THESIS 1969: THE COCKTAIL PARTY BY T. S. ELIOT: 
A STUDY IN SOURCE AND CONTENT

THE COCKTAIL PARTY BY T. S. ELIOT
A STUDY IN SOURCE AND CONTENT

Presented to the Honors Council of Brown University as an Honors English Thesis by Marc W. Kohler on May 22, 1969. Advisor for the paper: Professor David Krause.
Email: marcwkohler@aol.com Web Site: marcwkohler.com

There are several reasons for our not knowing T.S. Eliots’ dramas so well as we think we do. When a man is primarily- known as a writer of poetry, his plays are usually approached from poetic sources rather than intellectual sources. In the case of The Cocktail Party, there is a need to clarify certain sources which have remained obscured in the criticism of the play. By giving attention to St. John of the Cross, the enigmatic “Libation Scene” as well as the major issues of the play can be explained with greater understanding. Also, the relation of St. John of the Cross to the spiritual writings of Charles Williams ties together the two apparently discrete styles of spiritual life—the Way of Negation and the Way of Affirmation, While explication of the Libation Scene will aid in an understanding of the characters of Celia Coplestone, an explanation of the Way of Affirmation in the love for created beings will clarify the characterization of Edward and Lavinia Chamber- layne. A knowledge of these two sources is essential to the direction of the play, for without them, the last Act will present more questions to the audience rather than the natural working out of the themes of the play.
It is not my purpose here to discuss either the style of the play or its relation to the Alcestis of Euripides. Though important for understanding the drama, it is only in the scope of this paper to solve the problems of source. While I may be accused of dealing with this verse play as if it were a philosophical document, I can defend my work from the point that without an understanding of the philosophical background of the play, the verse or the comedy used in the play will have no content. In a recent production of the play by the American Conservatory Theater at Stanford University, the comedy in the Second Act was played in such a way to make Act Three, with Celis’s martyrdom, completely unintelligible. Moreover, when the source of the play and its high seriousness is exposed, then the comedy in the play can be used to good effect. So, the first question to be answered is whether Eliot was, in fact, writing a play with themes of spirituality and sainthood.
T. S. Eliot was a Christian poet writing in what he considered a predominately pagan, though not anti-Christian, era.
As a Christian, Eliot saw that the role of mysticism, even within the Church, was being lessened, that the nature and Ways of Sainthood as described by the early writers were not being given proper credit. In 1930, he wrote:
“. . . There is much chatter about mysticism: for the
modern world the word means some spattering indulgence of emotion, instead of the most terrible concentration and askesis. But it takes a life time merely to realize that men like the forest sages, and the desert sages, and finally the Victorines and John of the Cross and (in his fashion) Ignatius really mean what they say. [Eliot’s underlining] Only those have the right to talk of discipline who have looked into the Abyss. . . . “
Some years later, Eliot was to set down his ideas on the role
Christianity should play in society. In the Idea of a Christian
Society, Eliot maintained that society must be structured around the Christian Church, and that a group of aware laity and clergy would operate as Guardians. This “Community of Christians” while not within the structure of the Church Proper would serve as watchdog for both the Church and the society. This idea is echoed in the existence of the “Guardians”—Alex, Julia, and Henry — in the Cocktail Party.
Five years later, while the world was in havoc of war, Eliot was questioned about the future of Western Civilization:
“. . . Well, we can only talk about the immediate future in these matters, not the whole future. I should speak of a greater spiritual consciousness, which is not asking
T. S. Eliot, “Religion Without Humanism” in Humanism and America, edited by Norman Foerster (New York: Farrar and
Rinehart, 1930), p. 110.that everybody should rise for the same conscious level but that everybody should have some awareness of the depths of spiritual development and some appreciation and respect for those further in spiritual knowledge than most of us can. . . .”
These exceptional people are Thomas A. Beckett in Murder in the Cathedral, Harry Monchensey in The Family Reunion, and Celia Coplestone in The Cocktail Party. Still, it is one problem to show what Eliot’s attitudes were towards Christianity and the issues facing a world in havoc and another to show how they operated in
his work. In Notes Towards a Definition of Culture, Eliot supplies the basis for the tie between his attitudes towards Christianity and his dramatic work.
” . . The dominant force in creating a common culture between peoples each of which has its distinct culture is religion. . . I am simply stating a fact. I am not so much concerned with the common tradition of Christianity which has made Europe what it is, and about the common cultural elements which common Christianity has brought with it. If Asia were converted tomorrow, it would not thereby become part of Europe. It is in Christianity that our arts have developed; it is in Christianity that the laws of Europe—until recently—have been rooted. It is against a background of Christianity that our thought has significance. As individual European may not believe that Christian Faith is true, and yet what he says, and makes, and does, will all spring out of his heritage of Christian Culture and depend upon that culture for its meaning. . .If Christianity goes, the whole of our culture goes. . . .”
One year after this statement, The Cocktail Party was produced. The tie is a clear one, for Eliot, in establishing the principle that no European artist could work outside of the Christian traditions, offered the premise for his own work.…”

T. S. Eliot quoted in “Condition of Man Today” in Horizan XII August 1945, p. 89.

While others may work without a conscious knowledge of their culture, Eliot works with a conscious knowledge of his debt to Christian culture….”
Still, I do not think that I have yet shown that Eliot, while working in the Christian tradition, is using drama as a vehicle for Christian subjects. I do not think that Eliot would have envisioned his work as merely an esthetic experience. This can be shown clearly if we turn to Eliot’s aim for poetic drama.
I have already shown that Eliot thinks that a greater spiritual awareness is needed, and that all European artists must work in a Christian tradition, and now I will show how serious Eliot was about the content of The Cocktail Party.
Again, let me trace some of Eliot’s attitudes up to the writing of the Cocktail Party. In 1933, he wrote:
“. . The ideal medium for poetry, to my mind, and the most direct means of social ‘usefulness’ for poetry is the theatre. In a play by Shakespeare you get several levels of significance. For the simplest auditors, there is the plot, for the more thoughtful, the character and conflict, for the literary the words and phrasing, for the musically sensitive the rhythm, and for auditors of greater sensitiveness and understanding a meaning which reveals itself gradually. . .”

As far as the nature of this last “meaning”, Eliot wrote two years later:
“… If we, as readers, keep our religious and moral convictions in one compartment, and take our reading merely for entertainment, or on a higher plane, for aesthetic pleasure, I would point out that the author, whatever his conscious intentions is writing, in practice recognizes no such distinctions. The author of a work of the imagination is trying to affect us wholly, as human beings, whether he knows it or not; and we are affected by it, as human beings, whether we know it or not. . . It is not that modern literature is in the ordinary sense ‘immoral’ or even ‘amoral’; and in any case to prefer that charge would not be enough. It is simply that it repudiates, or is totally ignorant of, our most fundamental and important beliefs; and in consequence its tendency is to encourage its readers to get what they
can out of life while it lasts, to miss no ‘experience’ that presents itself. …” This discrediting of contemporary literature is not surprising if we consider Eliot’s feeling of obligation to the role that morality and religion should play in poetry. This worry was to be echoed ten years later, but in a much more explicit statement:
“. . Much has been said everywhere about the decline of religious belief; not so much notice has been taken of the decline of religious sensibility. The trouble with the modern age is not merely the inability to believe certain things about God and man which our forefathers believed, but the inability to feel towards God and man as they did. A belief in

T. S. Eliot, The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism, 153.
which you no longer believe is something which to some
extent you can still understand; but when religious feeling disappears, the words in which men have struggled to express it become meaningless. . .
Clearly, Eliot is concerned with the present meaninglessness of writings of the Christian Mystics, for the contemporary reader, and to be perfectly moral, he must direct his writings in terms of his own beliefs in order to make religious doctrine meaningful for the present day audience. This becomes even clearer when we notice the Introduction that Eliot supplied for a publication of Charles Williams’ All Hallows Eve in 1948, three years after Williams’ death. In the introduction, Eliot describes the stories of Williams in such a way that the description could also be applied to Eliot’s dramas: “ . . The conflict which is the theme of every one of Williams’s novels, is not merely the conflict between good and bad men, in the usual sense. No one was less confined to conventional morality, in judging good and bad behavior, than Williams: his morality is that of the Gospels. He sees the struggle between Good and Evil carried on, more or less blindly, by men and women who are often only the instruments of higher or lower powers. . . In his novels he is concerned with quite ordinary human beings, with their struggles among the shadows, their weaknesses and self- deceptions, their occasional moments of understanding as
with the Vision of Love towards which creation strives. . . .”
T. S. Eliot, “The Social Functions of Poetry” in On Poetry and Poets (1957), p. 15.
So too, in The Cocktail Party, Eliot offers a group of characters who have been deceived in love by the creation of images. From all this evidence, I think that while the play is a comedy of manners in verse, the content of the play is directed towards those “auditors of great sensitiveness” who will be able to realize the serious spiritual subjects of the play.
The next question is: What are the sources to The Cocktail Party? Both Carol Smith and David Jones interpret the drama in terms of the Two Ways of Salvation. Still, neither of these critics are able to analyze the “libation scene”, and I think that this is due to the fact that the importance of St. John of the Cross as the source of the play has not been given proper treatment. The importance of St. John’s doctrine of The Way of Negation cannot be exaggerated, for Celia is a personification of the soul that St. John describes in The Dark Night of the Soul.
Celia Coplestone, mistress to Edward Chamberlayne, comes to a realization about the nature of man as a result of Edward’s failure to match her love. There are three prerequisites for a soul to begin its trip to God. First, all idols

T. S. Eliot “Introduction” in Charles Williams All Hal- lows’ Eve, pp. xvi-xvii.
Carol Smith, T. S. Eliot’s Dramatic Theory and Practice, pp. 147-183.
Leon Cristiani, St. John of the Cross (Doubleday and Co., N. Y. : 1962), p. 154~
must be cast aside. “…Celia: The man I saw before, he was only a projection —I see that now — of something that I wanted —No, not wanted — something I aspired to — Something that I desperately wanted to exist. It must happen somewhere—but what, and where is it?….” (p. 67) By Act Two, Celia has realized that another love affair, another construction of a man to idolize would be useless:
“…Celia: Can we only love
Something created by our own imagination?
Are we all in fact unloving and unlovable?
Then one is alone, and if one is alone Then lover and beloved are equally unreal And the dreamer is no more real than his dreams, (p. 138)
T. S. Eliot, The Cocktail Party (New York: Harcourt
Brace, and World, Harvest Book, 1950). All page references to the play are from this edition.

“…It’s not that I’m afraid of being hurt again:
Nothing again can either hurt or heal….” (p. 139)
Secondly, all earthly desires must be overcome.
“..Celia: I know I ought to be able to accept that
If I might still have it. Yet it leaves me cold. Perhaps that’s just part of my illness.
But I feel it would be a kind of surrender —
No, not a surrender — more like a betrayal.
You see, I think I really had a vision of something Though I don’t know what it is. I don’t want to forget it.
I want to live with it. I could do without everything,
Put up with anything, if I might cherish it.
In fact, I think it would really be dishonest For me, now, to try to make a life with anybody! (pp. 140-1)
Here Celia is denying the possibility of earthly happiness, and her denial is not merely based on whim but rather on the inner feeling of necessity and obligation. This leads her to the third requirement before she can begin her trip. Cristiani describes this third requirement as “new ideas and sentiments in respect to God must mark the soul as though it were arrayed in new robes…” Here we come a key dramatic point. While the imagery used by St. John refers to dressing the soul in new clothes, Eliot identifies Celia with Celia’s soul for dramatic reasons. In this way, Celia’s actual traveling to Kinkanja becomes the objective correlative for
the description of the soul’s traveling in Ascent of Mount Carmel.
Thus, Eliot places this last requirement into dramatic form by having Celia join a strict order, that is, as Henry says:
“…Reilly: Everything you need will be provided for you. …..”
Included in that “everything” are the robes of the order.
As I have said, Eliot identifies Celia and her soul for dramatic purposes, and in this way, the Libation Scene becomes very clear when we consider the imagery that St. John uses to describe the soul. First, let us look where Eliot has used St. John before. In the third section of East Coker,. Eliot writes:
“…..In order to arrive there, To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not, You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy.
Leon Cristiani, St. John of the Cross, p. 154.
In order to arrive there,
In order to arrive at what you do not know
You must go by the way which is the way of ignorance.
In order to possess what you do not possess You must go by the way of dispossession.
In order to arrive at what you are not
You must go through the way in which you are not,
And what you do not know is the only thing you know…..”
In the exact same fashion, St. John writes:
In order to arrive at having pleasure in everything,
“…Desire to have pleasure in nothing.
In order to arrive at possessing everything,
Desire to possess nothing.
In order to arrive at being everything,
Desire to be nothing.
In order to arrive at knowing everything,
Desire to know nothing.
In order to arrive at that wherein thou hast no pleasure, Thou must go by the way wherein thou hast no pleasure.
In order to arrive at that which thou knowest not,
Thou must go by the way that thou knowest not…”

This paradox of possessing that which cannot by possessed is echoed directly in Reilly’s description of the Way of Negation: “…You will know very little until you get there;

T. S. Eliot, East Coker section of “The Four Quartets” in The Complete Poems and Plays: 1909-1950, p. 127.
You will journey blind. But the way leads towards possession
Of what you have sought in the wrong place…”

Clearly, Reilly sets Celia onto the Purgative Way to Illumination and Union with God. Further support for such an explanation exists in the text of the play, but none as much as the Libation Scene. So long an enigmatic bit of ritual, I think that it can finally be explained in a great way by looking at the imagery of St. John. David Jones fails completely to consider the scene’s Christian origins:
“. . . As for the libation, any portrayal of the Community of Christians would be incomplete without some indication of the place of ritual in their lives. Yet it cannot be Christian ritual, since specifically Christian references are to be omitted. Eliot has therefore created, as background to the ritual, an indeterminate kind of religion with a trace of Nature mysticism in it…”
This is wrong and misleading. Carol Smith also finds the scene enigmatic and without Christian
sources:
“ . . The act ends with the libation drunk by Alex,
Julia, and Sir Henry to the two Ways as in the Greek ceremonial celebration of the purification feast. . .. ^
The scene is enigmatic only because its source is unknown, but there is enough evidence to consider that the ritual is deeply based in the writings of St. John of the Cross. I also disagree that it is a ritual for both of the Ways. St. John supplies only a complex guide for the Way of Negation, and the Guardians must also say the words for the other potential saint in the play, Peter Quilpe. I should say here that I have been unable to find all the images in St. John. Still, the major ones do find their source in St. John. The others may, too, come from St. John, and only more research will lead to finding them. Moreover, my point is that the Libation scene is a Christian scene, well entrenched in the imagery of Christian Mysticism. The scene is initiated with: “ Julia: You and I don’t know the process by which the human is
Transhumanized: what do we know Of the kind of suffering they must undergo On the way to illumination? (p. 141)
“Transhumanized” is a most interesting word. In the identification of Celia’s soul with her body, Eliot takes the Spanish “esclarecida y transformada” which Peers translates as “illumined and transformed” and turns it into “transhumanized.” The change is interesting, for if Celia’s soul, personified in her physical being, is to be transformed in order for union with God, then she will be, in a sense, transhumanized. It should be also noted that “esclarecida” could also mean “enobled” and not merely “illumined. ” As for “illumination, ” I think little more should be said. The way of the soul is the way to illumination. While not actually part of the Libation Scene, I have included this speech because

David Jones, The Plays of T. S. Eliot (London Routledge and Kegan, I960), p. 152.
Carol Smith, T. S. Eliot’s Dramatic Theory and Prac- tice (Princeton, N. J. : Princeton University Press, 1963), p. 180.) it is the first blatant use of words which come directly from St. John. The Libation scene, then actually begins with Alex’s line: “The Words for the building of the hearth. ” (p. 149) “Hearth” is a place for a fire, and “horno” or “furnace” is the major image in the gloss to Llama de Amor Viva (Living Flame of Love). The soul must become a furnace where the spirit of the Lord can burn. “Esta alma. . . es como horno encendido. “..This soul. . . is like a furnace enkindled…” The imagery is direct and unequivocal. Let me continue.
“….Julia: May the holy ones watch over the roof
May the Moon herself influence the bed….”
Her “holy ones” refers to the angels which watch over and aid the soul in its journey. In describing the metaphorical woods and thickets through which the soul must travel in the Spiritual Canticle (Cantico Espiritual), St. John describes the flowers in particular fashion:
“….By these flowers she [the soul understands the angels and the holy souls [almas santas], wherewith that place
is adorned and beautified like a graceful and costly enamel upon an excellent vase of gold….” This is just one of many references to angels as protective spirits, present along the

San Juan de la Cruz, Vida y Obras (Bibliteca de Autores, Madrid), p. 579.
20
Saint John of the Cross, The Works, Vol. I, p. 83.
San Juan, p. 1107. Ibid. , p. 1107.
St. John, Spiritual Canticle, Peers Vol. II, p. 48.
journey, and “roof” also finds its source in St. John. In the opening stanza to The Dark Night of the Soul (Noche Oscura del Alma), the speaker likens his spirit to a “house at rest”: “…I went forth without being observed
My house being now at rest….”
Thus while the soul goes out, the holy ones or angels remain to watch over the house of the spirit.

I do not think it necessary to point out the many and abounding uses of the words “road” or “journey” in St. John, for they are two often used images to describe the soul in its flight to God. In the same way “traveler” is used with equal frequency. Moreover, the eight images at the end of the Libation scene offer much greater difficulties. I should note here that I might be accused of overdoing the relationship between St. John and this one scene. My answer to such an accusation is that until another source can be found, then this one stands foremost. The scene is a ritual, and as such cannot exist in a theological vacuum. Eliot here is creating only the ritual itself, not the philosophical background for that comes from the Christian mystics. In order to make the tie between St. John and Celia, he uses St. John’s imagery to describe her journey.
of the last eight images, I think five come directly from
St. John, two could possibly come from him, and nowhere could I find a source for “quicksand”. Here are the lines in which
these images appear: (My underlining)
Alex: Watch over her in the desert
Watch over her in the mountain
Watch over her in the labyrinth
Watch over her by the quicksand.
Julia: Protect her from the Voices
Protect her from the Visions
Protect her in the tumult
Protect her in the silence. (p. 150)
The “desert” and “mountain” are references to the beginning and end of the spiritual journey. The soul travels through the desert, the valley, the hills, and finally into the mountain. Again, direct page and verse sitings are not called for because the imagery dominates The Ascent of Mount Carmel. On the other hand, “labyrinth” is a bit more difficult. Still, it, too, comes right from St. John. In the soul’s journey, it will confront and have to overcome certain obstacles that within its own being. St. John calls these the “deep caverns of sense” in the Third Stanza of The Living Flame of Love. In the gloss, he describes these “caverns”:
“ . . These caverns are the faculties of the soul — memory, understanding and will — of which the depth is proportionate to their capacity for great blessings,
for they can be filled with nothing less than the infinite. . .
In the first place, it must be noted that these caverns of the faculties, when they are not empty and purged and cleansed from all creature of affection, are not conscious of their great emptiness, which is due to their profound capacity; for in this life any trifle that remains within them suffices to keep them so cumbered and fascinated that they are neither conscious of their loss nor do they miss the immense blessing that might be theirs. . . .”
The labyrinth, then, that Eliot is referring to is that labyrinth
within the soul — those “caverns” which must be purged.
Julia requests that Celia’s soul be protected from
“Voices” and “Visions”. This is the most important request which relates the whole scene to St. John of the Cross. Other than most Christian mystics, St. John expressed a severe mistrust of any form of revelation. This had to do with visions and voices which the soul might take for signs of God. John, though, realized and stated that such outward signs could just as easily come from the devil as from the
Ibid. ,
III, pp. 69-70.
“.. . Souls are often-times deceived with respect to locutions and revelations that come from God, because they interpret them according to their apparent sense and literally; whereas as has already been explained, the principal intention of God in giving these things is to express and convey the spirit that is contained in them, which is difficult to understand. . . .”
And again:
“ . . The devil likewise can cause these visions, by- means of a certain natural light, whereby he brings things clearly before the mind, through spiritual suggestion, whether they be present or not. . . These visions. . . cannot serve the understanding as a proximate means to union with God. . . . E.W. Trueman Dicken summarizes this attitude:
“. . That visions, locutions, trances and raptures emanating from the devil must be inevitably harmful cannot be doubted, although. . . the devil himself would be powerless to cause them if he were not allowed to do so by God. Since God does permit him to cause them, it can only be that he is willing either to try human souls by this means, or to punish them for their presumption in desiring to look into the occult. The less attention paid them the better. Any interest in these things cannot but increase the possibility of their doing damage. There are, nevertheless, many occasions when visions, trances and the like come from God. We have seen that St. John of the Cross teaches uncompromisingly the necessity for ignoring these divinely initiated occurrences no less firmly than if they were the work of the devil. . . .”
More than any other image in the Libation scene, I think these two,of “Visions” and “Voices, ” mark the whole passage as founded in St. John. Of the last two allusions to St. John, “silence” is very clear while “tumult” presents

E. W. Trueman Dicken, The Crucible of Love (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1963), pp. 376-7.
some difficulties. In the soul’s ascent of Mount Carmel, the last stage is silence. This silence or solitude is somewhat difficult to understand, for it is a state where the soul has rid itself of all desires, imagination, meditation, and thought of all temporal things. The danger in such a state is to forsake it and fall backward rather than proceed forward in the darkness of solitude. The Saint writes first of the danger of imagination:
“ . Neither is there any cause for misgivings when the memory is voided of its forms and figures, for, since God has no form or figure, the memory is safe if it be voided of form and figure, and it is attached to the imagination, the farther it is going from God, and the greater is the peril wherein it walks, since God is incomprehensible and therefore cannot be contained in the imagination.
The danger in this state, then is to return to the original state. The need for protection is reflected in the Saint’s writing on the state of the soul at this point:
” . . Spiritual directors. . . fail to understand souls that have attained to this solitary and quiet contemplation, because they themselves have not arrived too far, nor learned what it means to leave behind the discursive reasoning of meditations, as I have said, and they think that these souls are idle. And therefore they disturb and impede the peace of this quiet and hushed contemplation which God has been giving their penitents by His power, and they cause them to follow the road of meditation and imaginative reasoning and make them perform acts, wherein the aforementioned souls find a great repugnance, aridity, and distraction, since they would fain remain in their holy rest and their quiet and peaceful state of recollection. . . . 30
The soul needs protection in this state because it will be urged both from within and from without to return to the earlier states. The forces within the soul are those that cry out for guidance, but in the state of blind solitude, the soul travels unguided trusting in God”…
Finally, the last ritual word in the Libation Scene is
‘Tumult” which is somewhat difficult to relate directly to St.
John. It could simply allude to the tumult of sensual existence, but I think that I have found a more reasonable “tumult” in St. John. It may be asked if all the ritual must be explained in terms of St. John. For, it may appear that I am “stretching” things to include this last term. My answer to such a question is that a ritual cannot exist outside a given context. That is, Eliot has his three guardians performing a ceremony. If this ceremony were created out of his imagination, then it could not have any thematic value other than a personal meaning to Eliot.
Still, I think that I have proven that this play is based on the public meaning of Christian mysticism. Thus, for the ritual to have any significance in this context, it too must be based in Christian mysticism. The examples that I have discussed prove that St. John of the Cross is the source of the scene. It should be noted that the words are said only for those who will take the Way of Negation, Celia and Peter, while those on the Way of Affirmation are only urged to work with diligence. On the other hand, Celia is directed to work with diligence, and also receives this ceremony of good fortune in her “journey”. Thus, for the scene to be ritual, it must have a base, a source, and I believe that the one source is St. John. So, let me go on to show where I discovered a “tumult” in St. John.
There are two possible referents for “tumult” in St.
John. First, in the negative sense, it might refer to the passions which hinder the soul’s journey. In the same section of the Ascent which has the list of opposites, St. John includes this:
“… For the mortifying and calming of the four natural passions, which are joy, hope, fear and grief, from the concord and pacification of which come these blessings, and others likewise, the counsels which follow are of greatest help, and of great merit, and a source of great virtues. . . . ^ On the other hand, there is a closer reference to “tumult” or multitude in the Spiritual Canticle:
“….But look upon her companions
We have already said that God to look is for Him to love; those whom the Bride here calls companions are the multitude of virtues and gifts and perfections and spiritual riches of the soul. It is thus as though she were to say: But rather do Thou turn inward. Dearest One, and fall in love with the companions—namely, the virtues and perfections which Thou hast set in my soul: so that, having come to love my soul through them, Thou mayest hide Thyself in her and remain in her; for in truth, although they be Thine, yet, since Thou hast given them to her, they are hers likewise. . .”
Still, I am not sure that this solves the problem, and perhaps the obvious solution lies in the soul’s denial of the world for solitude. The worldly “tumult” then would be a threatening force from which she would need protection. Such an interpretation would fit, for the next line mentions the need for protection in the silence. This is further supported by the proposition “in” rather than “from”. When the soul is in the tumult or in the state of silence, then it will need protection. This interpretation is definitely supported in St. John.
Finally, let us look at the word and action of “libation”.
The first allusion is, of course, to the Last Supper and the celebra-tion of communion, but the communion is not really limited to the blood of Christ. Required for this to be a communion is the Host, but it is noticeably missing from the scene. This is due to the fact that the Christian mystics used wine and the action of drinking as a metaphorical expression of the entrance of the Holy Spirit into the soul. Once again, we are directed back to St. John of the Cross:
. . . This spiced wine is another and far greater favour which God grants at times to souls that have made progress, inebriating them in the Holy Spirit with a wine of love that is sweet, delectable and strong, for the which cause she calls it a spiced wine. . , This wine. . . is the love that God gives those that are already perfect, is prepared and made ready in their souls, and spiced with virtues. . . “
The stanza of the Spiritual Canticle that this comes from reads as follows:
In the inner cellar, of my Beloved have I drunk, And when I went forth over all this meadow.
Then I knew naught And lost the flock which I followed aforetime…”
The Spanish is very interesting, and it is difficult to capture a great deal of the sense of the stanza in translation. (I should mention here that the poems are filled with paradoxical descriptions such as “soundful silence” or “silent music”. ) Also, puns are lostin translation. In this stanza there is one such pun. In Spanish, the verb beber can be transitive or intransitive. Despite the previous reference to the wine, in this stanza it is used in an intransitive form, “En la interior bodega/ de mi Amabo bebi. ”
In its transitive form “beber” means “to drink or swallow, ” but in its intransitive form it means “to pledge or toast. ” In other words, the soul drinks and toasts the wine of the Holy Spirit, the love of God, and the three guardians re-enact that action. This, I think, completes the tie between this scene and St. John of the Cross.
I do not in any way suggest that in the explication of this
one scene that I have explicated the whole play. Surely, a great deal is operating in the play which is not directly related to St. John, but he plays a major role. The other operating force is represented in the Guardians and in the Chamberlaynes. In a general sense, the Guardians have been dealt with satisfactorily, but critics have found the Chamberlayne’s the weak point of the play. I would like to cite here four such criticisms of the play. W. K. Wimsatt W. K. Wimsatt, “Eliot’s Comedy” in Sewanee Review, #58, 1950, p. 667.
considers the Chamberlayne s weak because they lack “sanctity. ” The love of created things, though, is
a major Christian doctrine, and can be found in the writings of St. John of the Cross. This is the tie which many critics fail to discover. While the greatest amount of writings that this Carmelite friar concerns themselves with the Way of Negation, he was equally aware of the Way of Affirmation. In the poem De la Creacion (Of the Creation), he describes the world as being a palace with a higher and lower story. The important stanzas, as translated by Roy Campbell. Mr. Campbell should be always remembered for saving St. John of the Cross’s letters and wrings in 1936:
For the bride He built a palace Out of His knowledge vast and grand,
Which in two separate compartments,
One high, one low, He wisely planned.
The lower storey was of endless differences composed: the higher
He beautified with wondrous jewels,
Refulgent with supernal fire.
That the bride might know her Bridegroom In the true glory of His power,
In the top part He set angels In the shining hierarchy to tower.
But, tenant of the lower mansion
Our human nature was assigned…’
Because its human composition Falls short of the angelic kind.
And though the Being in two places He divided in this way,
He composed of both one body To house the Bride, who thus did say:
Those underneath, in hope and yearning,
Born of the faith He brings to birth
By telling them that surely, sometime,
His love will magnify their worth;
And all in them that’s base and lowly
He would exalt to such degree
That none who after that beheld it
Would scorn its first humility.
Exactly, in all things like they are,
He would cause Himself to be.
He would traffic in their dealings
And in their daily life agree….”
In describing the Creation in these terms, St. John has established the Two Ways. Celia travels the Way of Negation, and the Chamberlaynes travel the Way of Affirmation. Denis Donoghue fails completely to realize this dual nature of Salvation, for he claims that “the real defect of The Cocktail Party, a defect of drama and rhetoric is that it presents the life of the common routine and the
way of beatitude as totally discrete. ” The real defect of °St.

John of the Cross, Poems (Baltimore: Penguin Books 1968), pp. 75-6.
Denis Donoghue, The Third Voice (Princeton, N.J.: The University Press, 1959), p. 125.TV)
Donoghue’s criticism, a defect of scholarship and theology, is that it presents no understanding of the way of beatitude as St. John of the Cross and the other Christian Mystics
understood it. On the other hand, not all critics have shown an understanding of the Way of Affirmation. D. W. Harding finds that this Way precludes “a deeply satisfying human love. ” Lionel Trilling is also not willing to see the possibility of love in this Way, for he finds that Eliot has no “reference to the pain which is an accidental part of life of the common routine. There is no reference to the principles, the ethical discipline by which the ordinary life is governed— all is habit….”
Both of these critics have failed to read the play as Eliot wrote it, for they have imposed their own moral or ethical beliefs on the play. The Way of Affirmation is the way of love. The Way of Negation, based on a fervent love of God, is reflected in the Way of Affirmation which can only come through the love of other human beings. The Chamberlayne’s do not return to their original existence in Act Three, for in those moments we are shown a couple responding to each other not as things but as human beings. The scene is an extremely difficult one because Eliot has only supplied the players with the bare minimum of

D.W. Harding, “Progression of Theme in Eliot’s Modern Plays” in Kenyon Review, XVIII 3, Summer 1956, p. 348.
7Lionel Trilling, The Opposing Self (New York: Viking Press, 1955), p. 146.
interaction. Still, the difference from their first meeting in Scene Three of the first act is drastic, and Eliot has a parallel for comparison. When the missing wife returns to Edward, they have the following exchange.
Lavivia: I said. ‘I suppose you’d go to Peacehaven’ —
And you said ‘I don’t mind. ‘
Edward: Of course I didn’t mind. I meant it as a compliment.
Lavinia: You meant it as a compliment!
Edward: It’s just that way of taking things that makes you so exasperating.
Lavinia: You were so considerate, people said;
And you thought you were unselfish. It was only passivity;
You only wanted to be bolstered, encouraged. .(91-92)
The reverse of this state occurs in the beginning of Act Three. The two lovers compliment each other, and they are truly concerned for each others’ welfare. The best example of this is their plans to get away for a vacation:
“…Lavinia: The best moment is the moment it’s over;
And then to remember, it’s the end of the season
And no more parties.
Edward: …….and no more committees,
Lavinia: Can we get away soon?
Edward: By the end of the week
I shall be quite free.
Lavionia: And we can be alone. I love the house being so remote.
Edward: That’s why we took it. And I’m really thankful To have that excuse for not seeing people;
And you do need to rest now. (pp. 158-9)

The difference has been glossed over by most directors and considered inadequate by most critics. I agree that the scene does not glorify human love, but then Edward and Lavinia had a great deal to overcome. What is important is that Eliot has supplied enough in the text to make the original state of alienation and the final state of loving companionship believable. Thus, there is a true change in their relationship which finds its source in Charles Williams’s Way of Exchange and the Way of Affirmation.
Charles Williams, poet and novelist, was a contemporary of Eliot’s and was also published by Faber and Faber. As noted earlier, Eliot wrote an introduction for one of his novels. Williams’s Theology of Love was an extension of the two stories of St. John. St. John of the Cross wrote with both depth and length on the Way of Negation, but Eliot turned to Williams for an interpretation of the Way of Affirmation. Williams made one of the clearest statements as to the nature of the Two Ways in his The Descent of the Dove:
“. . . Both methods, the Affirmative Way and the Negative Way, were to co-exist; one might almost say, to co-inhere, since each was to be the key of the other: in intellect as in emotion, in morals as in doctrine. ‘Your life and your death are with your neighbour, ‘ . . . The one Way was to affirm all things orderly until the universe throbbed with vitality; the other to reject all things until there was nothing anywhere but He. The Way of Affirmation was to develop great art and romantic love and marriage and philosophy and social justice; the Way of Rejection was to break out continually in the profound mystical documents of the soul, the records of the great psychological masters of Christendom. . . .”

Within this doctrine of the Way of Affirmation, Williams asserted the Way of Substitution or Exchange. In birth, the mutual act produces New Life, but the woman must literally bear the burden. Here the labor of the woman substitutes for the labor which the father should bear equally, and both together must labor for the creation. Expanding this to relations of society, Williams writes:
“. . How then is this to be practised? By ‘bearing one another’s burdens’ interiorly as well as exteriorly; by turning of the general sympathy into something of immediate use; by a compact of substitution. It is the word ‘compact’ that is to be stressed. I am not ignorant that in many cases such a substitution will take place instinctively, by the operation of an instinctive love; a wife for a husband, a lover for a lover, a friend for a friend. . .”
Charles Williams, The Descent of the Dove (London: Longmans, Green & Co.), pp. 57-58.
41
Charles Williams, “The Way of Exchange” in Selected Writings (London: Oxford University Press, 1961), pp. 127-8.
Finally, Williams concludes “The Way of Exchange” with a description of what this doctrine implies for all men. Nowhere else have I found such a perfect statement which could serve as the promise and source of The Cocktail Party:
“. . . There arises . . . within one a first faint sense of what might be called ‘loving from within. ‘ One no longer merely loves an object; one has a sense of loving one has a sense of loving precisely from the great web in which the object and we are combined. There is, if only transitorily, a flicker of living within the beloved. Such sensations are, or are not; they are, in themselves, of no importance. But they do for a moment encourage us, and they may assist us to consider still more intensely the great co-inherence of all life. . . We can believe it happily of ourselves as regards our lovers and our friends; we can accept the idea, at least, as regards strangers; we cannot so easily as regards those of our ‘neighbours’ who are, individually or nationally, inimical to us. We feel it is an outrage that we should be intimately interrelated, physically and spiritually, to those who have offended our pride or our principles; our very physical bodies revolt against it. It is why one hears of frustrated lovers committing murder; it is why our Lord warned us that murder was in our hearts. We desire to be free from the necessity of contemplating or practising the awful truth. But the doctrine will not let us escape so. It is not for us to make a division; that power our Lord explicitly reserved for Himself. If we insist on it, we can can, in His final judgement, be separated. That is hell. . . .”
One cannot help but to notice the similarities between this and Edward’s quandary: “What is hell? Hell is oneself,
Hell is alone, the other figures in it
Merely projections. There is nothing to escape from
And nothing to escape to. One is always alone, (p. 98)

Williams points out though, that the state of substitution is the natural state while the separation is the un-natural and hellish state. Moreover, I think that this is a very important source for the play.
There are perhaps other sources to the play which
remain to be researched. Robert Heilman has dealt with the
Alcestis of Euripides, the Guardians, too, have been covered with a great deal of success by both Carol Smith and David Jones. Still, the limited purpose of this paper was to show how the Libation Scene as well as the character of Celia Coplestone found their source in the writings of St. John of the Cross. The second purpose was to show exactly how the Chamberlaynes operated in the Way of Affirmation. What remains to be done is the integration of this information into the larger questions of the purposes of comedy in the play, the dramatic structure of the play, and finally the success of the play. Moreover, future performances of the play should stress the salvation that must permeate the last Act rather than the solitude which dominates the first two. Eliot is not using drama to teach
Ibid. , p. 130.
Robert Heilman, “Alcestis and The Cocktail Party, ” in Comparative Literature, Vol. 2, Spring 1953.
or to educate, but to ignore these spiritual themes is to ignore the core content of the play. Celia is a martyr for the natives in Kinkabja, but she is also a martyr for those on stage in the last Act. Her death is the Christian triumph of Christ’s crucifixion, and in her imitation of Christ, there must be no ambiguity or hesitation. If this is not done, then the audience will be left with questions rather than the affirming answers that Eliot has supplied. For a performance of the play, belief is not needed as much as an honest and thorough understanding of both the content and the sources of the play.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Works by Eliot
The Aims of Poetic Drama, London: The Poet’s Theatre Guild, 1949.
The Cocktail Party, New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1950.
The Complete Poems and Plays, 1909-1950, New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co. , 1952.
“Condition of Man Today” in Horizon, Volume XII, #68, August 1945.
The Confidential Clerk, New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Company, 1954.
The Elder Statesman, New York: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, 1959.
Essays Ancient and Modern, London: Faber and Faber, 1949.
The Family Reunion, New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1939.
The Idea of a Christian Society, New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1940.
Murder in the Cathedral, New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, Incorporated, 1935.
Notes Towards the Definition of Culture, London: Faber and Faber, 1948.
On Poetry and Poets, New York: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy,
1957.
Poetry and Drama, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1950.
The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism, London: Faber
and Faber, 1955.

Eliot Criticism
Arnott, Peter D. , An Introduction to Greek Theatre, London: MacMillan and Company, Limited, 1959.
Arrowsmith, William, “English Verse Drama II: The Cocktail Party” in Hudson Review, Autumn, 1950.
Braybrooke, Neville, Editor, T_. S_. Eliot, Symposium for his Seventieth Birthday, New York: Farrar, Straus, and
Cudahy, 1958.
Brooks, Cleanth, The Hidden God, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1963.
Browne, Martin E. , “From the Rock to the Confidential Clerk, ” in T_. S. Eliot edited by Neville Braybrooke, 1958.
Donoghue, Denis, The Third Voice, Princeton, N. J. : Princeton University Press, 1959.
Frye, Northrope, T. S. Eliot, New York: Grove Press, 1963.
Gardner, Helen, The Art of T. S. Eliot, London: The Cresset
Press, 1949.
“The Comedies of T. S. Eliot, ” in T_. S. Eliot edited by Allan Tate.
Harding, D. W. , “Progression of Theme in Eliot’s Modern Plays,” in Kenyon Review, Volume XVIII 3, Summer, 1956.
Heilman, Robert B. , “Alcestis and The Cocktail Party, ” in Comparative Literature, Volume V, 2, Spring 1953.
Jones, David E. , The Plays of T. S. Eliot, London: Routledge and K. Paul, 1961. ~
Kenner, Hugh, Editor, T_. S. Eliot, A Collection of Critical
Essays, Englewood Cliffs, N. J. : Prentice-Hall, 1962.
Matthiessen, F. O. , The Achievement of T. S. Eliot, London: Oxford University Press, 1958.
Maxwell, D. E. S. , The Poetry of T_. S. Eliot, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1952.
Paul, David, “Euripides and Mr. Eliot” in Twentieth Century, Volume CLII, no. 106, August, 1952.
Smith, Carol H. , T_. S. Eliot’s Dramatic Theory and Practice, Princeton, N. J. : Princeton University Press, 1963.
Tambimuttu, and Richard March, T. S. Eliot, A Symposium. . . , New York: Tambiuttu and Mass, 1965.
Tate, Allen, Th S. Eliot, The Man and His Work, New York: Delacorte Press, 1966.
Thompson, Eric, The Metaphysical Perspective, Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1963.
Trilling, Lionel, The Opposing Self, New York: Viking Press, 1955.
Wimsatt, W. K. , “Eliot’s Comedy, ” Sewanee Review, #58, 1950.

Works by Charles Williams
All Hallow’s Eve, New York: Pellegrini and Cudahy, 1948.
Descent into Hell, New York: Pelligrini and Cudahy, 1949.
The Descent of the Dove, London: Longmans, Green and Company, 1939.
Poetry at Present, Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1931.
Reason and Beauty in the Poetic Mind, Oxford, The Clarendon Press, 1933.
Selected Writings, chosen by Anne Ridler, London: Oxford University Press, 1961.

Criticism of Williams
Heath-Stubbs, John, Charles Williams, London: Longmans,
Green, and Company, 1955.
Shideler, Mary M. , The Theology of Romantic Love, New York: Harper and Brothers, 1962.

Works by St. John of the Cross
The Ascent of Mount Carmel, translated by David Lewis, London: Thomas Baker, 1906.
The Complete Works of Saint John of the Cross, Three Volumes, translated by Allison E. Peers, London: Burns, Oates and Washbourne, 1934.
The Dark Night of the Soul, translated by R. P. Gerado de San Juan de la Cruz, London: Thomas Baler, 1916.
Vida y obras de San Juan de la Cruz, Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1946.
Poems, translated by Roy Campbell, Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1968.

Criticism of St. John
Dicken, Trueman, The Crucible of Love, N. Y. : Sheed and Ward, 1963.
Frost, Bede, Saint John of the Cross, N. Y. : Harper and Bro
thers, 1937.
George, Robert E. G. , Carmelite and Poet, New York: The Mac Millan Company, 1944.
Jesus, Crisogono de, The Life of St. John of the Cross, London: Longmans, 19 58.
Peers, Allison, Spirit of Flame, London: Student Christian
Movement Press, Ltd. , 1945