4 i 4 Eliot-Fry, Revival of 4 * *

Poetic Drama

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Poetic drama emerged as a strong antithesis to Natural~sm, which was

exponential of lbsenlsm of the nlneteenth century There 1s a contention that, "the

word 'Naturalism' may be defined as an aspect of l~teraiy realism carrying its tendency

lo extremes i e presenting the bare facts in minutest deta~ls which are most

unimaginative and give us an lllusion of reality lbsen is said to be the originator,

Strindberg the father, the novellst Emile Zola, the preacher, as also Shaw Galsworthy

and H G Barker, the followers of dramatic naturalism"'

Practitioners of Naturalism were gllided by contemporary sclentlfrc and

humanitarian movements in assmilat~ng them into their social themes whlch dealt wlth

scrutlny of social problems related to sex, marriage or divorce, racial disparities, class

distinctions in tenet and in pract~ce Playwrights made resort to 'Ibsenism in the

Theatre' for creatlng an illusion of reality, adopting the technique developed and

propagated by lbsen for photographic presentation on the stage.

A steady movement transpired alleviating the stage from the fetters of stage

naturalism heralding cautlous experiments in style, speech and form Rlchard

Flndlater presumes, "it is an escape from the se~l tude of plot and the staleness of

photography, an anempt to glve the drama depth and wldth within the picture frame

stage, and to match the spiritual challenge of the age, and though it has been launched

outside the industly it has grown up inside it It is form which 1s the prlme concern of

the modern dramatist, as content was the preoccupation of the naturalistic playmaker

fifty years ago And in general there 1s a trend towards the class~cal, formal theatre, a

theatre of rhetoric, verse and muslc, where pature-frame reallsm 1s transcended and

the full resources of the stage are employed"?

P~et l c drama had been in a state of perpetual convalescence and came to be

revived when "New Drama" ~n modern prose began to lose its novelty Modem English

poetic drama encompasses all plays Irrespective of thelr be~ng wr~tten In verse or in

poetlc prose, showlng an idealisto contmpos~t to the drama derived from soc~al

crltlctsm W~th a revival of Interest In the poetlc medium of expostlon, drama sh~fted 11s

appeal from the ~ntellectual m~iid arid soph~sticated reason nearer the heart and human

emotlons Poetlc drama enabled emotlon to supersede reason pavlng the way for the

arrival of lyrlc~sm over naturallsm

One of the prlstne tralts of modern poetlc drama 1s the ~nclusion of the element

of romance, a provision for an escape into nature, a responsive desire for novelty and

above all the use of verse language for treatment of the subject It 1s also observed

that there IS no adherence to the three unities of Time, Place and Acton An infallible

use of the supernatural and the element of fate are other charactenst~c features3

There 1s a marked tendency to avo~d socal problems and to approach the audience

through the emot~onal med~um rather than the Intellectual medlum Several eminent

exponents of the modern poetic drama such as Yeats, O'Casey Boltomley, Flecker

bes~des others had Introduced a dlstlngulshable and characterlstlc trait, namely

'Symbol~sm' Into poetlc drama There 1s also abundant scope for the entry of the vlsual

element of performance, llke the element of dance, which offers a new del~ght to the

aesthetics prov~ded form poet~c drama

T S Eliot aptly refers to it as the mode for expresston of 'The Thlrd Volce' He

declares, "I shall explaln at once what I mean by the 'three volces' The f~rst 1s the

volce of the poet talk~ng to h~mself - or to nobody The second 1s the volce of the poet

addressing an audience, whether large or small The thlrd 1s the vocce of the poet

when he attempts to create a dramat~c character speak~ng In verse, when he 1s saylng,

not what he would say in his own person, but only what he can say w~th~n the llmits of

one lmaglnary character addressing another imaginary character"

There are several predecessors stretching back Into furtherest recesses of

theatrical history comprlslng of poets who wrote for the English stage Espec~ally

dur~ng the El~zabethan and more amply in the Jacobean theatre poetry was at home

A tradlbon of poetic drama seemed to have been founded on Shakespeare, the Bard

and Sweet Swan of Avon, the Engllsh Classlc dramatist Thls trad~t~on was revlved

continually from then on and has cont~nued to remain unbroken

In the El~zabethan tlmes, there was very close approximation wlth the speech of

the people in rhythm, phraseology and vocabulary to the prose and verse of

Shakespears's plays Even by Dryden's day, Classlclst ~mposltions were stricter,

calling for scrupulous compliance wllh the unltles of tlme, place and more particularly

style and metre, whereas there is a banier between the poet and the audience of

today Attempts to break away from the naturalistic speech were made in the twentieth

century This presented an excellent opportunity for the arrival of 'poetic-prose' on the

stage, bearing the rhythmicand metapllorical devices along wlth it and bestowing them

into drama Shaw Synge and O'Casey brought many beautiful representations of

poetic prose on the stage

It is pointed out that, "in the first generation Brit~sh pure poetry showed a new

symbolism neighboured by obstinate suwivals from romanhcism, the symbolrsm often

inclined to the esoteric, as the Romanticism, on the contraly, to a flat natilraism and

easy sentiment In the second generation the symbolism frequently un~ted wlth a

harsher naturalism to produce a British var~ety of Expressionism, while a vogue for a

renewed mysticism rose to considerable proportions"s

The 'Poetry of poetlc drama is necessarily or solely a verbal construct, it

inheres in the striicttire of the play as a whole Thai IS, the poetry is not in any one poet

of the play, or any one of its elements, separately exhibited, by the manner in which,

and the degree to which, all the elements act in co-operation The conception is that

poetry in the widest sense envelops the coherence of the concrete elements of

composition Denis Donoghue enunciates, "a play 1s 'Poetic' then, when its concrete

elements (plot, agency, scene, speech, gesture) continuously exhibited in their internal

relationships those qualities of mutual coherence and illumination required of the words

of a poem""

Poets have held lofly ambitions to Indulge In playwriting, while the feeitng that

their dramas would be heightened through poetic Indulgence haunted playwrights In

their turn Their contention is that dramatic character must evolve larger than life and

dramatic language must be superior to prose The challenge that is imposed by the

use of verse drama is to create a syntax, d~ct~on and rhythm which is very closely

affiliated with the characterist~c speech patterns of the audience to whom it IS

addressed Hence, charactensation is not the sole crltenon of the play

Poetic drama, more often 1s perceived as drama written in verse form, which

essentially d~ffers from a drama wrllten in prose, be it in conception or in mood

However, fine poetry incorporated into dramatic mould which was attempted by several

poets of the Romantic and Victorian eras do not make poetrc plays There is an

attltudinal avoidance of associaling problems, social or otherwise in the present poetic

drama It is more or less perceived that, modern poetlc drama does not seem to offer

any philosophy There is the disappearance of intellectual quest as the poetic dramatist

trles to approach the people through the emotional medium rather Ulan the

intellectual"' These traits are invariably represented in abundance In the prominent

and popular English poetlc plays of the Twentieth Century

The modern dramatist captures emotional reality rather than actual reallty and

admin~sters it in a way best appealing and sulted to the perceiver, no matler if the

language is verse or prose with a tinge of poetic id~om It 1s the intention of any

playwright to employ the purposes of arl to move an audience by the action

perpetrated on the stage Any perfunctory survey of poetic dramatists or their plays

seems to reveal that they aim at representing emot~onal reality through an emotional

atmosphere Commenting on the ultimate appeal of a poetlc drama and the poetry it

employs, Granv~lle Barker sbpulates that it should be ''past reason, past consciousness

often, to our entlre sentient berng" These plays are conceived poetically and

romantically and delve Into the very depths of the human soul to lnsplre and please,

the ultimate appeal

In the quest for achieving appropriate revlva of poetic drama, many were

"conscious of the long estrangement of poetry and the theatre, and conscious that the

stage was dominated by the naturalistic prose play, they had tried to break on to the

stage on the same plane, and they could not find the r~ght matenal that would just~fy

poetry as medium it had obviously been felt Ulat the '~nslpld' conventions of the

reallstlc stage would not warrant poetry'" Out of such conscious experimentation

however, In the long serles of trials and errors, gradually verse came to be employed

for transfusing dramat~c life into the plays

Abercromble, as early as in 1912, distinguished that drama rendered In prose

dwelt only on the outermost prospects of realty, whlle poetty cancentrates itself wlth

the Innermost core Thls can be inferred as a major movement from ordtnary surface

appearance to the ultimate splrltual reality It 1s mentioned, "traffickmg wlth the

essences, poetic drama by its very nature should intoxicate sense, mind and emotion,

"bringing them into a unlty of triumphant and delighted self-consc~ousness", lnduc~ng in

us, 7n the deepest sense, the joy of life""'o Abercromble was preoccupied w ~ t h the

natural content of poetic drama and not its technical articulation

Granv~lle Barker made a very memorable observation in 1937, " the theatre if it

IS to suruive needs poets And plays only defy mortality when they deal - as poetry in

its essence does - wlth thrngs that are immortal"' ~ a r k e r drscloses that dramatic

dialogue has two purposes to serve one of narrating the story and the other of

disclosure of character Unseen he ohselves a third, not so obvious intention, whlch is

to stimulate our imagination and emotion It is at this distinct point that there is a need

for some ari~fice of form " Sean O'Casey had written prose like a torchlight

procession, finding in Ellot's heightened speech an effect that very few dramatic poets

could achieve W H Auden and Isherwoad were two others who valiantly attempted

not to be the old fashioned verifiers in an outmoded manner Sean O'Casey shared a

folk-minded afflnity with other agreeable dramatists lhke Synge, Lady Gregory and

Willlam Butler Yeats

Especially the Irish contingent of writers during these crucial years revealed an

extraordinary sensitivity to poetic language On one hand, England was weighed down

by m~ddle-class culture consequent to rapld industrial~salion, while Ireland on the other

was free from this depressing taste and lack of poetlc imag~natlon There was a revival

of Celtic culture inclined to an aesthetic life and incited by a persistence of a Catholic

culture It is recalled, "a comparatively small and, as a rule, subjugated, people had

acquired an inveterate habit so far as possible of talking itself our of its difficulties

W~tty, voluble, h~str~onlc and poetlc to an exceptional degree, the lnsh loved and

cultivated narrative and lyric poetry, fiction, oratory and dramal""ere, language

seemed to have thrived and su~ lved as a folk-art Dublin seemed to have offered an

excellent prospect to authors, actors and audience as an important centre for the

cause of revival of interest In poetic drama The lrrsh held poetic drama in very h~gh

appreciation

One of the travails persecuting modern poetic drama happens to be the quality,

above all missing In contemporary English drama during the 1930's, whlch is

excitement. As Ian Hamllton reposes, "excitement of the simplest, most lmaginatlve

sort that illuminates a character or a sltuatlon, or the world itself and man's place 10 it,

the excitement of recognising an order imposed upon a chaos, the excitement wh~ch

turns the many headed audience Into a single being In short the poetic quality A play

is essentially a poetlc form whether it be tragedy, comedy, farce, or melodrama, or a

w~ ld mixture of all, wheUler It a written in verse (blank or free) or prose - the prevailing

heresy of English dramatists is their regarding of the drama as a near relatlve of the

naturalistic novel""

There is some irony in the fact that Thomas Hardy, who was in some ways

more successful in solving the problem of anemptlng to write modern dramatic verse in

his epic drama The Dynasts Thls cnltlal attempt together with Yeats' most

adventurous plays reminds one of the 'Noh' drama of the Japanese, pavlng the way for

the advent of the new poetic dramatic form suited to the Western civilization One who

was even more esoteric in his art and thought was James Joyce Joyce being bllnd

never contributed to an actual siage but may be sald to have made s~gniflcant

contribution to dramatic poetry A point of view expresses, for "Finnigan's Wake

becomes the apotheosis of a speaking tone, and, moreover, of a cast of characters

speaking It proves vastly mare dramatlc than the ordinaly novel Much as Samuel

Richardson based h ~ s fiction upon the eloquence of letterwriting, Joyce bases his upon

the language of an ideal or a potential theatre, a theatre that in the aesthetically

decadent culture does not exist, but nevertheless in a happier culture emphatically

might e x ~ s Y " ~ HIS other mentionable work is Ulysses wherein one perceives an

unm~stakable Icon of h~str~on~c imagination A very polgnant companson exists, " ~ f the

theatre be the mlrror of life, Joyce's books are the mlrror of the staged6

In the lengthy saga of rev~val of poetlc drama, there 1s a seesawing of

deliberations made by reputed l~terary maestros, during the iwo phases (earlier and

later) working at a synthesis between poetry and drama to accompl~sh a theatrical

med~um for its propagation

All the whle poets were snared by the charm of the blank verse, to compound

to thls vlrtue, they had pract~cally very inadequate language to answer the

requirements of the stage Thelr conception of the stage was rather narrow, often

look~ng down upon it as someth~ng mediocre and amoral, if not even immoral It 1s

presumed that, "from the heights of the Pamassus they penned off 'literary' dramas,

pouring fine poetry Into shapeless moulds All this while the theatre was catering to the

unrefined tastes of the idle audiences through mediocre, sensational and melodramallc

plays written by hack-writers""

A reactlon arose whereby there was a rebirth of drama through the Intercession

of such emlnent playwrights w~th a sense of deep commitment to the theatre as Oscar

Wilde and George Bernard Shaw Of Bernard Shaw lt 1s common knowledge that In

hls time he stood apart as an outstanding personality who employed exceed~ngly good

prose in h ~ s best plays of ideas He was considered exemplaly for having endowed a

rap~er-like w ~ t combined wlth an infectlous and qualnt sense of humour result~ng in the

production of several exquisite plays It 1s cla~med, "some of his own early prose

stands not impossibly far from the exquisitely measured, half-poetic wit of The

importance of Be~ng Earnest, and so comes al least wrthin srght of the poetic-prose

of William Congreve, and Shaw's plays themselves are highly diverse Such able work

as Candida cl~ngs to a fairly sober realism But when in his Celtlc mood, Shaw is

capable of an almost wild fancy, as in parts of Back to Methuselah, as well as being

capable of the traglc earnestness of ~ a l n t ~oan"''.

Shaw was one of those indomitable play~rlghts who maintained that poetry

signifies the purely aesthetic quality in a work of literature Coplous use of poetly

renders the work a piece of ar! alienating it from utility or morality His other great work

Man and Superman better known for propounding hls theories on 'Ilfe force' and

'creallve evolut~on', advocates through the speeches of his characlers the vital use of

art and poetly for creating heightened sensibility Shaw, by nature perce~ved two sides

to every case and as such both believed and d ~ d not believe altogether in poetry

Wilde and Shaw employed wit to write dialogues from a stock of formulas, yet Shaw's

d~alagues are much richer and more compuls~ve

The changing conditions of the theatre have attempted to cater to the

vicissitudes of taste held on the part of the theatrical audiences The Image of the

theatre perslsts in the contamplatlve mind of any true dramatrst A play is meant to

evoke response through its potentiality to appeal, failing which it Is bound to become

an artistic fallure In ach~evement There 1s a conlention that, "we must accept as a

fundamental principle that dramatic literature inevilably depends on conditions absent

In the composition of non-dramatic poetry and prosexig That Is to speak in terms of

the merits of the play

The revival of poetic drama occurred in view of the empty entertainment of

Romant~c drama, dry discuss~ons of the problems encountered through the reallstlc

plays of Shaw and several others, not to speak of the ephemeral presentations of the

naturalistic drama To these three schools belonged many a reputed dramatist who

did experience excruciating inadequacy of the genres they practised

T S Eliot, the acclaimed scholar-critic of literature devoted immense energy and

effort over the problem of poetic drama He vehemently declared that 11 1s only through

the medium of poetic drama Ulat one could lay emphasis on the permanent and

unlversal, since any prose play falls short of expectations and results in ephemeral

indulgences. He felt an avowed zeal that verses in a play should invariably rely upon

modem speech rhythms Eliot assures, "it will be 'poetly' when the dramatic situation

has reached such a point of intensity that poetly becomes the natural utterance,

because then it is the only language In which the emotions can be expressed at a1YZQ

Poetry, in order to lustify itself through the dramatic mode of interpretation of emotion

expressed requlres a compat~ble form Ellot presumes, "we must flnd a new form of

verse wh~ch shall be as satlsfactorf a vehicle for us as blank verse was for the

~l~zabethans"~' Such a conceptlon provdes ample prospects for exploring farms most

suted for verslflcatlon Poetlcs for speech in drama lnvolves a stupendous task as

Herculean as atternptlng to get at the permanent and universal In order to make a

sensltzed approach

In Classlc Greece and ElizabeUlan England the poets could afford to be

playwr~ghts and vlce-versa But, In Twent~eth Century Europe and America, generally

the tendency for such overlapp~ng does not occur Although, some poetiy may be

seen to inflitrate lnto the colloquial language and prose of certain modern plays, glvng

~t an aura, mood or lntlmallon John Gassner IS of the vlew that, "there may well be a

future for poetic drama, if it serves to ~llumnate modem llfe rather than to obscure it

w~th w~ndy exclamations or obscurant~st metaphys~cs'"2 A poet who tackles any

subject for the modem theatre must needs be dlsc~pllned and well organlsed Not only

should there be reticence In the use of trad~bonal bank verse, but the ~ d ~ o m and metre

should be accommodated to contemporary speech If poetry is to be redeemed in the

contemporary theatre, the dramal~c conceptlon of the work should not confuse ornate

rhetor~c for dramatlc poetry

Moreover, the cntlcs who ascribe their allegiance to l~beral modemlsm have

been puzzled as to how the modern wrlters who are mostly of the llberal persuasion be

expected to write a tragedy There were some glaring lncongrultles, inconslstencles

and anomalies between the old dramatlc conception and the new It 1s because,

"lmpllclt In the theatres hopes and endeavours for the past three.quarters of a century

has been the conv~ctlon that tragedy could be revtal~sed by sink~ng its roots deeper

lnto modern consciousness and by relatlng it more closely to Ule lmmedlate llfe of the

t ~ m e s " ~ ~ Modern ~ntellectuallsm disclosed the capacity of tragedy to extend in range

and enlarge Its potentlalltes as a conlemplat~on of man related to th~s world The

subject was approached wlth high seriousness.

The ch~ef cause for playwr~ghts showlng a d~slncllnat~on to employ poetry or

verse was purely out of a gesture to preserve simple artlst~c lntegnty Hence, a

majorlty of them could not prevent the deterloration of feellng Into bathos Contrar~ly,

the use of rhetoric as a vell for hollow content, which occurred In thoughts that lacked

breath or words that dld not lgnlte, led to an estrangement between thought and

sens~bil~ty Poetry necessarily lmplled a communlon behveen orlglnal senslb~l~ty and

lofty thoughts Poetry in drama also has another implicit intention, which is to enlarge

the dramatic experlence and extend the mental honzons

With the emotional tidal wave of the war and change in the temperament of the

theatregoers, tossed between the sensationalisms and annetles of a very uncertain

future, there is an advent of poetic realism Verse drama differs from poetlc drama

Indeed, much of the hostility directed against poetic drama should be attributed to the

prejudice against the unsuitability of verse as an accepted medlum for artistic

expresston Eliot observed that the fallure of nineleenth and iwenbeth century verse

dramatists was on account of a linguistic failure, for they had chosen the form of

h~storical verse and hence depnved of 11s substance, sounded hollow and artif~cial " So also the themes, which they dealt with posed no impact on their sensib~llty Verse

was also no longer acceptable as a medium of dramatic expression for the piibllc

In the modern period, in poetry, the words are "the ~ncarnat~on of reality or of an

imaginative experlence which is an organic whole endowed with the fluidity and the

continuous creativeness of the dance"" Poetic language alms at giving life lo thoughts

and feelings As in the Shakespearean era, in the modern penod too, there is a

worship of intellecl

Any history of the evolut~on of drama would entail taking into account the

'comos' (a revel) origlnatlng from the Ciasslcal Greeks through Rome to England In

the Twentieth Century, comedy SU~lved as a form to administer the comic element

ernploylng satire, wit and humour Emlnent exponents who ach~eved remarkable

success were Wilde, Shaw and Christopher Fry George Meredlth had made some

very illuminating d~sclosures ln the ~dea of comedy and the use of the comic splnt in An

Essay on Comedy, he suggests, 'Yhe comic, which a the perceptive, IS the growing

spirit, awakening and givlng aim to these powers of laughter but it is not to be

confounded with them it enfolds a thinner form of them, differing from satire, in not

sharply drivlng into the quivering sensibilities, and from humour in not comforting them

and tacking them up, or indicating a broader than the range of thls bustling world to

them"" Upon the natlon of comedy one sees the change is perceptible from the

ironical to the satirical and from the satirical to the humorous

Even when the poets adopted the comedlcform, it has been a resort as a mere

concession lo popular taste In the cause of witnessrng scenes of tragic intensity As

modem verse plays always dealt with some serious purpose, these comedles too

tended to convey a serious message We can distinguish two broad categaries of

modern comedy While the one deals with the exclusive purpose of amusing, the other

happens to be an amusing commentary on life or a philosophical criticism of the actual

world The world after the war afforded plenty of scope for prompting comedies

Comedy inctdentally tends to mirror lhe psychological climate of the times

Oscar Wtlde is accredited with having "used atleast some of the poetry of a

nimble dance of w1VZ7 Moreover, during this pertod serious drama was not really

serious enough, nor the comic stage really hilarious or sufficiently removed from

senlimentaiity to suggest a poetic inspiration The outcome was more often the

superficial reality represented through prose instead of the deeper reality of poetic

vision It is said, the 'qualittes of restraint, of reflection, of plty of kindl~ness are

assuredly the distinguishing marks of the humorous temperament humour is always

mellow and generally refined It IS certainly intellectual in what appears only after a

large aiid comprehensive view of the world, its greatest exponents have nearly all been

men of intense intellectualily, but, at the same time, they have been men of feeiingU"

One perceives that not less than four maln types of comlc expression were exploited

dunng the modern times They dealt with the unconsciously ludicrous, the conscious

wit, besides humour and satire By intermingling at least two or three of the above,

some of the great comedies of the Twentieth Century were conceived Comedy almost

always did not necessarily depend on the fact whether it evoked laughter or not It

would also lmply the type Of mrnlc expression used with ~udictous proportion and

balance Comedy in the widest sense suggests a pleasant atmosphere and a happy

ending Comedy in this abstract measure IS envisaged in all forms of literature

This centuv witnessed great adventures and ceaseless expenmenis, "various

modern diversions - Dadaism, Surrealism, Vorticism, Imagism - gained a brief or local

vogue, and were presently hushed up But the nameless discontent yet gnawed into

the rnodemisi's being, and goaded him to experiment again, and yet again, with poetic

express~on"~~ Abercrombie and Bottomley made repeated and concerted efforts to

carve a niche for poetic drama Between the two campaigners, especially Bottomley

was concerned with the problem of medium He obsenied a disenchantednass in the

arl of listening, which prevailed among the modern audiences He attempted to

educate lhe audience in the art of listening and convert them into wllllng listeners of the

sweet and harmonious cadences of poetic speech Since the audience were not

accustomed to the 'cadenced flow of sounds', and the speech melody in daily llfe, he

felt they had grown dtstrustful or unappreciative of rhetorical and poetic utterances

Poetry is the medium, which strives to reveal and through poetic drama accomplishes

complete and perfect expression HIS new poetlc drama too 1s written about men and

actlons, but w~ t l l words, wh~ch at 'supreme moments' are themselves a form of action

To him, words compnse the commendable force and impllcat~on of both character and

action For Bottomley, poetc drama 1s a medium where~n the theme 1s meditated upon

or d~stllled Its purpose is to please or delight us by representations of beauty and

splr~tual ~llumlnation Far from being mimicry of life, it 1s tantamount to an lnterpretatlon

offerlng rich crltlc~sm of l~fe through an lntrospectlon of the Inner soul Bottomley

staunchly balleves that if poetry 1s to be firmly rev~ved lt has to lay emphas~s on

dwell~ng upon contemporary speech rhythms rather than contemporary speech-

usages Granville Barker felt that when the time was ripe for the revlvai of poetlc

drama, it came seemingly in prose For Barker the secret of dramat~c poetry IS the

main feature common to all great drama that IS they seem to penetrate and lnsplre the

inner soul provldlng an Intense vlslon of llfe Archibald MacLeish was among those

who believed that poetry in drama could and would produce the ~llus~on of the real He

ardently cons~ders the illus~on of the real as the pr~ncipal preoccupation of poetry In h~s

famous work, Ars Poetica he had declared,

"A pasm should not mean But be"

MacLe~sh had a flrm convlctlon that the poet as playwright must manoeuvre h ~ s actlons

and h ~ s language as to produce the ~llus~on of the real a' In these volces on poetlc

drama, one can percelve an earnestness of purpose comb~ned w~th a solic~ted effort at

emphasizing the poetlcal presence to understand the real. For drama to be poetic, it is

mandatory that Ule sltuatlons, characters and actlons ought to be deplcied poetically

One of the consequences for the late revival of poetic drama may be attr~butsd to the

divorce of the asssntlal elements of poeticality from drama

An even more determined efforl for the furtherance of poetic drama stems from

the reconclliatlon of current colloquial speech and tone assumed by modem non-

dramat~c poetly, wh~ch was demonstrated by W H Auden In collaborat~on with

Christopher lshenvood Both occupy a very dist~nct place In the f~eld of poetlc drama

Auden's plays project a pol~tlcal outlook wherein as Richard Hoggarl claims, he

"Interested hlmself particularly in loneliness, anxlety and fear, In the lost, the lonely, the

unhappy"' One can dec~pher in his plays the reflectlons of d~s~llus~onrnent, despa~r

and frustrations of the modem man who had to endure the horrors of war, Unlike the

drama of Yeats, the place of Auden and tshelwood are top~cally related to the perlod of

1930's, In England Yet, as Raymond Wllllam declares, "they have a more than

temporary Importance and can be usefully looked at as experiments In a klnd of verse

drama based manly on expresslonlsm whlch 1s qulte different from the llne that was to

be followed by El1o1"~~ These younger generaton wnters developed a new ~d~om

su~ted for expressing a more posltlve vlew of life in dlsplr~ted times, steeped In struggle

and tension Thls vogue continued to haunt the llttle theatres, besldes Rad~o drama,

addressing a brand new audience ernploylng certain expresslonlstlc techniques Dylan

Thomas presented hls works Under Mllk Wood, wli~cli 1s one such masterpiece that

came In the verse-drama garb

Auden, from his early plays such as Charades, Pa~d on Both Sides and The

Dance of Death had collaborated laler on w~th Christopher lshenvood resultng in aset

of very remarkable plays The Dog Beneath the Skln, The Ascent of F6 and On the

Front~er form an unit where~n the maln theme 1s polltlcs They are also h~ghly toplcal

and deeply provocative The mass political exeurtlons and the lnsanitles of Fasclsm

are p~ctured here The settlng IS that of Europe caught between and during the wars

Among the other themes, Auden explored the theme of quest Existent!aIist~c ~deas

are emphaslsed throughout In The Dance of Death as well as In Paid on Both Sldes.

Auden portrays the exlstent~al death w~sh of the European man faced by 'anx~ety' and

'dread' There are also influences of Marx~sm, Freud~an~sm and Chr~st~an Theology to

be seen in the play One sees the Freud~an symbolism in the cllmatlc scene of The

Ascent of F6 Auden's allenallon from any symboltst trad~tion doesn't deter their use

to help suggest order, clarity and unty

In Auden, one flnds a dellcate balance beiween suggestive symbolism and

myth as apposed to dlrect caricature and propaganda He does not seem to attach

excessive Importance to trad~tional dramatic values Auden's plays also serve a d~dact~c purpose The plays of Auden and Isherhood dealt In a mode more allegorical

and abstract rather than naturallstlc In the words of Monroe Spears, the plays Auden

and lshewood wrote for the stage are "fables, modern morallty plays, they are

Intended to appeal to the mlnds and not the emotlons of the a u d ~ e n c e " ~ ~ e a t s and

Auden showed a klndred reacllon to replace the extlnct blank verse of the

Shakespeare trad~t~on by different tmdlt~ons of the Japanese 'Noh' techn~que and

German expresslonsm, respectively Even in thelr attempts at character~satlon,

prominence 1s glven to the types rather than the~r deslrab~llty in poellc drama

A perusal of Auden's plays would make one belleve that the terms faica,

extravaganza, libretto and oratorio may be labelled to them, slnce the chief tralts and

character~sllcs are to a cons~derable degree to be found in h ~ s plays They are dlst~nd

in providing for boisterous humour, exiravagant gestures, absurd and ludicrous show

They are also complred of elements such as farce, the fantask music and the opera

As to the style of his lariguage, Auden's seems to bear stnklng resemblance to

doggerel, Pidgin English or a strangely telegraphic style Although the verse in his

plays is almost laconical, there is to be perceived a surface brilliance for hls adept

handlrng of h e language replete wlth ellips~s, besldes odd constructions and new

experiments with form Sometimes there is a tendency for his verse to become very

obscure

Even a periunctory comparison of Auden and Ishewood wiUl Christopher Fry

would disclose divergent approaches For Instance, Auden's preoccupation wlth

political and social issues is not an obsession for Fry While discussing themes related

lo existentialism also, no signif~cant correspondences can be seen In the plays written

by Auden there IS a clear endorsement of the darker view of llfe adopted by

existentialists, to whrch att~tude Christopher Fry does not subscribe or relent Further,

Auden 1s critically Ironic and sat~r~cal In h ~ s approach to the theme, wh~le Fry's wit 1s

purer In not belng satirical, slnce it is devo~d of any polltical or soclal prejudice or bias

Auden's technique remalns more experimental, whereas Fry desplte indulging in

experimental activity In his own way reveals a dazzl~ng br~lliance of style, through a

concentrated use of wlt and humour, coupled with an ornate colouriulness of d~ctlon

One of h e resounding factors of distinction is the stageworthiness of Fly's plays, whlch

surpass the palpable didactic dramas derived from Auden and Ishewood Stlll, these

were the cull-figures who refused "lo be hypnotised by propaganda, poets who assert

their right to be loyal to their vision of life, are the "happy warriors" who are ranged

alongside of the evolutionary forces that are pressing rnenklnd towards the horizons of

the future Human~ty has not lacked such warriors, such knight-errants of h e spint,

and they are wlth us still, and that is why we may confidently speak of a "Hope for

Creatlve Writers', and by necessa~y implication of a Hope for Humanity". It is

conce~ved as a poet's primary obl~gat~on to incarnate through h ~ s poetry a splrilual

oneness of human~ty Auden declared hrs objective was to "undo the folded ike", while

enurnerabng condit~ons of freedom for all Auden's associates llke Stephen Spender

and Louis MacNelce have been fewer brilliants and less confused Spandefs The

Trial of a Judge and MacNelces's The Dark Tower are some representative and

popular plays for radio Their plays broach very sensitive areas and pose several

delicate questions on the relationship between modem art and moral~ty, the

lmpllcations of propaganda for the masses and aesthetics,

It 1s an avowed convlctlon that, "unlike Stephen Spender, who wntes lyrlcal

verse wlth h ~ s right hand and dramat~c verse with hls left, Chnstopher Fry is an

accomplished playwr~ght who has publ~shed little or nothlng In other fields of poetry"36

Christopher Fry embell~shed the form of poetic drama bestow~ng it with a sheer sense

of superlor poetlc quallty

In laylng the foundat~ons for a poet~c-drama sulted to the,modern contemporary

drama, one obsewes a shift from the largely formal nature to a crltlcal adarat~on of the

creative playwr~ght's rmaglnative skills In llne wlth Zola and Slr~ndberg, who were

architectural in shap~ng the modern conceptions of man's fate, several modern

playwr~ghts were prompted to abandon the old set of forms whlch were no longer

expressive of modern philosophical views, nor did they deal wrth modern dramat~c

themes Th~s led to a strong deslrabllity to foster and nurture a Post Ar~stotel~an and a

Post Shakespearean poetlc ln the~r creatlve works A slncere effort was made to

assess man's estate In the world In terms of cognltlve value It was felt, "perhaps the

outstanding characteristlc of the new drama is Ulat it directs our attention ~nquisltively

and exclus~veiy to the 'phenomenal' world The pld as medium of imltatlon, no longer

represents an archetypal action lrke the Greek legends or the moral allegories which

Shakespeare fash~oned out of the historical and flctlonal sources, on the contrary the

new drama attempts an artlst~c conquest of external reallty, in an effort to understand

the natural and soclal forces, the ~neluctable fate, to which the modern mndivrdual is

exposed ""

The dramat~c poet in some respects bears a str~klng resemblance w~th a

historlan Both alm at depict~on of the highest task, which rs a falthfui portrayal of the

times m truth to actual~ty manner The vlrtue lies In emphasis bang lad upon the

d~alectic process of the hlstory In this respect, every drama can be viewed as a

hlstor~cal drama As Arthur M~ller expresses, "drama 1s akln to the other Inventions of

man in that It ought to help us to know more, and not merely to spend our feel~ngs"~ It

lmplles that every genune new form of drama provides for a new and herghtened

consciousness exploring the causation, in an attempt to know more about the hitherto

nexpllcable facts It goes to prove that, "a new poem on the stage Is a new concept of

relationsh~ps between the one and the many and the many and h~story, and to create it

requires greater attention, not less, to the inexorable common, pewaslve cond~t~ons of

existence In th~s time and thls ~ O U ? ~ ' .

There seemed to b8 a clash between the old and new generations of

playwrights working for the theatre leading to an inev~table clash of ideologies

Whereas, revlvallsts attempted at a strategic harmony between the old and the new, In

order to evolve a hlgher poet~c Ideal in the theatre, through a synchronlsatlon of

creative efforts One f~nds a dlstincl departure from the poetic plays of the Elizabethan

age and those ofthe present century

The hallmarks of poet~c drama are that, it alms at an organlc untty, crystalllses

the meanlng Into imagery, whlle also attempting to l~ f t the action to a plane of universal

s~gn~f~cance in the vlewpolnt of lssacs, "the veh~cle of poetlc drama 1s verse, its

mechanism 1s imagev, its substance is myth and its bind~ng structure 1s the musical

pattern whlch g~ves an over-all unlty to every tiny fragment of what 1s in the end a

muslcal symphony"" Thls is the Qenerai cannotatton of a malorlty of works or~glnatlng

from modern poetlc dramat~sts Representative among these are Auden and

Isherwood, whose plays lncllne to be largely pol~t~cal in sp~r~t, while those of Ellot

happen lo be malnly rellglous Yeats had been predorn~nantly legendary, syrnbol~c and

hero~c Only Chr~stopher Fry's poettc drama is of an exclusrve style, dlst~nct from all

others, as it has its own individual splrlt

Collocat~on of poetry for the purposes of modein drama calls for a h~gh degree

of ~maglnatlon and versatlllty in its prapagatlon Hence, dramatlc poetry or poetlc

drama rlses considerably above being mere collocat~ons of terms In this context it

becomes a juxtapos~l~on of paradoxes, overndlng !he conventional opposrtlon between

prose and poetry, when applied to drama Moreover the language, whether in prose or

In poetry, 1s Incorporated in dialogue, whlch IS an Idiom of speech Hence, it tends to

become an assim~lat~on of the above factors w~th the Intention of servlng the dramat~c

purpose of converting it Into an art form It br~ngs to the forefront flne intelleclual

qualit~es, by msight, understandrng, sensitfv~ty, del~cate sympathy and many other

~udlc~ous qualltles, which are needed for produnng or appreclatlng art and Ihfe,

perpetuated through poetlc creation

Ronald Peacock postulates, the "high degree of flgurat~ve language that in

prose would be absurd appears spontaneous and appropnate. By seek~ng congruence

in its varlous klnds of images or putllng 11 another way, by a mutual reinforcement of

the symbollc references to feelings, verse makes available ta the mater~al of

spec~fically dramat~c vlslon the more h~ghly organlsed rneanlngs characterist~c of poetry

generaily"" An intensely emotional temperament has a tendency to Indulge in

hyperbolic expressron The poetlc dramatlst is also one, who 15 very eager to unburden

htrnself of h ~ s vlslon and his emotlon in his vlsion The play attempts to d~vulge in Ule

d~sclosure of the d~stlnction that lhes between the feellngs underlying the action versus

the felt experience of the poetic dramatist It can be inferred that dramatc speech In

heightened poetlc form corresponds log~cally to both the psychology of everybody llfe

and the psychology of poetlc creation Thls method of appmach contr~butes to make it

sound natural in the contemporary context

Confidentially speaking, "Nhen an age is an age of actions as ours is, and when

men llve in confusion and die in ignorance for lack of that very perception of the

meaning of their acts wh~ch poetry on the stage has given in other times and places,

and whlch prose has yet to give in like measure or with a comparable lntenslty, a

renewal of dramatic poetry would seem possble We go back will~ngly enough in our

generabon to those mlrrors of human meanings which poetlc drama has pmv~ded to

earlier men"" Since poetty had pervaded the theatre and the theatre had relied upon

poetry for thousands of years prlor to prase taking over, many contemporary

playwr~ghts, includ~ng Ellot, were sceptical about its incorporatlon in justifiable terms It

could be attrbuted to a retlcent impulse inhibited by problems of provldng dramatic

adequacy Hence a call for the poetlc arises on those rare occasions, when prose has

proved to be of no avail Eliot's remarks at Harvard were that no play should be wntten

in verse for whlch prose 1s dramatically adequate Not that Eliot 1s making out a

positlve case for prose and der~d~ng verse, but to adopt and sultably concelve the play

~n a manner and mode appropriate for the times He vests the cho~ce belween verse

and prose wlth !he playwright, who may plck on either rational or technical grounds

The eventuality or outcome was confronted by Ellot himself, who desired to write for

the stage and undertook the task to write in his individual capacity as a poet, who

resolved to make his poetry dramatic He was impllcltly suggesting that similar labour

could be employed to adopt prose to thls new med~um also.

Eliot is attributed to have "propounded h ~ s own theory in regard to the techn~que

of poetic drama and has introduced a number of reforms in regard to stage direct~ons,

equipment, language and act~ng For Eliot the Ideal of poetic drama ismcan unattainable

ideal", and poetry is the only language In whlch emotions can be best expressed He

has considered verse as the most natural and suitable medium for dramas4' HIS

experimentation 1s well in evidence from hls masterp~ece play, The Murder in the

Cathedral Along wlth some other plays, Eliot achleved the d~st~nction of the modern

revlval of the Renaissance

In an age deluged by mechanisation and materialism, with the advent of

sclence and industrialisatlon, with the ~rrepressible instincts of (he modem man who is

face to face with encountering problems such as immorality, dishonesty, selfishness

and hypocrisy, and devoid of any sense of dist~nction behveen the Good and the Evil,

the role played by poetic playwrlghts IS hat of sent~nels, prophets and ciusaders

attempting a spiritual awakening, through a new Iterary movement

The ebb and flow of poetic drama has been associated with the emotional trdal

wave which swept during the Great Wars and with the caming of age of the new

generation theaire-goers It was a period reared in the welfare state, whlch was

simultaneously tossed between the states of sensationalisms, Impatience with the past

and the anrletles of a very uncertain future T S Ellat real~sed, that thls was the epoch

of the common man, "who expressed his jumbled up emdlons and fragmented

apprehens~ons of reality In racy, colloqu~al, syncopated assoc~at~onal types of

speech" Poetic language has a speclal way of givlng life to thoughts and feelings,

which seem to be above and beyond the reach of verbal expression Poetry has

another essential advantage as it forms a coIlocation of all aspects of l~fe, lnclud~ng the

profound emotions and tense sltuatlons, which lend lhemselves to a rhythmlc and

organlsed arrangement through poetically charged language

Anderson expresses, "Poetry 1s the natural ant~dote for the pernicious

contagon from whlch we all suffer An inescapable conclusion is that, we mlght try the

reverse procedure of st~mulatlng ourselves of settlng a h~gh mark of expression for

ourselves It might conceivably lift the entlre level of our creatlve process, even if it

could lead us to excesses and follies There 1s a momentum In language for good as

well as ill Characters and s~tuations may be ra~sed by it a cublt or more Ideas may

matter more when coloured by magely and invested with d~gnlty"'~, He felt that

genulne poetry had the capacity to universalise the familiar material and ideas This

would result In a transfigurative splralllng effect and cater to the demands made on

poetic drama

After the Great World War, Ellot and Fry governed one pmvlnce of the theatre

jointly The dlfference between them was between the undecorated and decorated

schools of dramat~c exemplification Bntish theatre was at once a prosperous and a

struggiing institution The audience, in quest of entertainment and escape, were ready

to be more accammodat~ve to expenmentallsm Moreover, artlstlcally speaking also, it

was fight~ng to free itself from the shackles of mobid depression

The stage relied to a rsmarkable degree upon revlvals T S.El~ot, llke Yeats at

f~rst, seemed to agree with the terms proposed by Archer for the d~scuss~on. He

asplred to discover ways of escaplng from the homogeneous blend of poetiy and

realism found in the Elizabethan plays Eliot too introduced 'pan of the discipline', by

way of the Greek elements in his first plays, besides a mixture of verse and prose that

resembled quite closaly the Elizabethans "His endeavours as a ciitic and a playwright

have since tended to overcome the dichotomy of the realistic and the poetic play, Of

prose and versen4' One can prospect the outlook of The Cocktail Party, though a

verse play appears very much like a prose piece Eliot attempted to mollycoddle Vla

dramatic medium, which he tried to sustain by respecting the facts and the emotions,

the objective and the subjective world In exploiting his dramatic material, he was not

lncllned to restnct it like the reallsts or Yeats, or any othar expresslonisi Man, for Eliot,

surmounts from being not only a social and psychological preoccupatlon to become a

metaphysical phenomenon He wanted to lay hold and immediately depict this feature

in its totallty Eliot is more concerned with finding a solution to the problems of re-

integration in theory and in practice, in poetic drama Eliot had perceived the manner

in which Shakespeare had disclosed abilities to justify the total human experience by

perpetiiating several layers of meaning in his works These layers, when peeled by a discerning spectator, leads him according to his range of sensibility to a devout and

thorough understanding of life's seeming complex~ties Eliot also sought to reach this

justification in his own conscrous way One is drawn to admire the technique of

correlating thought with imaginallon in his works

Thomas Stearns Eiiot, as a committed poetic dramatist of the Twentieth

Centuty, was responsible for a heightened revival effort He has "produced a

revolution in taste and crrtical ]udgement"" He wrote plays of a high calibre and

published a number of cntical works, establrshing the ground for a firm revival of poetic

drama as a modem literaly art form In 1948, he was awarded the Nobel Prize as

proof and recognition of his vast and superior literaly contribution He intensifled the

on-going revolt against social and realistic plays and championed the lofty cause of

poetic drama Eliot himself asserts, "a verse play in not a play done into verse, but a

different kind of play, in a way more realistic than 'naturalistic drama', because, instead

of clothrng nature in poetty, it should remove the sulface of things, expose the

underneath, or the Inside, of the natural surface appearance It may allow the

characters to behave inconsistently, but only with respect to a deeper consistency It

may use any device to show their real feellngs and volition, Instead of lust what, In

actual life, they would normally profess or be consclous of, It must reveal, underneath

the vacillating or Infirm character, the indomitable unconscious will, and undemeath

the resolute purpose of the planning animal, the victim of circumstance and the

doomed or sanct~fled belng So the poet with ambltlons of the theatre, must d~scover

the laws, both of another klnd of verse and of another kind of dra~na''~'

In v~ew and att~tude, Ellot bears a str~klng resemblance with W B Yeat% Who

had also stood aga~nst the naturallstlc tendencies and the nineteenth century stage

conventlons Thelr contention was that the plays produced then were prosalc,

inteilectual and sophisticated, slnce a ma~or~ty of piaywnghls ma~ntained the

presentatlon of photographic real~ty on the stage Ellot's crltlclsm lles in h ~ s dlslike of

reallsm and of conventlons perta~n~ng to Elizabethan literature

In a very memorable talk on Posiy and Dmma del~vered on the occaslon of the

Theodore Spencer Memortal lecture at Harvard In November 1950, Ellot declared, "as I

have gradually learned more about the problems of pcetlc drama, and the condlbons

whlch it must fulf~l d ~t 1s to just~fy itself, I have made a little clearer to myself, not only

my own reasons for wantlng to wrlte In thls form but the more general reasons for

wantlng to see it restored to its place"'0 He was detarm~ned to pave the way for the

rev~val of poetlc drama and ~ts restoration to its prestlge and populanty

For Ellot, the deal s~luat~on for poetry in dramatlc sltuatlon would be

mandatory, when a polnt of intens~ty IS reached, where only poetry would evolve as the

sole natural utterance, especlaily In the context where~n felt emotions are to be

expressed

Eliot beileved in the engencies of empioying verse Instead of prose to capture

the attentwn of the audience, upon whom the verse rhythms would produce an

unobtluslve effect, wlthout thea bang conscious of it He also revealed another

characterist~c problem of double patterns n poetlc drama, one of examining the

patterns fmm the point of vlew of stagecraft and the other from the viewpoint of music

He came under the powetul influence, where verse may be employed not merely as a

forrnallsat~on mode or an added decoration, but that it had the Intrinslc virtue to

lntens~fy the drama This would also ~mply taklng Into account the unconscious effect

produced by verse upon the aud~ence. Th~s effect not only appeals to that segment of

aud~ence, who prefer poetry, but also pleases those who go for wltnesslng the play

alone The best embelllshmenl provlded by poetlc drama accard~ng to Eliot 1s that, It

gives the people of l~temry tastes the much sought after pleasure of listen~ng to poetry

at the sametlrne that they are watching the pefformance of the play, graph~mlly Only

when poetry In drama can justlfy its use dramatically, It can be sa~d to be dramatically

adequate It follows from th~s, that the employment of verse should gnp and hold the

audience, whose altentlon E engaged by the dramatlc actlon The emotlons stirred by

the s~tuation among the characters also should be intent upon the purposes of the play,

w~thout making the medium appear wholly a conscious presence

Ellot attempts to draw our attention to the invariable existence of a triple

dist~nction in poetlc drama He discloses affinit~es, which exist behveen prose and

verse and our ordinary everyday speech, which is frequently below the level Of either

verse or prose He seems to suggest that prose on stage appears as aliiflclal as

verse, or alternat~vely that verse can be as natural as prose Eliot seems to be aware

of another dichotomy of approach to the play made by playgoers They are prepared

to enjoy the play and the language of the play as two separate entities So. Ellot feels

the chief effect of style and rhythm in dramahc speech, be ~t In prose or verse, should

be unconscious A mixture of prose and verse is to be avoided, as it has a tendency to

jolt, especially when such transitions are made within the same play The reason that

the Elizabethans could accept such transltlons smoothly is attr~buted by Eliot to the

ears of the Elizabethan aud~ence, who were tuned to recslve both prose and verse

qulte naturally They could take high falutin w~th low comedy also in the same play It

was also deemed to be taken for granted that the more humble and rustic characters

spoke in a homely language, whlle those belong~ng to a more exalted rank tended to

bombast in verse

In an endeavour to find a rheionc of substance to express, Ellot declares, 'at

the present tlme there IS a man~fest preference for the 'conversational' in poetry - the

style of 'direct speech', opposed to the 'oratorical' and the rhetorical; but if rhetoric 1s

any convention of writing ~napproprlalely applied, thls conversational style can and

does become a rhetoric - or what IS supposed to be a conversational style, for It Is

often as remote from polite discourse as well au ld be"" For Eliot, the choice of

application of the term 'rhetoric' must be related to the type of dramatic speech called

for, despite its adornment or inflation of speech, whlch is done more for purposes of

general Impressiveness, rather than producing some part~cular effect

Ellot made a clear d~stinctlon behveen dramahc verse and poetic verse, wh~ch

he ma~ntained both in theory and in practice He bellsved, that a poetic dramatist 1s an

exclusive species who writes for Vle theatre, whereas those who write other klnds of

verse, desp~te writing In the same medlum express in terms of their own voice. The

problem of communicat~on is not so appalling as in the theatre, where it is great The

verse wntten in the theatre is for other volces and not one's own Moreover, the

identities of e~ther the actors or the audience are equally unknown No credit or

reputation of any previous success can be of any avail Chnstopher Fry encountered

thls k~nd of situation when he entered into the theatre In thls theatre, a new law

became operative, that of dramabc relevancs Even in respect of the cho~ce of a

subject for presantat~on through a verse play, the generally accepted sources were

mythology or ancient history, wherein the characters would be far from recognlsable as

contemporary and hence llcensed to talk in verse

The contemporaly verse idiom was first incorporated by Eliot In The Family

Reunion (1939), whereln he worked out a solutlon as to how best speech in verse

could be utllised by a modern poetlc dramatist for soma of the outstanding problems

fac~ng the age He cantlnued to employ the contemporaly verse idiom, making some

minor modificat~ons, resulting in some spectacular masterpieces as, The Cocktail

Party (1950), The Confidential Clerk (1954) and The Elder Statesman (1958) it is

held, "this is a type of verse in which the rhythm IS close to that of ordinary modern

English, closer even than in Ellot's first dramatic expenment, Sweeney Agonistes

Fragments of an Aristopl?an~c Melodrama (1932) a type of verse, ln Ellot's own

words, which IS "capable of unbroken transition beMeen the most mtense speech and

the most relaxed d~alogue""~' Yet, some unm~stakable weaknesses are to be

perceived, not confined exclusively to Eliot, but of the poetic drama of that period, Two

such prominent weaknesses are that In Eliot's determination to avoid Shakespearean

echoes, thsre 1s a severe lack of poetw as well as drama necessay for making a

meaningful contnbution for dramat~c action in poetic drama

In G B.Shaw's plays, such as Getting Marrred and Back to Methuselah, there

is a sense of expectancy about something or other that is bound to occur, Though his

plays may be considered conversational, Shaw is nearer Shakespeare then EliotsZ.

The Murder In the Cathedral discloses some very superior points. Here, Ellot

bes~des presenting the murder that was 'given', could not hope to solve the problems

of speech in verse, a camplaint agalnst ssveral modern poetic dramatists Like most of

his Victorian and Georgian predecessors, his plays continue to remain too static The

problem of dramat~c movement in relat~on to modern verse idlam usage has ]Inxed

Eliot and evaded a solution, desp~te the unaffected modesty and self.criticisrn

proclaimed by Eliot in his famous Haward lecture on PoettyandDmma (1951) It was

aimost a travesty not In iheatncal techn~que, but had to do with the employment of

dramatic language. Eliot himself obsewed, that the self-education of a poet attempting

to professionally write for the theatre had to undergo a rigorous and lengthy penod of

disciplintng his poetly, if need be, even putting it on a vely thin d~et, in order to adopt it

chapla- !I Eii.t.TT ~wfc"fmaslrcm,,m

to U!e needs of the stage, incidentally relying on h e theatrical technique to be its

second nature

Eliot too felt, that the function of all great art is to make familiar to all regarding

an essenbal order, which governs lhfe lbsen and Chekov were able to denve this art of

employing prose However, there are some restrictions in the sensibility that rs

afforded through prose, which can be easily surmounted when expressed through

dramatlc poetry

Eliot remalns a predominant influence on the stage, as in poetry The success

of The Murder in the Cathedral contributed immensely to eradicate the prejudice

against verse plays The characteristics of high sp~ntuality, its beautiful choruses, the

blend of mysticism with realistic humour captivated its charm world-wide and provided

the much-needed succour for dramatic intensity and poetic inspiration to be cher~shed

in European drama Eirot was sensitive to the spiritual hollowness seen in the modem

world, which he exposed, by an appropriate use of ancient parallels Just as the early

drama had its roots in rel~gion, his plays also are essentially relig~ous in spirit

To begin with, Eliot and Fry had both written for the church Bonamy Dobree

contends, "both write plays in verse, both have written dlredly Christian plays for

production in Canterbury cathedral; both write secular plays on a basically religious

foundation which by no means precludes comedy"53 Eliot was basicaily a poet, who

later on became a dramatist and attempted to widen the scope of his examination of

modern life, by exchanging poetic drama for poetry With the exception of The Murder

m the Cathedral, all his other plays enumerate upon the secular story with a

contemporary setting G S Fraser comments that, Eliot "wanted to Invent a kind of

versa that would be speakable, wthout self-consciousness, in a play with a modern

setting to an ordinary audlence by ordinary actors He uvlshed to invent plots, which

would be interesting m themselves but which would also allow him to put across a

Chnst~an vision of the world without appearing dtdactic or sentimental"" Fry while

attempting to do the same without appearing moralistic or sentimental, presents a world.view substantially different from that presented by T S Ellot. Eliot's pnme

concern is with spiritual values as revealed through h ~ s protagonists, Becket in The

Murder in the Cathedral, Harry in The Family Reunion, Celia in The Cocktail Party

and Colby in The Confidential Clerk They are all seen In quest and pursuit of

seeking a higher life This quest is supenmposed against the background of tha

Modern Wasteland, whlch has witnessed the trauma of the perils of war, the uprooting

of religion, decay of moral and social standards resulting in man's hasty retreat into a

shell or cocoon, experiencing the agonles of sol~tude Geoffrey Bullough finds Eliot's

"prevailing themes covered polnts of conscience, moments of splrltual self-reallsatton,

repentance and renunc~at~on At times he touched religious a l l e r ~ o ~ ' ' ~ ~ The personal

sense of helplessness 1s projected through h~s characters, who experience the splrltual

vod, which they encountered in modern l~fe's circumstances and sltuatlons

Ellot remarks, "the Ideal medium for poetry, to my mlnd, and the most dlrect

means of soc~al usefulness for poetry, IS the heatre For the simplest aud~tors there 1s

the plot, for the more llterary the words and phrasing, for the more musically sensltlve

the rhythm, and for audltors of greater sensitiveness and understand~ng a meanlng

whlch reveals itself gradually the sensitiveness of every audltor is acted upon by all

these elements at once, though in dfferent degrees of c o n s c ~ o u s n e s s " ~ ~ h e Ellot-

Fry revlval of modern poetlc drama seemed to justify the use of poetry In the theatre,

as any poet would normally be glad to feei that the entertainment or diversion provided

In the theatre 1s expenenced and enjoyed by the largest segment of asplrlng theatre-

goers The courage to expenment and 111dulge in a style w~th a conviction that itwould

one day become estabhshed as a tradltlon by Itself can be attributed to Ellot and Fry.

Speakng for the revlval itself, Ellot says, " ~ t Is posslble that what distinguishes

poebc drama from prosaic drama is a kmd of doubleness in the action as it took place

on two planes at once In th~s it IS different from allegory, in which the abstraction is

someth~ng concewed, not somethlng differently felt, and from symbolism (as in the

plays of Maeterl~nck) in whlch the tanglble world 1s deliberately diminished - both

symbolism and allegory be~ng operations of the conscious plann~ng mind In poetlc

drama a certain apparent irrelevance may be the symptom of th~s doubleness, or the

drama has an under-pattern, less manlfest than the theatr~cal one""

A very colourful spectrum of dramat~c forms starting w~th realism moved

through the defl expresslonlstic techn~ques at the hands of several dedicated wrlters

unt~l it reached full bloom In poetic drama Modem dramatists l~ke Sean O'Casey had

a rival word.fanc~er In Fry, who always wrote In free verse and seemed to command

the most abundant flow of Images and epithets in the modem theatre It Is a w~dely

accepted fact that the greatest moments are complex In l~fe and find a natural

expression through poetry Sim~larly, the hlghest dramat~c moments more often erupt

through poetry 1n the theatre Subsequent to the efforts made by Dryden to f~nd a suitable compatlbll~ty beMeen drama and poetry, It Is Ellot and Fry's revlval, which

created a heightened awareness for its potentlal use as the most tanglble form in the

modem age The posslbll~ty of such a revlval arose as a consequence of extreme

dlssat~sfaction on the part of those who had a keen aesthetic perception They felt that

drama written in prose also deserved a better deal and treatment with Utmost care

Poet~c drama has an everlasting permanence of value Ellot dld the merltorous play

The Murder in the Cathedral concentrating on death and martyrdom Chnstopher Fry

ach~eved the same d~st~nctlon w~th hls Curtmantle deal~ng along the polltlcal llnes

The later revival spear-headed by these two came as a revolt agalnst Ule empty

entel'lainment of Romantic drama and dry discussion of the realistic plays of Shaw and

the others, not forgetting the superb presentatton of l~fe of naturailst~c drama

charnploned by Galsworthy and others Ellot wanted to veer away from the ephemeral

end superflc~al, enmuraglng the advent of poetry in the theatre, to restore values of a

more permanent and unrversal nature

Ellot and Fly had a very flrin conviction that in order to stab~llse poetlc use for

dramat~c purposes, it had to closely adhere to contemporary speech rhythms When

poetly becomes Incapable of absorb~ng contemporary ~d~om and speech rhythms, it IS

prone to lose its vltal~ty The vlvaclty of poetlc drama evolves from a dramatlsation of

consciousness and the realsatlon of the same The one Important and dominant

aspect of the two poetic dramatists is therr ablllty for poehc innovation on the strong

bel~ef that the language of poetry must closely resemble the everyday speech Eliot's

The Murder In the Cathedral created an unprecedented enthus~asm as also an

~rr~tated bew~lderment for the complexrty of its appeal and vanous po~nts of view deal!

therein

A view expresses, "Ellot 1s obv~ously preoccupied w~th the technical problem of

forglng the r~ght verse Instrument for poetlc drama, though he is by no means

Inattentwe to the content. The 'fable' however seem~ngly contemporaneous, should

have its llnks wlth trad~t~on and have a tlmeless quality. Eliot has accord~ngly tr~ed to

relate all ha plays (except the first, whlch 1s about Becket's martyrdom, and hence

packed wlth a universal slgnlficance) tc one or the other of the Greek tragedies,

namely the Eumenldes, the Alcest~s, the Ion or the Oedipus at Colonus But the

Impressran !hat his later plays and hls lecture leave on the mind is that Ellot E almost

afra~d of poetry in drama'" It could be on account of hls consternation for the posslble

debasement of poetry by its assoclatlon wlth drama leadlng to its devaluation Yet, he

has been fighting to ralse the prestige of the poet and revive poetry back into the

theatre

Chnstopher Fly's general themes are the mystery and joy of existence, besides

the regenerative power of love and llfe whlch can overcome exlstent~al al~enatlon and

despa~r Comparing Eliot and Fry, Gerald Weales reveals that, "Fry f~nds God In this

world and Ellotfinds him most surely in wlthdrawal- Into martyrdom or Into Eggerson's garden in The Confident~al Clerk It IS not surprlslng then that where Ellot IS Often

adm~red Fry 1s enjoyed and where Ellot 1s rejected out of hand - by those who cannot

accept h ~ s Oleology -Fly 1s ctten accepted for a rehg~on \hat can be translateVsa The

crux of their d~vergence 1s that, wh~le Fry celebrates the world and through it perceives

God, Ellot observes God mostly In withdrawal from the world

Eliot 1s favourably ~ncl~ned towards martyrdom and ascetlclsm, but Fry devoutly

belleves In deep human love and affections, bes~des part~cipat~ng in a meaningful way

In the world, thereby atta~ning splrlt~lal salvaton It cannot be overlooked that In hls

later plays Ellot too does tend to turn from wlthdrawal to an acceplance of life in

part~cular and the world in general Fry's presentailon of lhfe has always been

enthus~astlc, whole- hearted and fllled wlth a tremendous amount of gusto

In modern tlmes, Chrlstopher Fry enjoys an exciuslve distlnchon as a great

poetic playwright, a word-fancler and a predom~nant poet~c drama revivalist HIS plays,

when presented during the early mid twentieth century, sent hls success soanng hlgh

As one of the campalgners Ike Sean O'Casey, he lent h ~ s whole-hearted suppolt to the

existlng tendencies of the movement for a bnlllant revival of poetlc drama He

employed the verse and some other elements of poetlc drama Sean O'Casey has

made use of rhythm~c prose slnca he was not a poet Fry 1s a dramat~st, "who writes in

free verse and who has the most abundant tiow of ep~thets and Images In the modem

theatre"" Chrlstopher Fry had the advantage of belng a very accompl~shed poet

Fry 1s celebrated for hav~ng v~v f~ed the modern theatre by br~nging a breath of

fresh alr Into poetry and by ~ntroducing the comlc splrlt In poetlc drama' "Fry brlngs

Ihght, beauty and colour to Vle stageu8' Fiy cons~dered h~rnself to be swayed under the

~nflusnce of Greeks, Shakespeare, mlnor EllzabeUlan playwrights, naturalists and

reallsts lncludlng the notorious Bernard Shaw Yet, Fry is "an orlglnal major poetic

talenVg Christopher Fry remalns outstanding for h ~ s Neo-romanhc poetq, deft

management of stage synibollsm and comlc gusto, poetically achieved. It a an

acknowledged fact, that "Fry handles poetic language on the stage wlth

unquestionable faclllty As to the quallty of poetry, there may be moderate d~spute, but

hardly as to the adjustment of h e poetry to the theatre The plays are the productions

of a man of the theatre and bear no trace whatsoever of closet dramad3 HIS mastely

of dramatic verse has affinities with Shaw's mastery of dramatic prose. His wht and

humour too vies favourably w~th Shaw's Both pr~ded In the fact of not conceal~ng thelr

elms, but in revealing them Fry IS popular for his play of words, whlch reflect the play

of moods

It 1s reported on the point of moving Into the era of Christopher Fry. "whether or

not thls prophecy comes true, Fry br~ngs an Important g~ft to the theatre of hls time

His liberated language and his lhberatlng laughter wtll perhaps rlse above the dlrges - and the snlckers - of h ~ s generation It IS a laughter that echoes ne~ther satlre nor

mallce nor hyster~a, but gladness Fry does not laugh at man - he laughs because he

is a man, and likes being one"" In these respects also, there are striking SlmllaritleS

he bears wlth Shaw, though employing a d~fferent approach For Fly, comedy then

becomes e channel of escape not from truth, but from despalr and frustration 1-11s

Neo-comedy belleves in a universal cause for dellght He expla~ned the true d~st~nctlon

between tragedy, where every moment 1s eternlty as ~uxtaposed wlth comedy, where

eternlty is a moment

Chrstopher Fry is accla~med, "although his mercurial m~nd at times d~scourages

him from the deeper tones of tragedy and passlon, he is res~l~ent rather than

superficial, an embodiment of the humour and falth that has enabled England to rlse as

far as she has above the ashes of two wars devastlng to the souls even more than to

the cltles The blend of comedy and tragedy naturally flnds its expression in the

language Almost all the plays are of lnterest In thls regard6'

Volclng h~s liberated vlew, Chr~stopher Fry wr~tes In London's Adelph~

magazine "Comedy 1s an escape, not from truth but from despair; a narrow escape

into faith It believes in universal cause for del~ght, even though knowledge of the

cause is always twitched away from under us, whlch leaves us to rest on our

buoyancy In tragedy every moment is eternlty, In comedy etern~ty IS a moment In

tragedy we suffer paln, in comedy pain IS a fool, suffered gladlyaK6

Fry's Influences for comedy are not Jonson or Mass~nger, nor the Synge of The

Playboy of the Western World, but more appropriately Oscar Wilde, G B Shaw,

Chekov and to some extent lnd~redly P~randello In the moulding of h~s verse, there is no hes~tation whatsoever of the obvlous lnfluencs of T S Eliot m. Fly seemed to be the

latest slgn of promise for the Neo-revival of poetic drama, for the sheer dlsplay of h ~ s

poetlc talent of theatre, wherein he provlded an attractive panorama of verbai

f~reworks Stephen Spender was moved to adm~re, "Mr Fry certainly has conf~dence in what he IS doing in the theatre: and it is @%actly the lack of this, which has made the

theatr~cal exper~ments of more, g~fted poets often seem so laborious He creates e

C i a p r - 11 Chi-my ~vnlof@oeltr iDmrna

certaln klnd of effect, and he wntes In an idiom"" He employs hls idlom for parody,

puns as a vehlcle for v ~ v d and effective expression, spruced in prestlglous poetry

Fry has suffered the same fate of crltics falling to understand his lntentlon

behlnd cracklng jokes for propagating his ideas, slmilar to Shaw, but not taken

seriously Whereas Shaw and W~lde's characters appear to be literary fabrlcatlons,

Fry's people reflect more of the complex~t~es assoc~ated wth real-lfe characters He

expressed a keen concern for evil and sin, whch were at the base of man's soul He

also grappled wlth a variety of factors such as nostalgia for the past, supplanted

values, dlsor~entatlon and defeat In the ever-lncreasng chaotlc world There I S to be

obselved a Chekov~an tralt of character portrayal, who reveal the deepest recesses of

thelr souls, even when they are among others

An impression exlsts that, "Fry's plays ell develop through a slmllar core of

patterns and compuls~ons made notable by witty types of splits, doubllngs, and

ambivalences The settlngs of the plays are usually llteraily or symbolically dlvlded,

"po~sed on the edge of eternity" as Fry puts t""

Verse drama developed with such av~d~ty at the hands of Chr~stopher Fry, that

now seemed to be the one cherished hope for regalnlng any large audlence through

lnsplrlng and promlslng works He 1s considered an exponent of revival of poetlc

drama, as he 1s prodigiously talented, a genuine poet and possessing authentic

theatrical craft, with a true sense of comedy requlred for moulding works abounding In

vlgour and energy Thls revlval was meant to enable poetlc drama to thrive with

permanence and have an everlasting place in the modern theatre it 1s mentioned to

h ~ s credit, Chr~stopher Fgi appears well equlpped to restore thls long-mor~bund art to

fl0~rlShlng health and popular favour"'' Chr~stopher Fry stands apart as a unique

artst endowed wlth the preclslon and technique as an avowed poetlc dramahst, who

wlshes to reaffirm falth in joy and life Fry is at his best as a dramat~c verse wnfar par

comparison H~stor~ans in quest of iiterary prodlgles In poetlc drama, would have to s ~ t

up and take notlce of a stalwart versa dramat~st In Chr~stopher Fry, who symbollsed a

permanency of place for the med~um as one disclosing competence and sens~b~l~ty for

contemporary theatre-goers HIS growth from the lnlt~al "reactlonary interlude" to

development as an origlnal and genuine creatlve craftsman 1s a stupendous saga of

ceaseless experiment In the search for establlshlng poetic drama flrmly on the pedestal

of eternal ~mportance His sparkling wit and br~ll~ant versification have been very

wldely acclaimed

REFERENCES

1 Sangal. Mahendra Pralap, Chnstopher Fly and TS.Ellot, Meerut, Bng Prakashan, November 1968, P I

2 F~ndlater, Rlchalri, The Unholy Trade, London, VlctOr Gollancz Ltd , 1952, P 123

3 op cit , Clark, Cumberland, Shakespeare and the Supernatural, London, Preface, P 11

4 cf . Donoghue, Den., The Third Volce, Princeton Universlly Press, 1959, lniroducllon

5 Gowda. Ann~ah, H H , Dramatlc Poetry (from medlevai to modern irmos), lndla, Macmlllan Co , of lndla Ltd , 1972, reprinted 1079, P 215

6 Donoghue, Denls, The Thlrd Volce, P 8

7 Sangal, Mahendra Pratap, Chnstopher Fry and T.S.ELot, P 3

8 Barker, Granvlle, On Poetry ln Drama, London, Sldgwlck & Jackson, 1937, P 34

9 Sarrna, Knshna S , The Achlevement of Chr~stopher Fry and Other Essays, Vlsakhapatnam, M S R Muiihy & Co , 1970, P 3

'0 ,ingar I( ti Sr n1.63 .e !ttces oz %?:c D'era. The Aryan Path lna a. l h ~ ~ r r i k e r 'E6C, P 2 cf ,ellcar Tne Adventure of Crltlcsm, nos I l e l IG Drllsriers p.' --a. 1985, P 196

11 op clt , Trewln, J C , Verse Drama Slncs 180Q, Cambridge, The Nal~onal Book League, 1958, P 1

cf , Barker, ti Granville, On Dramatlc Mathod A Drama book, New Ycrk, Hlll and Wang lno . 1956, lnlroductlon

Gowda, Annlah H H , Dramatlc Poetry. P 234

Hamilton, Ian, Poetry andPoelroalily, XX Century, June 1952, pp 533.537

Gowda, H H Annlah, Dramatlc Poetry, P 252

op c ~ l . The Tlmes L~terary Supplement, 21, May 1971, P 591

Sarma, S Knshna, The Achlevement of Chr~stopher Fry and Other Essays, P 3

Gowda. H H Annlah, Dramatlc Poetry, P 217

Nlcoll, Allardyce, The Theatre and Dramattc Theory, London, George G Harrap a co , Ltd , 1962. P.15

20 Ellot, TS., Poetryand Drama, London, Faber, 1951, P 15

21 Ellot, T S , Selected Essays, London, Faber, 1934, P 67

22 Gassner, John, Theatre at the Cross Roads, New York, Hall, Rlnehari and Winston, 1960, P 32.

24 cf., Chlarl, J., Landmarks of Contemporary Drama. London, Herbert Jenkins, 1985, P 9,

26 cf , Hudson, Lynton, The Twent~sth century Drama, London, Geome G Harrap & Co , Ltd , 1946, P 54

27 Gowda, H H Ann~ah, Dramatlc Poetry, P 216

28 Nlcoll, Al(ardyce, The Thaary of Drama, Indla, Doaba House, 1974, P 199

29 lyengar K R Snnwasa, The Adventure of Crltlclsm. lndla, Sterling Publishers Pvt Ltd , 1885, P 189

30 op CII , Botlomley, Gordon, poetr/ and Contemporary Theairs, Essays and Sfudes Vol XIX, 1934, pp 139-141

31 cf , lyengar, K R Snnlvasa, The Adventure of Critlclsm, P 199

32 Hoggarl, Richard, W H Auden (A Seieci~on), London, Longman, Green & Co, lg57, P 24

33 Wllllams, Raymond, Drama from lbsen to Brecht, London, Chatto & Wlndus, 1954, P 109

34 Blalr, John. G , The Poetlc Art of W H Auden, Pnncelon, Pnncetan Unlverslty Press, 1965, P 97

35 lyengar, KR Snnlvasa, The Adventure of Crttlclsm, P 651

36 Gowda, H H Annlah, Dramatlc Poetry, P 265

37 Schwan, Alfred, Towam'a Poetffi of Modern Reai!stffi Tragedy, Modero Drama, Vol IX, Londoll, P 136

38 ldld , P 137

39 lb~d

40 lssacs, J , An Assessment of Twenheth Centufy LMerature (Six Lectures delivered 1n the BBC Third Programme, London, 1952, P 157)

41 Peacock, Ronald, The Art of Drama, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1957, P 34

42 MacLelsh, Arch~bald, Tilc Poet as Pispiright, ANanbc, Feb, (1955)

43 Sengal, Mehendra Pratap, Chrtstopher Fry and T S Ellot, P 13

44 Chlari, J Landmarks of Contemporary Drama, London, Herbert Jenkms, 1965, P 9.

45 c f , Gassner, John, The Theatre In Our Tlmes, New Yoh, Crown Publishers, Inc, Introducl~on, P ll

Stamm, Rudolf, Chr~stopher Fg, and the Revolt agalnst Reatlsm In Modern English Drama, Angfla, Val 72,1954, P 33

47 Mizsner, Arthur, T.SEllot, Nobel Pr~ze W~nners Ed , L J Ludov~cl, P 21

48 cf , Eliot's lntroduclion lo S L Eelhell's Shakespeare and the Popular Dramat~c Trarlltlon, London, 1944.

49 Ellot, T S , Poetryand Drama, P 11

50. Ellot, T S , Selected Essays. P 38

51 A COnClSe Cambridge History of Engl~sh Literature, P 910

c f , Sarma, M V Rarna, The World of Bernard Shaw, Chennal, Emerald PubllsheE. 2000, pp 4-5

Dobl.ee, Bonamy, ChristophsrFry, The Llteraly Half-yearly, July 1961, P 15

Fraser, G S ,The Modern Wr~ter and hls World, London, Methuen, 1970, P 220

Bullough, Geoffrey, Chnstopher Fry and the Revoil Against Ellot, Experimental Drama, Ed , Wllllam Armstrong, London, G Bell & Sons Lid , 1963, P 59

Maxwell. D E S , The Poetry of T S Ellot, London, Routladge & Kegan Paul, P 135

Ellot, T S , Selected Essays, P 229

lyengar K R Srlnlvasa, Ftve Voices on Poehc Drama, The Adventure of Crltlclsm, pp 198-199

Weales, Gerald, Rellglon In Modern Engllsh Drama, Philadelphia, Unlverslty of Pennsylvania Press, 1961, pp 184-185

Trew~n, J C , Drama 1945-1950. (pubf~slled for the Br~frsh Councif) P 26

Enlwlstle. W J .and Glllelt. Enc, The L~terature of England AD 500 - 1950. P 216

Donoghue, Denls, Christopher Fry's Theatre of Words, Essays m Crlticrsm, Vol. IX, January 1959, P 37

Gowda, H H Annlah, Dramatlc Poetry, P 266

The Thealre, TIME, November 20,1950, P 28

Gowda, H H Ann~ah, Drarnatlc Poetry, P 267

Fly, Chnstopher, Comedy, The Adelphi, Val 27, No 1, Nov , 1950, P 27

cf . Scolt, James, R A , Flfty years of English literature 1900-1950, London, Longman, Green &Co , 1956, P 235

Spender, Stephen, Chnsfopher Fry, The Spectator, Vol CLXXXIV, March 24, 1950, P 364

OP clt. ROY, Emil, Christopher Fw, An Overview, London, Southern l l l~no~s Ul~iversity Press, 1971, P 156

op olt., Spears, Monroe, K , Review of Chnsfopher Fry and 7'he Redemphon of Joy, PoetryforApr~l, 1951, pp 26-43