In his introduction to Greek tragedy, Dr. White briefly discusses the Oresteia, the only surviving trilogy of this, the Greek “golden age” of theater. Though written five centuries before Christ and without benefit of Revelation, these plays were commended by St. Thomas as the work of writers who were seeking truth. White further describes the Greek tragedy art form as being derived from the celebration of the yearly Dionysus festival in which players sang hymns and dressed in animal-skin costumes. Dr. White ends his commentary with a Q and A session.
In his preamble to a discussion of Agamemnon, Dr. White decries the absence of an American “golden age of theatre” and describes film as a bastard theatrical form that combines art and technology but lacks a connection to the audience. Greek theater on the other hand is a communal experience: In the case of Agamemnon, an experience essentially between man and wife that eventually becomes a war of the gods. Dr. White calls it a brilliantly constructed play with elements calling to mind Adam and Eve and original sin.
Here Dr. White discusses the second and third plays of The Oresteia. He explains that The Libation Bearers, the second play in the trilogy, is named for the chorus. It is a play about the power of the past, and how the living have obligations to the dead. Again it is a play about revenge though it begins and ends with a prayer. The third play in the trilogy, Eumenides, Dr. white tells us, features an enormous conflict between the gods, essentially turning the play into a courtroom drama, the outcome of which is ultimately judged by the goddess Athena.
In this second lecture the biographical sketch of Eliot’s life is continued, and episodes from it are juxtaposed with scenes from the Waste Land. The biographical review alludes to episodes, themes, and interests such as Charles Maurras and Action Française, Eliot’s editorship of The Dial, his work in philosophy, his Harvard dissertation on Bradley (though it was never defended), and (as early as 1917) the interest in Thomism. Dr. White also explores the pain Eliot experienced in his unhappy marriage to Vivian Haigh Wood (though she loved his work and appreciated its significance).
The additional emphasis of this lecture is the beginning of a detailed consideration and explication of the first three sections of the Waste Land, consisting of a repository for imagery, allusions, and fragments, that are themselves assembled but also remain for reassembly in other settings. Considered, among other things, are the significance of World War I, the use of myths – inherited from Joyce (though Eliot abhorred his Ulysses in many ways) – such as the fisher-king, the Grail. Dr. White notes the opening reference to Chaucer, and the poem’s contrasting the joy of Medieval, Catholic spring with the misery of living in a useless, hideous world. The doctor also emphasizes the role of the poetic reader – who brings a legitimate element to a poem, coloring its meaning based on the reader’s own experience – is contrasted with that of the poet.
The third Broadstairs lecture continues the reading of the Waste Land and covers its remaining parts three through five. In this presentation, Dr. White includes substantive discussion of the foundation of the poetic art and digresses into an explication of Eliot’s Hollow Men and the latter’s significant essay “Tradition and the Individual Talent.” In reviewing Hollow Men, Dr. White explains its four sources – Guy Fawkes Day, Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, and Dante. He also elaborates on its key themes, such as shame for sin, penance, the betrayal of civilization, and modern man’s inability to act due to the emptiness of his vision. The essential connection between religion and literature is also emphasized.
Dr. White begins the fourth of his Broadstairs series on Eliot with a recapitulation of the main themes of the preceding lectures and considers additional key episodes in Eliot’s life, such as his conversion and its relationship with his becoming an English citizen. He considers Eliot’s love of Shakespeare’s Pericles and the formers’s Marina, named after the daughter and the reunion from arguably the greatest reunion scene in all of literature. Discussing Ash Wednesday, Dr. White suggests that Eliot begins to firmly grasp essential truths, and notes the solitary life Eliot lead after the point at which the consensus was reached that his wife should go into an institution.
Dr. White also explores the return of Eliot’s “first love” – the stage, and examines the choruses in The Rock and discusses Murder in the Cathedral, in fact commissioned by Canterbury. The latter work is compared with Waiting for Godot, which is also about waiting (and the writers of both plays loved and were immersed in Dante), transmuted into patient suffering under a divine pattern whereunder souls play a part. Finally, the doctor explains the four temptations present in Murder in the Cathedral – sensuality, which gives a false joy; it is the temptation of youth, which Becket rejects. The second is the temptation to make peace with the state and acquiesce. The third is the revolt against tradition, and the fourth – which Thomas admits is unexpected – is pride: “Be a martyr!” Dr. White also notes the unique interaction of the play’s actors with their audience – which sees the four 4 murderous knights presenting their case to their auditors. The play concludes with a beautiful hymn to the martyrs with a Te Deum in the background.
