Sweeney Agonistes

Sweeney Agonistes, poetic drama in two scenes by T.S. Eliot, published in two parts in the New Criterion, as “Fragment of a Prologue” (October 1926) and “Fragment of an Agon” (January 1927), and together in book form as Sweeney Agonistes: Fragments of an Aristophanic Melodrama (1932). Although not originally intended for performance, the uncompleted experimental play was first produced at Vassar College (1933). Cast in a music hall format that interspersed scenes with songs, Sweeney Agonistes comments on the meaninglessness of contemporary life and the pettiness and sinfulness of humanity.