Towards a New Dramatic Articulation

Chapter Seven carries forward the metaphors of ‘doubleness’ and ‘planes in relation’, as the poetic and integrative strategies underlying Eliot's later work, to consider their literal and practical application within his poetic dramas. Both strategies take on an ontological aspect in The Rock and Murder in the Cathedral by figuring spiritual possibility historically, and in the interruptive contexts of the modern world. This chapter considers Eliot's final set-piece essays on Early Modern dramatists, and the crucial role of John Marston in defining Eliot's final understanding of ‘doubleness’. The chapter also draws in discussion of the manuscript materials relating to The Rock, the better to understand Eliot's Shakespearean purpose for his ‘pageant’.

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