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Biography (1888-1965)
One of the most influential poets of all time, considered "the" modernist poet of the twentieth century, Thomas Stearns Eliot was born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1888. His parents, Henry Ware and Charlotte Stearns Eliot, were transplanted Northeasterners whose roots could be traced back to the earliest New England families. T.S. Eliot’s early career was spent in academia. A brilliant and precocious student, he completed his undergraduate studies at Harvard in three years, his Masters in a year, while also contributing several poems to the Harvard Advocate. It was at Harvard that Eliot first began the poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", that would establish his position as the preeminent modernist poet of the post-World War I period. After a year in Paris studying at the Sorbonne (1910-1911), Eliot returned to Harvard to begin his doctoral work in philosophy. Upon completion of his dissertation, a treatment of the philosopher Francis Herbert Bradley, Eliot returned to Europe, traveling in Germany and later taking up residence in Oxford, England. The outbreak of World War I prevented him from returning to the United States. Eliot spent the rest of his career in England, becoming an English citizen in 1927. In 1915 Eliot married Vivienne Haigh-Wood and together they moved to London. From 1915 to 1922 Eliot worked at various jobs including teacher, bank clerk and book reviewer, all the while publishing reviews and essays in various publications including the Egoist (where he was assistant editor, 1917-1919), and The Dial. Eliot’s first marriage was unhappy and he and his wife separated in 1933. In 1956 he remarried Valerie Fletcher. An important influence on the creative development of T.S. Eliot was Ezra Pound, fellow expatriate and friend. Pound was an early and perceptive editor as well as champion of Eliot’s work. It was through the support of Pound that "Prufrock" was published in Poetry in 1915 and "Preludes" in Blast that same year. With the publication in 1917 of Prufrock and Other Observations Eliot’s reputation as a brilliant and imaginative poet soared. In 1921 Eliot began work on the epic poem "The Wasteland", completing it in 1922. The same year he founded The Criterion, an influential literary journal that he would edit for the next seventeen years. "The Wasteland" first appeared in The Criterion in England and in The Dial in America. Like "Prufrock" before it, "The Wasteland" has as its central theme the emptiness of modern society, a pervasive spiritual malaise in the wake of the horrors of World War I. Eliot became a literary figure of enormous influence and stature. His innovative work as a poet and insight as a critic would influence generations after him. In 1948 Eliot was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for The Love Songs of J. Alfred Prufrock. T.S. Eliot died in London in 1965. Chronology
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