Thomas Stearns Eliot Essay, Research Paper

T.S. Eliot

Thomas Stearns Eliot was born to a really distinguished New England household on September 26, 1888, in St. Louis, Missouri. His male parent, Henry Ware, was a really successful man of affairs and his female parent, Charlotte Stearns Eliot, was a poetess. His paternal gramps established and presided over Washington University. While sing Great Britain in 1915, World War I started and Eliot took up a lasting residence at that place. In 1927, he became a British citizen. While populating in Britain, Eliot met and married Vivienne Haigh-Wood and at first everything was fantastic between them. Then he found out that Vivienne was really sick, both physically and mentally. In 1930, Vivienne had a mental dislocation and was confined to a mental infirmary until her decease in 1947. Her decease was really difficult on Eliot and he died on January 4, 1965. Most of Eliot? s plants were produced from the emotional troubles from his matrimony.

Because of Eliot? s economic position, he attended merely the finest schools while turning up. He attended Smith Academy in St. Louis and Milton Academy in Massachusetts. In 1906, he started his first-year twelvemonth at Harvard University analyzing doctrine and literature. He received his unmarried man? s grade in doctrine in merely three old ages. Eliot went on to analyze at the University of Oxford and besides at the Sorbonne in

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Paris. At the Sorbonne, he found inspiration from authors such as Dante and Shakespeare and besides from ancient literature, modern doctrine and Eastern mysticism.

T. S. Eliot? s foremost verse form was The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock written in 1915. It is widely recognized as one of Eliot? s most superb verse forms. J. C. C. Mays claims that, & # 8220 ; It is one of his most accessible verse forms since it structurally takes fewer hazards than some of his ulterior verse forms. The tone of attempt and futility of attempt is cardinal in Eliot? s poems & # 8221 ; ( Mays 111 ) .

Another verse form, The Waste Land was written in 1922 and it contrasts modern society with societies of the yesteryear. & # 8220 ; The premise of the fabulous method is that our civilization and linguistic communication one time had a permeant meaningfulness which has been lost in our progressively rational and discontinuous society, but by retrieving the lost myth from within our civilization, poets can reconstruct mythic integrity to literature & # 8221 ; ( Leavell 146 ) .

Eliot converted his faith to Anglo & # 8211 ; Catholicism and in 1927, his poesy took on new religious significance. Ash Wednesday was the first verse form he wrote after his transition. It was written in 1930. It is said that it traces the form of Eliot? s religious advancement. It strives to do degree Celsius

onnections between the earthly and the ageless, the word of adult male and the Word of God and the accent is on the battle toward belief. “Eliot develops independently and begins instantly in all of his plants. Ash Wednesday takes topographic point in a universe which is all meaningless, and yet is a supplication directed toward the space, toward a kingdom that is finally unknowable” ( Leavell 152 ) .

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In the verse form, A Song for Simeon, a adult male sees the Embodiment after his birth. After seeing this, the adult male wishes merely for decease because he feels now that he is free from wickedness. In this verse form, Eliot used images of Jesus? life such as: the crucifixion, Roman soldiers, and Judas? treachery of Jesus. I think Eliot used these images because of how of import Jesus? life and decease are to everyone in the Christian religion. & # 8220 ; A Song for Simeon is an basically interior soliloquy with the repeat of his supplication for peace, limbo, and decease & # 8221 ; ( Brooker 101 ) .

Other verse forms Eliot has written are: Portrait of a Lady ( 1915 ) , Mr. Apollinax ( 1916 ) , Sweeny Among the Nightingales ( 1918 ) , and Four Quartets ( 1943 ) which he believed to be his greatest accomplishment. Eliot besides wrote the drama & # 8220 ; Murder in the Cathedral & # 8221 ; ( 1935 ) . It was about the slaying of Thomas Becket and was subsequently turned into a movie in 1952. Other dramas written by Eliot are: & # 8220 ; The Family Reunion & # 8221 ; ( 1939 ) , & # 8220 ; The Cocktail Party & # 8221 ; ( 1949 ) , & # 8220 ; The Confidential Clerk & # 8221 ; ( 1953 ) , and & # 8220 ; The Elder Statesman & # 8221 ; ( 1959 ) . & # 8220 ; Thomas Stearns Eliot has been considered by many to be the prima American poet of this century. His verse form The Waste Land is a summing up of the disenchantment and atomization that was felt by so many people following the first World War. It contained many poetic techniques that changed the face of modern poesy & # 8221 ; ( Costa 96 ) . Eliot is considered one of the greatest poets and every bit one of the greatest critics to of all time populate even though many were put off by his personality. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1948 and the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964.

Brooker, Jewel Spears. Wordss in Time: New Essays on Eliot? s Four Fours.

London: Athlone, 1993.

Costa, Marco. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Fourth edition volume 2.

Norton Company Inc. 1994.

Leavell, Linda. T.S. Eliot: Essaies from the Southern Review. Oxford: Claredon, 1988.

Say hey kids, J. C. C. & # 8220 ; Early Poems: From? Prufrock? to? Gerontion? . & # 8221 ; The Cambridge

Companion to T.S. Eliot. Ed. A. David Moody. Cambridge: Cambridge UP,

1994. 108 & # 8211 ; 120.

1996 Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia. Copyright 1996 Grolier Interactive, Inc.