral by T.S. Eliot Summary and analysis

 

Murder in the Cathedral is a verse drama by T.S. Eliot that dramatizes the assassination of Archbishop Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170. The play, written in a poetic and highly symbolic style, explores themes of martyrdom, fate, and the conflict between spiritual and temporal power.

 

Part I: The Return of Becket

The play begins in December 1170, as the Chorus, a group of Canterbury women, sets the stage with an atmosphere of foreboding danger.  Three priests discuss Archbishop Thomas Becket’s return from exile in France. He had been in conflict with King Henry II over the Church’s authority and had spent seven years in exile. The priests are anxious about the consequences of his return. Becket arrives and acknowledges the political turmoil. He speaks of his inner conflict and his awareness of destiny: "If the Archbishop cannot trust the King, can he trust the Pope? If he trusts neither, there is no trust but in God alone."

The Four Tempters

Becket is visited by four tempters, each representing a different form of persuasion:

First Tempter: Urges him to seek pleasure and avoid conflict, reminding him of his earlier, more indulgent days: "Remember the good feasts in England." Becket rejects this, recognizing that he has moved beyond such temptations.

 

 Second Tempter: Encourages him to regain political power by aligning with King Henry, suggesting that power can be used for good. Becket dismisses him, understanding the corruption of secular authority.

 

Third Tempter: Suggests he ally with rebellious barons to overthrow the king, presenting an illusion of justice. Becket refuses, seeing the hidden self-interest in the proposal.

 

Fourth Tempter: The most insidious, he tempts Becket with the idea of martyrdom itself, arguing that seeking glory through death is a form of ultimate self-exaltation. Becket is deeply shaken, realizing that true martyrdom must not be sought for personal gain but accepted humbly: "The last temptation is the greatest treason: To do the right deed for the wrong reason."

 

Becket’s Sermon

On Christmas morning, Becket delivers a sermon that serves as the philosophical core of the play. He discusses martyrdom, stating that a martyr is "one who becomes the instrument of God, who has lost his will in the will of God." He warns the congregation not to celebrate a martyr’s death as an act of heroism but to see it as part of divine will.

 

Part II: The Assassination

Four knights Reginald FitzUrse, William de Traci, Hugh de Morville, and Richard Brito—arrive, representing King Henry II. They confront Becket, accusing him of betraying the king and destabilizing the kingdom. The Chorus senses the growing tension and cries, "O Thomas, return, Archbishop; return to France!"

 

The knights leave but soon return, now armed, demanding Becket submit to the king. The priests try to persuade Becket to seek refuge, but he refuses: "I give my life to the law of God above the law of man." The knights kill Becket in the cathedral, striking him down at the altar. His final words before death echo his surrender to divine will: "For the King’s sake, I am ready to die." The priests mourn his loss, while the Chorus grieves in terror, recognizing that their fears have come true.

 

The Knights’ Justification

After the murder, the knights turn to the audience in a direct address, attempting to rationalize their actions. They argue that Becket was a political threat, an arrogant figure whose death was necessary for stability. 

 

Epilogue: The Chorus’s Reflection

The play concludes with the Chorus acknowledging the transformation that has taken place. Though they initially feared Becket’s fate, they now understand the meaning of his martyrdom. They express sorrow but also acceptance, recognizing that his sacrifice has brought them closer to God: "We have suffered, suffered and shall suffer again, but we shall be changed by what we have seen."

 

Analysis

The conflict between Thomas Becket and King Henry II stemmed from a struggle over the authority of the Church versus the Crown in England.

The Root of the Conflict

Initially, Becket was a close friend and loyal supporter of King Henry II. In 1162, Henry appointed Becket as the Archbishop of Canterbury, expecting him to support royal control over the Church. However, after becoming Archbishop, Becket underwent a transformation, embracing the spiritual authority of the Church and opposing the king’s attempts to limit ecclesiastical power.

 

Key Issues of Dispute

1. The Constitutions of Clarendon (1164):

King Henry sought to reduce the Church’s autonomy by enforcing laws that subjected clergy to royal courts instead of ecclesiastical courts. Becket initially agreed under pressure but later renounced his approval, leading to his fallout with Henry.

 

Exile and Return:

Becket fled to France in 1164 to escape persecution but continued to defy Henry, even excommunicating bishops loyal to the king.

The Final Break:

Becket refused to submit to royal authority and excommunicated key figures aligned with the king. Henry, frustrated, allegedly exclaimed, "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?"

 

Why Did Henry Killed Becket?

Henry did not explicitly order Becket’s murder but his frustration and words incited the knights to act. He viewed Becket’s defiance as a direct challenge to his authority, threatening the balance of power in England. Becket’s loyalty to the Pope and Church over the king undermined royal control. Becket was canonized as a saint in 1173, and Henry had to perform public penance at Becket’s tomb to appease the Church. The incident ultimately strengthened the Church’s position against the monarchy.

 

Dramatic Structure and Classical Influence

 

Eliot structures the play in a two-part format, resembling Greek tragedy with a distinct Aristotelian unity of action. The Chorus, akin to the Greek chorus in Sophoclean drama, serves as the moral conscience of Canterbury, expressing collective fears: "We have suffered oppression beyond our imagining." Their role is didactic and reflective, guiding the audience’s emotional response.

 

Becket functions as a tragic hero, his fate sealed by a combination of divine will and his own choices. In Aristotelian terms, his hamartia (fatal flaw) may be his uncompromising commitment to God’s law over the king’s authority. However, Eliot subverts classical tragedy by portraying Becket’s death not as a downfall but as an ascent into spiritual fulfillment.

 

 

Symbolism and Allegory

 

The Four Tempters mirror Christ’s temptations in the desert, each embodying a different philosophical or ethical dilemma: hedonism, political power, rebellion, and spiritual pride.

Becket’s Martyrdom serves as an allegory for sacrifice, aligning him with Christian sainthood. His final submission echoes Christ’s passion: "The last temptation is the greatest treason: To do the right deed for the wrong reason."

 

 

Political Allegory and Historical Context

 

Eliot wrote Murder in the Cathedral during a time of rising totalitarianism in Europe, and the play serves as a critique of political oppression. Becket’s defiance of Henry II mirrors the resistance of religious and intellectual figures against fascist regimes. The play implicitly questions the morality of state power and the sacrifices required to uphold spiritual integrity.

 

The Knights’ justification of murder as a necessity for political stability—resembles the rationalizations of authoritarian leaders. Their argument anticipates Hannah Arendt’s notion of the "banality of evil," where atrocity is normalized through bureaucratic detachment.

 

 

Religious Themes and Christian Allegory

 

The play is deeply infused with Christian theology. Becket is portrayed as a Christ-like figure, paralleling Jesus’ persecution and crucifixion. His final sermon before martyrdom echoes Christ’s last words: "A martyr is one who has become an instrument of God, who has lost his will in the will of God."

 

 

When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd Summary and Analysis

 

Walt Whitman’s When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d is an elegy mourning the death of Abraham Lincoln. It is part of Leaves of Grass and was written in 1865 after Lincoln’s assassination. The poem blends personal grief with national sorrow, using natural imagery and symbolism.

 

Whitman begins with a scene of lilacs blooming in the spring, immediately associating them with grief. The poet marks the time of Lincoln’s death with the image of the evening star (Venus), which has set, symbolizing the fallen president. The speaker acknowledges that every spring, when lilacs bloom, his sorrow will return. The lilacs symbolize both renewal and mourning, as they bloom during spring but become a reminder of death. The western star (Venus) represents Lincoln, a great guiding light now lost. Whitman introduces a cyclical view of time, linking nature’s rhythms to human grief.

 

The poet speaks of placing a lilac upon a coffin, symbolizes his personal tribute to the deceased. The fragrance of the flower mingles with sorrow, as he prepares to offer a song for the departed. The coffin (Lincoln’s body) is an emblem of loss, but also a national monument of remembrance. The act of placing the lilac on the coffin represents an offering of love and remembrance. Whitman’s tone is intimate yet universal, blending personal grief with collective mourning.

 

The funeral train carrying Lincoln’s body moves across the country. Whitman describes its slow passage through landscapes, towns, and grieving citizens. Nature, too, mourns as the train proceeds. The funeral train is a unifying image, connecting the mourning of the entire nation. Whitman fuses natural and human grief, showing that nature also laments Lincoln’s passing. The journey is both literal and metaphorical, symbolizing Lincoln’s transition into national memory.

 

A hermit thrush appears in the woods, singing a solitary, mournful song. The bird becomes a companion to the poet’s grief. Its song is soft yet profound, offering consolation. The hermit thrush is a symbol of spiritual transcendence and acceptance of death. Unlike the earlier lilacs and star, which symbolize grief, the bird offers a meditative response to loss. The bird’s song represents the universal cycle of life and death, urging the poet toward acceptance.

The poet turns to themes of death as a natural and inevitable transition. He sees death not as destruction but as transformation. The thrush’s song teaches him to embrace this universal process. Whitman moves from personal mourning to philosophical reflection on death. Death is no longer feared but understood as a mystical journey, connecting all beings. The final acceptance of death aligns with Whitman’s transcendentalist beliefs.

Whitman unites all three major symbols such as lilac, star, and thrush in his final tribute to Lincoln. He acknowledges his sorrow but finds solace in the cycle of nature. The three symbols merge, illustrating how grief, memory, and acceptance coexist. Lincoln is immortalized not just in history but in the rhythms of nature and poetry itself. The elegy ends with a tone of resolution, as Whitman accepts death as part of the eternal flow of life.

The Emperor of Ice-Cream: A Critical Analysis

 

Wallace Stevens' The Emperor of Ice-Cream is a quintessential Modernist poem, marked by its enigmatic tone, juxtaposition of life and death, and the celebration of sensory experience. Published in Harmonium (1923), the poem is widely regarded for its complex imagery and philosophical undertones.

The poem consists of two equal-length stanzas, each presenting a distinct yet interrelated scenario. The first stanza is lively and filled with sensuous imagery, as the speaker directs a bustling scene of preparation. A cigar-rolling man is called upon to churn ice cream, women are instructed to dress informally, and boys are to bring flowers wrapped in old newspaper. The setting appears to be a wake or funeral, yet it is devoid of solemnity. Instead, it displays a spirit of celebration, which marks the central idea that life’s pleasures must be embraced without pretension.

In contrast, the second stanza shifts to a quieter, more intimate setting, where the deceased woman’s body lies in another room. A worn-out sheet stitched by the woman herself is placed over her, but her feet remain exposed, emphasizing the stark reality of death. The imagery of bunions and horn-like toes serves as a reminder of mortality in its most unembellished form. The lamplight is commanded to shine directly on her, stripping away any illusion and confronting the reader with the inescapable presence of death.

 

Themes and Interpretations

The Triumph of Reality Over Illusion The recurring refrain, Let be be finale of seem, encapsulates the poem’s central philosophical assertion: reality must take precedence over illusion. Stevens dismisses the idea of romanticizing death and instead suggests that human existence should be appreciated for what it is temporary, sensory, and physical.

The Sensory World as the Ultimate Reality Ice cream, a recurring motif, symbolizes indulgence, impermanence, and the fleeting joys of life. By elevating the Emperor of Ice-Cream as the supreme ruler, Stevens implies that tangible pleasures, rather than abstract or religious ideals, govern human experience.

 

Death as an Inevitable, Unvarnished Truth The second stanza’s unembellished description of the dead woman’s body serves to demystify death. The absence of sentimental mourning suggests that life and death should be acknowledged with equal clarity without unnecessary illusions.

Contrasts Between Life and Death The lively, almost carnivalesque energy of the first stanza stands in stark opposition to the cold stillness of the second. This contrast underscores the poem’s meditation on the cyclical nature of existence, where life’s revelry gives way to death’s inevitability.

Sunday Morning by Wallace Stevens summary and analysis

 

"Sunday Morning" is one of Wallace Stevens's most celebrated works, first published in 1915 in Poetry magazine, and later appearing in the fuller version in his landmark collection Harmonium in 1923. The poem has earned significant recognition, with critic Yvor Winters, a prominent figure in modernist poetry, proclaiming it as "the greatest American poem of the twentieth century." With its rich layers of meaning, "Sunday Morning" addresses profound themes of religion, nature, death, and beauty, and is often analyzed for its philosophical underpinnings.

 

The poem consists of eight sections, and it centers around a woman who spends a tranquil Sunday morning relaxing at home. She is at ease in her surroundings, while most of society is at church, engaging in religious observance. The woman’s sense of inner contemplation leads to a dialogue between modern skepticism and the spiritual notions of divinity, tradition, and transcendence. Through her meditations, Stevens explores the conflict between the familiar world of nature and the abstract world of religion, raising questions about the meaning of belief and the nature of existence.

In the first stanza, the woman relaxes in her ‘peignoir,’ sipping coffee, and enjoying the presence of her green cockatoo,bird. Despite being away from the church, the sacred connotations of Sunday morning persist in her thoughts. She reflects on the ‘old catastrophe’,a reference to the crucifixion of Christ and the ‘ancient sacrifice,’ invoking the religious images of Jesus’s suffering. At the end of the stanza, she briefly drifts into a dream-like state where she imagines herself in Palestine, contemplating the vault of Christ. The tone suggests a subconscious yearning for deeper meaning, even if she consciously rejects the traditional religious framework.

 

The second stanza shifts perspective as the speaker channels the woman's inner voice, presenting her thoughts directly in a style akin to free indirect speech. The woman questions the worth of religion, particularly in its intangible forms. She wonders if it is worth dedicating time to the memory of the dead, especially when divine presence feels distant and elusive, manifesting only in ‘shadows’ and ‘dreams.’ In her skepticism, she leans toward pantheism, finding spirituality in the natural world around her. Her cockatoo, the weather, and the cyclical nature of the seasons.

The third stanza contrasts Jove, the Roman god, with the figure of Jesus. Unlike Jesus, who assumed human form and became incarnate through the Virgin Mary, Jove’s divinity remains detached and inaccessible. Stevens explores the difference between Christianity’s focus on the personal relationship between humanity and a divine figure, and the more impersonal worship of ancient gods like Jove, who did not walk among mortals. Through this juxtaposition, the woman contemplates whether there is a greater heaven beyond the earth or if the earthly paradise she witnesses each day is the ultimate reality.

 

In the fourth stanza, the woman speaks directly, lamenting that while the natural world remains ever-vibrant, ‘April green endures’, the spiritual revelations of divinity no longer resonate in the modern world. This stanza captures the woman's growing disillusionment with religion, suggesting that the world has outgrown traditional forms of worship and that the divine is now inseparable from the material world.

The fifth stanza delves deeper into the woman’s existential musings. She questions whether earthly beauty, such as the joy she finds in watching birds take flight is sufficient to sustain her. Can mere contentment with life be enough, or does it fall short of fulfilling a deeper longing? This stanza introduces the famous assertion that "Death is the mother of beauty," a central idea in Stevens's poetic philosophy. Beauty is born out of the awareness of mortality, and this transient beauty, though fleeting, is what gives life its depth and meaning.

 

The sixth stanza continues this exploration, questioning whether death exists in ‘paradise,’ if such a place exists at all. She wonders if the ripening fruit that eventually falls from a tree might symbolize a deeper truth about the nature of beauty—its fleeting, ephemeral quality. Death, as the origin of beauty, becomes a key theme as the woman deals with the possibility that any paradise must inevitably contain death in order to preserve beauty.

 

The seventh stanza revisits the theme of paganism, offering an imagined scene of worship where men circle naked in reverence to the sun, offering a raw, unrestrained form of devotion. This contrast between the restrained rituals of Christianity and the wild, ecstatic rituals of paganism highlights the tension between structured religious practices and the natural, visceral impulses that can also be considered divine.

 

In the eighth and final stanza, the poem returns to the initial image of the woman in her chair, contemplating the nature of life and death. She reflects on Palestine, not as a holy site, but as a simple place where the body of a man - Jesus was laid to rest. The speaker concludes that humanity is ‘unsponsored’ and ‘free,’ unburdened by the oversight of any divine force. The natural world around the woman is all-encompassing, and the sky no longer holds divine figures but is filled with flocks of pigeons soaring freely through the air.

While the poem contains elements of Romanticism, particularly its reverence for nature as a source of spirituality, it also incorporates significant modernist features. Stevens’s reluctance to offer clear answers or resolutions, leaving key questions about divinity and the afterlife open-ended aligns with the modernist aspects of indeterminacy and ambiguity. Like many modernist poets, Stevens avoids definitive conclusions, instead presenting a series of meditations that invite readers to form their own interpretations. The poem's ambiguity, especially in its treatment of religion and the afterlife, mirrors the modernist disillusionment with established truths and systems of belief.