Today is the feast day of St. Thomas Becket. He was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170 by four knights who believed they were obeying the wishes of King Henry II of England. There had been a power conflict between Thomas, as Archbishop of Canterbury, and Henry, as King of England. Henry made some remark that made his knights believe he was asking them to kill Thomas. By tradition, his remark was, "Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?"
After Thomas's death, Henry II did public penance for his role in his death, and the Catholic Church made Thomas a saint. His shrine was in Canterbury Cathedral, and it is to that shrine that the pilgrims in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales
(14th Century) are travelling as they tell their stories to one another.T.S. Eliot's play, Murder in the Cathedral
(1935), is also about Thomas Becket. I read that for my Eliot seminar at Calvin College. That would have been about 1982 or 1983, so about 27 years ago. I guess, given that many years, it's no disgrace that I can't remember it super-well. I want to say that its theme was "readiness is all," but maybe that was Hamlet
. Perhaps I should re-read them both.It would also be interesting to get DVDs of good performances of the plays. My brother has told me that the Kenneth Branagh version of Hamlet is good. Back when I was in high school, yea, verily, even unto the distant 1970s, in an English class we watched Laurence Olivier's version. Olivier's acting techniques are a bit over the top for modern audiences.
No comments:
Post a Comment