Murder in the Cathedral

Book Description

A dramatization in verse of the murder of Thomas Becket at Canterbury. “The theatre as well as the church is enriched by this poetic play of grave beauty and momentous decision” (New York Times). “Within its limits the play is a masterpiece.... Mr. Eliot has written no better poem than this and none which seems simpler” (Mark Van Doren, The Nation).

Customer Reviews:

Haunting!.......2007-03-06

My high school put on the play, "Murder in the Cathedral" for their fall drama in 1969. In retrospect, my guess is that few of the players and still fewer of the audience had any real idea as to the momentous events that the play dramatized. Yet, the language has lingered with me from that day to this, now close on forty years later:

"...the stubborn King, and the French King, in ceaseless intrigue, combination...
....meetings unending, and endless, at some place or the other in France...
....you will be left to your own devices, which must be paid for at higher prices...
....It does go against the grain a bit to kill an Archbishop, especially when one has been brought up in a strong Church tradition..."

The play, in fact, dramatized the struggle between Saint Thomas A' Becket and Henry II over the rights of Church and State. Truly, it was a classic confrontation between what ultimately became, under the Tudors, the power of the state relative to the rights of Holy Church. Now, as a high school junior, I had wanted, of course to play Thomas. I wound up as the lowly Second Priest. But, knowing now what I did not know then, I understand that I could not have done the Archbisho's character justice, as I was then a Protestant. In fact, the reasoning of Thomas, particularly with regard to the Temptors, was classic Catholicism.

The play is wonderfully rich in language and meaning. It can be read in one long sitting. And reading it is well worth the time and effort. Pick up this little book, and be richly blessed by the experience.

"Blood for blood.".......2006-08-19

The murder and subsequent martyrdom of Thomas Becket is always a chilling tale and one that poet T.S. Eliot does a masterful job in relating. "Murder in the Cathedral" is a look at Becket's return from France, after his fallout with King Henry II, and his murder by knights of the King. The play may be a difficult read for those unfamiliar with Becket's life, and those unused to Eliot's poetically styled play. Yet it is an intriguing look at one of the church's martyrs, told by a man who came to faith later in his life.

The first act of the play centers around Thomas Becket's return from France. He had fled there for a period of years in an effort to avoid the King, and their 'difference of opinion', to put it simply. Becket was first appointed Chancellor by Henry II, and then made Archbishop. King Henry II hoped that by granting Becket both titles he would have more control over the church; but Becket saw things differently, and roused the king's anger when he excommunicated several bishops. Throughout the first act, Becket is set upon by four temptors who reveal his fate to him, serving as a catalyst for readers to learn some of Becket's background and to know that he wasn't purely without fault.

The second act moves at a much faster pace than the previous, with the king's knights denouncing Thomas and trying to persuade him to reverse his decision. When Becket refuses, the knights return and kill Thomas at the altar of the church, a death that he gladly accepts as a martyr for his Lord. The most intriguing part of the play is when, after the brutal murder is completed, the knights turn to the audience and explain their reasons for killing Becket and why it was the right thing to do in an effort to preserve England. "Murder in the Cathedral" is a play that will make readers want to examine the events surrounding Becket's death, and leave them wondering if all those explanations at the end might be right after all.

Thomas Beckett as martyr philosopher; Shakespearean genius.......2004-10-16

The audiobook version of "Murder in the Cathedral" (with Robert Donat playing Thomas Beckett) is a surprising delight, especially for those who love rich language and philosophical musings.

Centered around the age-old story of how Thomas Beckett, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was murdered by knights for defying the king's authority, the play explores a variety of themes: church vs. state, the quest for power, the pursuit of pleasure, the heroism or vanity of martyrs, and the search for life's meaning in the face of death and the "void".

The performances of the actors in this audiobook are superb, especially that of Robert Donat. Hearing his deep resonating voice, you truly feel the charismatic power of the archbishop and former chancellor to the king.

The performance alternates between straight dialogue, poetry, and the Gregorian style chanting of monks. While the poetry and chanting is tedious in parts, it at least breaks up the dialogue into digestable chunks and moves the plot along.

Readers shouldn't be put off by the medieval theme of this piece. The substance of the play is as modern and relevant as any play you'll find. The plot contains a novel twist as well.

With its many poetic and philosophical flourishes, there's more than a trace of Shakespeare in this work. And here's a little known fact: another T.S. Eliot work, "The Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats", was the inspiration for Cats, the longest running Broadway musical.

So push the rewind for me. Time to visit that bloody cathedral again.

Written by a dilettante........2004-09-29

"Murder in the Cathedral" is more of a coffee house production than a dramatic classical play. Since I do not care for poetry, or Shakespeare, I knew I was jumping headfirst into a dead-end. Still, I did not expect to be bored out of my gored. T. S. Eliot was attempting to use the genre "poetic drama" to his benefit, but instead conjured up an illiterate form of speaking. I disliked the play 'A Man for All Seasons,' (involves the death of Thomas Moore) but at least that play can be coherently understood, and actually teaches something. I do not recommend.

Murder in the Cathedral.......2004-05-11

The play is about Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury and is not worth reading if you like a literal story, where what you read is what you get and reading between the lines is unnecessary. That is what I liked about this play. It allows you to interpret the dialogue so that you develop your own understanding behind the plot.
Thomas Becket lived in the 12th century and rose to power because of his friend King Henry. Becket at first had been a Chancellor in Henrys court and had then been given the title of Archbishop. Henry wanted him to have both the titles whereas Becket refused because he felt he could not perform both jobs to the same expectations. This was because Henry had radical views about the separation of the church and the state and Becket did not agree with these views because he did not believe he could serve two very opposite masters. The result was an argument between the two.
Literally, Henry and Becket are in a skirmish during the play, but the actual conflict is between Becket and his conscience. The play goes deep into Christianity and the Catholic faith, which I found to be enjoyable. Just as Christ had tempters, so does Becket. They offer him power and material wealth, when all they want in return is for Becket to alter and transform his principles.
I liked how you saw main characters in this play, such as the Chorus, progress from fearing the unknown to joyfully accepting God. While the play has Christian connotations within, it stresses primarily on universal human values such as humility and devotion.
The entire play is written in verse and Eliot managed to capture such complex themes and dialogue in such concise yet poetic words.

The Companion to the Mystery of Edwin Drood (Dickens Companions, No 2)

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The Companion to the Mystery of Edwin Drood (Dickens Companions, No 2)
Wendy S. Jacobson
Manufacturer: Unwin Hyman
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0048000639

Average customer rating:

Very Disappointed
Good, but not enough mystery!
Full of historical inaccuracies
One of the best books I have ever read
worn out

A Murder for Her Majesty
Beth Hilgartner
Manufacturer: Houghton Mifflin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0395616190

Book Description

Horrified at having witnessed her father's murder and fearing that the killers are agents of Queen Elizabeth I, eleven-year-old Alice Tuckfield hides in the Yorkshire cathedral by disguising herself as one of the choirboys.

Customer Reviews:

Very Disappointed.......2006-09-30

Wow, I hate to go against the tide but I felt very strongly about this book and unfortunately, not positively. I read this book aloud to my 13 year old daughter as part of our homeschool curriculum and both of our general impressions of this book were similarly negative to the point that we were glad to reach the last page and be done with it. We both found the book to be poorly written, the plot to be extremely predictable, the character development to be lacking, the dialog of the characters and the plot line to be unrealistic,the character motivations to be unclear and the historical inaccuracies to be glaring. The plot was clearly contrived from the very beginning to the end. At the final page we were relieved to be through but frustrated that we wasted our time and confused as to all the loose ends left by the author. I certainly would not personally recommend this book.

Good, but not enough mystery!.......2006-09-22

I liked this book, but I didn't think that there was enough mystery in it.

This book is about a girl (Alice Tuckfield) whose father was murdered. The girl runs away and is found by some choirboys. They take her back to their school even though girls aren't allowed there. Eventually, the boys decide to have her dress up in boys' clothes and pretend to be one of them. Everything seems to go well; Alice even has a gift for singing and enjoys singing in the choir. But then Alice begins to think that the person who was the head of the murder of her father is there at her school...

There was a lot on Alice in the choir, the choirboys, the classes she took, and the teachers. There was a little bit (and more at the end) of suspense and mystery, but not enough to live up to its title. I would definately read it, but don't expect too much mystery.

Full of historical inaccuracies.......2006-09-04

A Murder for Her Majesty is exciting but completely unreliable as a historical novel. It is full of major and minor anachronisms: the choir sings carols that weren't written till the 19th century; York Minster uses an order of service appropriate to late 20th century American Episcopal churches but totally inaccurate for Elizabethan ritual; the political organization of the church ("the Queen could not appoint bishops herself") is completely backwards--bishops WERE, in fact, appointed by the Queen--Alice is portrayed as eating a potato and drinking tea, both of which were not in the English diet till 100 or more years later; there are house numbers (a 19th century invention) and on and on and on. It's outrageous not only that the author's own research was so sloppy but that nobody anywhere along the editorial process caught any of this. What's the use of a historical novel if the history it teaches is so utterly inaccurate?

One of the best books I have ever read.......2006-06-01

When I started reading this book I found it hard to put down. I found it so exciting with lots of things happening. At the beginning of the story Alice Tuckfield after seeing her father's death runs into a few choirboys who give her food and a place to stay for the night. The boys then think that it would be a good prank to hide her in the choir and she soon gets used to the boys and tries not to reveal that she is a girl. The rest of the book is now your turn to read and I am positive you will enjoy it.

worn out.......2005-12-27

This is among my favorite books. When I first got this book I didn't think I'd like it so I just randomly opened it and read a little. Before I knew it I'd read all the way to the end and had to start back at the beginning!! It's clever and funny and an excellent read. In fact, I need to get myself another copy cause I've read it so many times pages are falling out. Alice is just the type of heroine you would like to be...

Murder at the National Cathedral (Capital Crime Mysteries)

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tedious at best
OK, but I guessed the murderer
Osam Binmodia
Church politics
Typical but also Interesting

Murder at the National Cathedral (Capital Crime Mysteries)
Margaret Truman
Manufacturer: Fawcett
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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ASIN: 0449219399
Release Date: 1991-12-13

Book Description

"One of her most enjoyable books."
ASSOCIATED PRESS
The brutal murder of a friend drags Mac Smith and Annabel Reed from their newlywed bliss into an unholy web of intrigue and danger. When a second murder is commited in England, which the honeymooners had just visited, the Smiths go back across the seas, and straight into the center of an ungodly plot of secret agents, a playboy priest, a frustrated lover, a choleric cleric...and a murder so perfect it's a sin.

Customer Reviews:

tedious at best.......2006-10-26

I have read a number of Margaret Truman's murder mysteries and was pleased to find this one as a book on tape so that I could enjoy it on my drive to work. However, this one was a true departure from her other works that I have read and approached what I was afraid that all of her books would be like when I first started reading them: the pretentious writings of a Washington insider. The murder mystery in and of itself is very simplistic. Truman brings in a vague ecumenical movement called "Word of Peace" and has everyone in the Episcopal/Anglican Church heirarchy express their doubts and fears about the group without going into detail why they should be afraid of it. Truman seems to think that an ongoing, out-in-the-open sexual relationship by an unmarried Bishop is not a big deal - and she would be wrong in that assertion.

Truman's descriptions of church activities and goings on have no natural feel - which is unfortunate because her other books were so much better and somehow managed to "feel" right.

My audiobook version was read by Emmy award-winning actor Rene Auberjonois (from Benson and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine). he did a remarkable job with the many accents required. His female voices even sound like they were read by females! A+ for the reading.

Overall score for the book: D-

OK, but I guessed the murderer.......2006-03-22

The book was good as most of her books are but from the beginning, I knew it had to be one of the Episcopal priests - there was no other choice. Not her best.

Osam Binmodia.......2006-03-17

i liked this book because it had a good story to it and it was action packed, interesting book. i loved it it was my favorite book

Church politics.......2005-12-19

Mac Smith, professor at George Washington University School of Law married Annabel Reed at the National Cathedral. Paul Singletary presided as priest. It was a late in life marriage. They were in the Bethlehem Chapel with 192 people including 30 close friends. Two months later Singletary was in Lambeth to see the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Archbishop was part of the conservative wing of the church, Singletary the liberal. Paul worked with drug addicts, runaway teens, the homeless. The Cathedral was the sixth largest in the world.

A woman discovers the lifeless body of Paul Singletary in the Cathedral. George St. James, the Bishop, calls Smith. Before the police can be called by the Bishop and Smith they arrive on the scene, summoned by an anonymous woman's call. The dead man has a surprisingly expensive security system at his apartment. He had been a Navy chaplain. A charity in which he had been involved, Word of Peace, has been infiltrated by the security service, the CIA, and by M15 on the British side.

Shortly after Singletary died, his friend Priestly, an Englishman, dies too, having been hit over the head with a candlestick. A friend of Singletary, a Miss Morgan, is an undercover agent for M15. Clarissa Morgan is supposed to retire to the British Virgin Islands. It seems that she had fallen in love with her subject, Paul Singletary.

The choir director at the Cathedral is about to take a job with a church in San Francisco and has given very short notice. A friend, with CIA contacts, tells Mac Smith that the Bishop should disassociate the Cathedral with the organization, the Word of Peace, since it has become filled with hustlers and secret agents.

Next there is an FBI sweep of the Word of Peace functionaries. The charges handed down include extortion, fraud, conspiracy, and spying. An exciting scene transpires in the Cathedral involving Miss Morgan, the canons, Mac Smith and his wife, and a young choir boy. This book is very cinematic.

Typical but also Interesting.......2004-07-30

If you've read one of Margaret Truman's books before, this book will be very similar to that one. And all of her books. Characters are alike from book to book (and the main characters are most of the time the same) and the plot becomes predictable (though not completely) after reading three or four of her books. What changes is the setting. She demonstrates great knowledge for the setting of the National Cathedral, although she does make a couple of understandable inaccuracies. The reader will learn much about the building and organization by reading this entertaining, but also educational and interesting, book.

Average customer rating:

Enjoyable, especially for followers of the series

Murder in a Cathedral
Ruth Dudley Edwards
Manufacturer: Poisoned Pen Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1590581342

Amazon.com

Baroness Troutbeck--"Jack" to her friends--is the hard-drinking, hard-living lady of "a certain age" who stars in Ruth Dudley Edward's series of comic mysteries. In Murder in a Cathedral, the seventh installment, Jack persuades her impecunious friend Robert Amiss to take a job with her pal Canon Flubert, inadvertently sending him into a firestorm of ecclesiastical scandal: in a church run by gay priests, witches, and New Age enthusiasts, the appointment of a fundamentalist dean is anathema. When the dean turns up dead, everyone's a suspect. Bad enough that Amiss has to cope with the scandal, but soon he also has the Baroness on his hands in a madcap search for the Cathedral killer.

Book Description

For many years Westonbury Cathedral has been dominated by a clique of High Church gays, so when Norman Cooper, an austere, intolerant, happy-clappy evangelist, is appointed dean, there is shock, outrage and fear.

David Elworthy, the gentle and politically innocent new bishop, is distraught at the prospect of warfare between the factions; contentious issues include the camp lady chapel and the gay memorial under construction in the deanery garden.

Desperate for help, Elworthy cries on the shoulder of his old friend, the redoubtable Baroness Troutbeck, who forces her unofficial troubleshooter, Robert Amiss, to move into the bishop's palace.

Amiss, Troutbeck and the cat Plutarch address themselves in their various ways to the bishop's problems, which very soon include a clerical corpse in the cathedral. Is it suicide? Or is it murder? And who is likely to be next?

Customer Reviews:

Enjoyable, especially for followers of the series.......1997-06-15

Robert Amiss only lives up to his surname when he heeds the advice of his friend Baroness Jack Troutbeck. After all the misadventures that Jack gets him into he wonders why he still listens to her. This time around, she persuades (perhaps bullies is a more apt description) a near broke Robert to accept a job accompanying her when she visits Westonbury Cathedral. He should have known that the easiest job in the world would turn int o the job from hell if Jack is involved. ..... It seems that the locale, the Westonbury Cathedral, is imbued with a massive controversy that threatens to rip the Church of England in half with its worst feud since Henry's days. The new dean is an American fundamentalist who wants to end all the new age gurus that have entered the church. His ideas split the church into two factions who turn violent and deadly, including killing the new dean. Robert and Jack find themselves flooded with numerous suspects as they try to uncover the identity of the killer. However, in Robert's mind, it is Jack's friendship with everyone in the universe and her opinion on everything under the universe that is driving him away from the church. ..... The Robert Amiss tales are superb satires that laugh at every potential politically correct thing imaginable. However, it must be understood that MURDER IN A CATHEDRAL is not for everyone. Some readers will laugh at the antics of Jack, while others will feel that she is an abrasive SOB. The who-done-it is fun, but whether the reader enjoys Jack's pontificating on everything right and wrong with the C O E (the Church of England not the Corps of Engineers) depends on whether they love a British satire that overwhelms the mystery. ......Harriet Klausner

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Murder in the Cathedral (A Play)

Manufacturer: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Average customer rating:

A beautiful book but no copy of the film

The Film of Murder in The Cathedral
T. S. Eliot , and George Hoellering
Manufacturer: Faber & Faber
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Customer Reviews:

A beautiful book but no copy of the film.......2007-03-01

The film itself, by T.S. Eliot and Hoellering is not available. A copy exists in the archives of the British Film Institute but it does not seem easy to get to it. What a shame for a cult play like « Murder in the Cathedral » ! The book presents the complete scenario with of course the text and all the directions necessary to imagine what is happening on the screen. Plus a great number of illustrations taken from the film, which gives us a sample of the atmosphere on the screen. And that makes this book really beautiful, like an art book of kinds. But we are altogether reduced to analyzing the script and comparing it with the play itself. A short introduction (in the film of course) is added to explain the audience the political situation at the moment when Thomas Becket comes back to Canterbury after a seven years' exile. Then there will be little change in the text till the end and the come-back of the knights after the killing. In fact in the film they don't come back but are confronted to a hostile crowd arriving in the cathedral. They have to explain themselves to save their skin. These explanations are a lot shorter and situationally directed at the crowd. Yet at the very end the tone will change with the changing of the target which becomes the audience today, eight hundred years after the event, which was the original target and tone in the play. The shortening of this section does not take too much out because in fact this section in the play is kind of a play in the play and has no dramatic justification on the stage. The purpose of this scene seems to be in the play the desire to name the four knights and the desire to alleviate their crime by a sound historical explanation that heavily burdens Thomas Becket with unsound political and religious judgment. Just after that the intervention of the priests is cut off and we get directly to the concluding Chorus. The most significant changes come in the various choruses. I will quote the chorus after the intervention of the four tempters. A first chorus is attributed to a priest in the film and then the chorus of the four tempters is split among these and that changes the meaning of the fourth tempter who is no longer a tempter but becomes very precisely the guardian angel Thomas Becket refers to at this moment, and clearly this guardian angel has advised Thomas Becket to keep along an unyielding line and hence to become a martyr. So, Becket's refusal when that tempter was tempting him is only cosmetic. Clearly then his attitude will be to provoke violence and be sumissive to it. It sure is self-murder (to use the word in the German operatic adaptation), or plainly suicide. But we will note that the film makes the identity of this fourth tempter very clear and yet it cuts off the reference to « suicide while of unsound mind » that is contained in the play in the mouth of one of the knights. This splitting of choruses into their members enables the film to clearly demonstrate the existence of four knights, which is not at all clear in the play where you often have only three knights speaking together. In the film, systematically, the four are stated as speaking one after another or together. The splitting of the women's chorus after the first discussion between Thomas Becket and the knights is interesting because of the numerical symbolism we should analyze in depth in the whole play, or film. 1st woman - 2nd w. - Chorus (prose) - 3rd w. - 4th w. - 5th w. - 6th w. - 7th w. - 8th w. - 3rd w. - 9th w. - 10th w. - Chorus (8 lines) - 4th w. - 11th w. - Chorus (6 lines) - 10th w. - Chorus (prose). Without entering more details here (every single one of the numbers used to list the women is meaningful in Christian symbology, both in number and rank), it seems very clear that such elements reinforce greatly what we can find in a few strategic places in the play, such has the final quatrain : the crossing of three symbolism (at least), viz. Solomon's number or David's star (3 + 3 = 6), the trinity in all its values (christian, but also the basic disruptive element in the English tradition going back to the Elizabethans and the iambic pattern of English poetry), but also the simple, neutral, balanced binary element that gets into various associations and various values : 2 + 2 = 4 and Christ in his Passion and on his cross, hence the martyr ; 2 + 2 + 2 = 6 and we are back to Solomon's number, but seen from a binary standpoint ; 2 + 2 + 2 + 2 = 8 and the Christ in his glory of the Resurection and the Second Coming, hence the martyr in glory after his death, and seven, here and there, as the holy week, the week of the passion, and once again the reference to martyrdom as suffering and glory at the same time since the glory comes within the suffering and from the suffering. When we see how the text of the film has been reworked upon to increase these symbolical elements we regret even more than before the absence of the film itself.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University of Paris Dauphine & University of Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne