About the work
Verse drama by T. S. Eliot, written at the suggestion of the Anglican Bishop George Bell for the Canterbury Festival. It premiered on 15 June 1935 in the Chapter House of Canterbury Cathedral, directed by E. Martin Browne with Robert Speaight in the title role; the production later transferred to the Mercury Theatre in London.
Plot
The play depicts the final days of Archbishop Thomas Becket in December 1170, as he returns to Canterbury after seven years of exile. Four tempters confront him with trials that echo the temptations of Christ, the greatest being to do the right deed for the wrong reason. In the end, Becket is killed in the cathedral by four knights of King Henry II.
Cultural significance
Eliot also intended the play as a call for the churches to resist the abuses of fascism and Nazism, drawing on the eyewitness account of the medieval clerk Edward Grim for its historical detail. As a liturgically inflected ritual drama, it remains one of the most frequently performed verse plays of the twentieth century.