T. S. (Thomas Sterns) Eliot - (1888-1965)
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By James Davis, Josh OrdBelleville Township High School East
Belleville Illinois
I. Biography
Thomas Sterns Eliot was born September 26, 1888 in St. Louis, Missouri. His mother was a poet and his father was a businessman. William Greenleaf Eliot, his
grandfather, founded Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. His family line can even be traced back to the earliest settlers in the New England region.
Eliot's early education mirrored his family's prestigious history. Eliot began his education by going to Smith Academy, a grammar school in St. Louis, and later he went to Milton
Academy, a secondary school in Massachusetts. Later he enrolled at Harvard University and finished his bachelor degree in only three years. While at Harvard, Eliot was editor for the Harvard Advocate
. After Harvard he continued his education at Sorbonne in Paris and Oxford University in England. During those times he wrote his first major works: "The
Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" his "Preludes," and "Rhapsody on a Windy Night." During his stay in England, Eliot fell in love with Vivian Haigh-Wood. He decided to
remain in England because of the love of Vivian and the land. He would spend most of his life in England with occasional visits to the U.S. where he would teach at both Princeton
and the University of Chicago. In 1915, Eliot became a resident of London and married Vivian Haigh-Wood. Eliot would renounce his U.S. citizenship and become a naturalized British citizen in 1927.
In 1935, Eliot and Haigh-Wood's marriage deteriorated due to her mental instability. The union ended in divorce, but Eliot took her to a mental hospital and would visit her until her death in 1945.
In 1947, Eliot won the Order of Merit, the Nobel Prize for literature in 1948. He would win the Hanseatic Goethe Prize in 1955 and the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964.
Eliot remarried his assistant Valerie Fletcher in 1957. Both were happy with the marriage and stayed together until his death in 1965. II. Literary Works Poetry 1920: "Gerontion" 1922: The Wasteland 1935-1942: Four Quartets 1927-1954: Ariel Poems 1939:
Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats Plays Nonfiction Works
III. Inspirations Eliot's poetry shows a mix of humor and pessimism. His writing tends to be a reflection of his childhood and youth. His poems have no fixed verse forms or patterns, and uses
rhymes used rarely. IV. Related Link Winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature
1910: "Spleen"
1917: "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"
"Portrait of a Lady"
"Preludes"
"Rhapsody on a Windy Night"
"Morning at the Window"
"The Boston Evening Transcript"
"Aunt Helen"
"Cousin Nancy"
"Mr. Apollinax"
"Hysteria"
"Conversation Galante"
"La Figlia che Piange"
"Burbank with a Baedeker: Bleistein with a Cigar"
"Sweeney Erect"
"A Cooking Egg"
"Le Directeur"
"Mélange Adultère de Tout"
"Lune de Miel"
"The Hippopotamus"
"Dans le Restaurant"
"Whispers of Immortality"
"Mr. Eliot's Sunday Morning Service"
"Sweeney Among the Nightingales"
1925: "The Hollow Men"
1930: "Ash Wednesday"
1931: "Coriolan"
1932: "Sweeney Agonistes"
1934: "The Rock"
"Burnt Nortan"-1935
"East Coker"-1940
"The Dry Salvages"-1941
"Little Gidding"-1942
"Journey of the Magi"-1927
"A Song for Simeon"-1928
"Animula"-1929
"Marina"-1930
"The Cultivation of Christmas Trees"-1954
1935: Murder in the Cathedral
1939: The Family Reunion
1949: The Cocktail Party
1954: The Confidential Clerk
1958:
The Elder Statesman
1920: The Sacred Wood
1920: The Second-Order Mind
1924: Homage to John Dryden
1928: Shakespeare and the Stoicism of Seneca
1928: For Lancelot Andrewes
1933: The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism
1934: After Strange Gods
1934: Elizabethan Essays
1936: Essays Ancient and Modern
1940:
The Idea of a Christian Society
1948: Notes Toward a Definition of Culture
1951: Poetry and Drama
1954: The Three Voices of Poetry
1957: On Poetry and Poets
V. Audio Readings The Wastelands, a reading in parts by T.S. Eliot
http://www.usask.ca/english/prufrock/prustart.htm
VI. Sources Barnette, Paul J. T.S. Eliot Biography [online] Boros, Scott. T.S. Eliot Shrine [online] The Life of T.S. Eliot [online]
Thomas Sterns (T.S.) Eliot- American Poet and Playwright [online] What the Thunder Said: Works by T.S. Eliot [online] This essay was submitted by students of Kimberly Richey, an English teacher at Belleville Township High School East, in Illinois.
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