The Elder Statesman is a three-act verse drama by T. S. Eliot, written and rewritten in 1955-58, first produced at the Edinburgh Festival on 25 August 1958 and published in April 1959. This was the last of his verse plays, and is often the least highly regarded. The text described and cited in this article is that of T. S. Eliot’s Collected Plays (1962).
The three acts of the play are set in (i) the drawing-room of the just-retired politician and banker Lord Claverton’s London house, one afternoon; (ii) the terrace of a country nursing home on a sunny morning, several days later; and (iii) the same terrace on the following afternoon.
The curtain rises on Lord Claverton’s daughter …
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Citation: Baker, William. "The Elder Statesman". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 23 March 2021 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=981, accessed 24 November 2024.]
