The Return of Verse Drama Noor Kadhoum Jawad Chris Baldick defines verse drama as “the category of plays written wholly or mainly in verse.” Chris Baldick, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary terms (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 197. This embraces “most tragedies and other serious plays from the earliest times to the nineteenth century, along with most comedies up to the late seventeenth century.” Ibid. In verse drama, says M. H. Abrams, “the dialogue is written in verse, which in English is usually bland verse” and “almost all the heroic dramas of the English restoration period, however, were written in heroic couplets [which are] iambic pentameter lines rhyming in pairs.” M. H. Abrams, A Glossary of Literary Terms, 7th ed. (Massachusetts: Heinle & Heinle, 1999), 69. Martin Steven points out that “the attraction of verse drama was partly its use in the Elizabethan period” by such playwrights as Christopher Marlow (1564-1593) and William Shakespeare (1564-1616). Martin Steven, An Introductory Guide to English Literature (York: Longman Group Limited, 1984), 57. This period “represented the last age in which high intellectual ideals had been combined with popularity in literature, which its appeal to a wide audience,” as Steven puts it. Ibid. In the twentieth century there have been few attempts to return to the use of verse in drama by W. H. Auden (1907-1973) and Christopher Isherwood (1904-1986) in collaboration, and by Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888-1965) on his own. John Anthony Burgess Wilson, English Literature: A Survey for Students (London: Longman, 1958), 265 Auden and Isherwood “used the stage,” says John Anthony Burgess Wilson, “for left-wing propaganda in The Dance of Death and The Dog Beneath the Skin.” Ibid., 265-6. These plays “employed verse of a racy, colloquial kind, songs in popular idiom, and various Expressionist devices.” Ibid. There have been “no twentieth century poetic dramatists could,” as Wilson believes, “dispense with the use of chorus (on the Greek model) in the first days of verse drama, and it is the choral comments of The Dog Beneath the Skin that have survived better than the play.” Ibid. Steven states that Eliot’s The Cocktail Party and The Family Reunion “reflect a resurgence in the art of verse or poetic drama that reached its high point with The Family Reunion.” Steven. Eliot added to the “noble ideal” mentioned above two thoughts from his own; “a strong religious faith, couple” with the desire to convert his audience to Christianity,” in addition to “a willingness to base his plays closely on classical predecessors,” as Steven puts it. Ibid. As verse drama, religious drama, and drama based on classical examples, Eliot’s work has remarkable interest. As a play, perhaps only his Murder in the Cathedral, says Steven, “can stand in its own right, and even then it performs much better in the church than in the theatre. Ibid. Murder in the Cathedral tells the story of a verse drama by T. S. Eliot, written for performance at the Canterbury Festival, June 1935, and published the same year. Drawing on Greek tragedy, Christian liturgy, and biblical imagery, it is based on the martyrdom of St Thomas Becket, who returns to Canterbury after a seven-year absence: he receives visits from four Tempters, the last of whom tempts him to spiritual pride ('to do the right deed for the wrong reason'). In an interlude he preaches to the people (Christmas Morning, 1170) and in Part II he is murdered by four knights, who later prosaically justify their actions. A chorus of townswomen opens and closes the drama, and comments on the action: these speeches contain some of Eliot's most memorable and haunting dramatic verse. Ira Mark Milne points out that in a number of essays, Eliot “praised the poetic drama of the Jacobean stage and the works of Dryden. In his Poetry and Drama, he analyzed the difficulties in trying to revive poetic drama for the modern stage.” Ira Mark Milne (ed.), Literary Movements for Students, 2nd ed. (Detroit: Gale Cengage Learning, 2009), 99. Daniel S. Burt states that Eliot “fashioned a new kind of poetic drama infused with the search for spiritual meaning evident in his poetry.” Daniel S. Burt, The Literary 100, Revised Edition: A Ranking of the Most Influential Novelists, Playwrights, and Poets of All Time (New York: Facts On File, 2009), 72. Notes