A dramatization in free verse and with features derived from ancient and medieval theatre of the killing of Thomas a Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury under King Henry II. Eliot used the device of a chorus, an ancient Greek invention, to express certain concerns and observations, and the killers take their turn to justify their action. When I read this play as a grammar school student in England, I was struck by the way the violence echoed the rise of fascism in Europe when the play was being written. My English master was somewhat mocking in class regarding my views, but later as a college student I read Eliot's own words confirming my experience.
Thomas Stearns Eliot was an American poet, playwright, and literary critic, arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century.[3] His first notable publication, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, begun in February 1910 and published in Chicago in June 1915, is regarded as a masterpiece of the modernist movement.[4] It was followed by some of the best-known poems in the English language, including Gerontion (1920), The Waste Land (1922), The Hollow Men (1925), Ash Wednesday (1930), Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (1939), and Four Quartets (1945). He is also known for his seven plays, particularly Murder in the Cathedral (1935) and The Cocktail Party (1949). He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature and the Order of Merit in 1948. ([Source][1].)
[1]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._S._Eliot
