Thomas Stearns Eliot the most influential pioneer among the modern poets was born in St Louis, Missouri, U. S. A. His grandfather had founded Washington University. His parents were strict, religious, and literary. After his basic education at St Louis, Eliot entered Harvard University and studied literature and philosophy. While he was there he wrote for college magazines.
After receiving his Master’s degree in 1910 he studied at Oxford University, England, and at Sorbonne University, France, successively.
Eliot moved permanently to England in 1915 and became a British citizen seven years later. Yet he remained American in many ways. He sometimes signed his name Thomas Missouri Eliot and he loved American comic strips and movies of the famous Marx brothers. Marrying in 1915 Eliot eventually became a partner in a publishing house. Earlier he worked as a teacher and a bank officer.
T. S. Eliot’s early poems capture the alienation and spiritual bankruptcy felt by many writers of his day. He returned frequently to these matters in his first volume of poetry, ‘Prufrock and Other Observations’ (1917) as well as in his later works, ‘The Waste Land’ (1922) and ‘The Hollow Men’ (1925).
After these works Eliot’s poetry began to show the stirrings of religious faith. The poem ‘Ash Wednesday’ (1930) written soon after his conversion to the Church of England, portrays his climb from despair to hope and from disillusionment to belief. In his masterpiece ‘The Four Quartets’ (1943) he affirms his spiritual values in the midst of the World War II.
Eliot’s poems are known for their concrete images, irregular rhythms, shifting moods and ‘patchwork’ presentation of religious, historical, mythological and literary references. His poetry also mixes elevated language with slang and colloquial expressions.
Eliot believed that poetry should not state emotions directly. Rather the poet should select images that trigger these emotions in the reader. According to his theory of art, the poet’s personal emotions are of no artistic worth in themselves. What matters is the art that reworks these emotions into universal patterns and symbols.
In 1948 T. S. Eliot was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, becoming the first American-born poet to be so honoured. However Eliot found success with other forms of writing besides poetry.
He published influential literary criticism, and wrote poetic dramas. Among his best-known plays are ‘Murder in the Cathedral’ (1935), ‘The Family Reunion’ (1939) and ‘The Cocktail Party’ (1950).
Poems written by T. S. Eliot :-
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
Prufrock and Other Observations
Poems
The Waste Land
Ash Wednesday
Four Quartets
Plays :-
The Rock
Murder in the Cathedral
The Family Reunion
The Cocktail Party
The Confidential Clerk
The Elder Statesman
Literary Criticism :-
The use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism
Elizabethan Essays
Essays Ancient and Modern
What is a Classic?
Social and ethical criticism :-
The Idea of a Christian Society
Notes Towards a Definition of Culture
T. S. Eliot passed away in 1969 in London after a brief illness.
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