Four Variations on the Becket Theme in Modern Drama

FOUR VARIATIONS ON THE BECKET THEME IN MODERN DRAMA THE OBSERVATION BY ARISTOTLE (Poetics, ix) that dealing with authentic historical incidents does not necessarily impair the artistic creativity of a poet or a dramatist is confirmed in the treatment accorded the relations between Henry II of England and Thomasa Becket by four dramatists within the last eighty years. Each of the four-Alfred Tennyson, T. S. Eliot, Jean Anouilh, and Christopher Fry-deals with the same body of historical facts ("specific events," to use the Aristotelian expression), but manipulates them in a different manner reflecting the operation of his artistic inventiveness.1 The ingredients of an effective piece of drama are undoubtedly present in the conflict between the British monarch and the Archbishop of Canterbury during the third quarter of the twelfth century. The dramatic effectiveness does not necessarily grow out of the zeal with which Henry II sought to bring the Church under his control and the steadfastness with which Becket set himself in opposition. Nor is the effectiveness heightened by the fact that the latter had the backing of the general populace and faced the antagonism of the feudal lords, four of whom took as a command the King's petulant exclamation, "Will no man free me from this pestilent priest?" Nor is the dramatic heightening accomplished by the fact that the murder of the Archbishop came to be regarded as martyrdom, that the cathedral in which it was committed became a shrine to which pilgrims -among them, Chaucer's famous company-made their way. What does impart drama to the conflict is that prior to the break between the two men, they had been close friends and associates, that Becket as Chancellor for eight years had been an obedient subject of Henry and had even supported the monarch's measures against the Church. 1 In an article "The Becket Plays: Eliot, Fry, and Anouilh" (Modern Drama, volume VIII, number 3, December, 1965), Emil Roy deals with the compositions by the three twentieth-century dramatists. He concerns himself with each play within the framework of its author's entire dramatic productivity and theories (Eliot's theological scheme and Anouilh's existentialism, for example) rather than with the manipulation of the Henry-Becket relations themselves. Such an approach not only excludes the Tennyson treatment from consideration but also, more importantly, devotes more attention to the abstract rationale espoused by the playwrights than to the actual way in which each handles the body of historical data. 83 84 MODERN DRAMA May It is this source of dramatic effectiveness which Anouilh exploits in his Becket (1959) in two ways. He, first, makes much of the early closeness between King and Chancellor and of the former's feelings of hurt over what he regards as betrayal by the latter when invested with the robes of Archbishop. Henry indeed enjoys as much prominence , if not sympathy, as Becket. His exclamation that prompts the act of assassination is motivated not only by the feelings of hurt but also by the realization of the strong hold that his former friend still exerts upon him, by the realization that "So long· as he's alive, I'll never be able to do a thing." (Translation by Lucienne Hill, publis'hed by Coward-McCann in 1960, p. 121.) These emotions are complicated by bewilderment, by inability to fathom reasons for the change. He makes various conjectures, including· the possibility that Becket's Saxon background has finally led him to boggle over allegiance to the Norman conquerors (p. 112), but regards most likely the fact that he had forcibly taken the maiden Gwendolyn from Thomas and that she had subsequently stabbed herself (p. 12, p. 109).2 The monarch is unable to understand that his erstwhile crony has assumed a new allegiance, the honor of God. The Archbishop's explanatIOn , I felt for the first time that I was being entrusted with something, that's all-there in that empty cathedral, somewhere in France, that day when you ordered me to take up this burden. I was a man without honor. And suddenly I found it-one I never imagined would ever become mine-the honor of God...