Thomas Stearns Eliot

Thomas Stearns Eliot was born on September 26, 1888 in St. Louis, Missouri, to a prominent Boston Brahmin family. He was the youngest of six children and had a congenital double inguinal hernia that limited his physical activities. He developed a love for literature and languages at an early age and was influenced by his mother's poetry and his father's business acumen. He attended Harvard University and graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1909 and a master's degree in 1910. He also studied philosophy at the Sorbonne in Paris and at Merton College, Oxford. In 1914, he moved to England and met Ezra Pound, who became his mentor and friend. He also married Vivienne Haigh-Wood, a British socialite who suffered from mental and physical illnesses. Their marriage was unhappy and they separated in 1933. Vivienne died in a mental hospital in 1947. Eliot became a British citizen in 1927 and renounced his American passport. He also converted to Anglicanism and joined the Church of England. Eliot began his literary career as a poet and an essayist. He published his first poem, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", in 1915, which was considered innovative and unconventional for its use of stream of consciousness, irony, and imagery. He followed it with "The Waste Land" in 1922, which is widely regarded as one of the most important poems of the 20th century. It depicts the disillusionment and fragmentation of modern society after World War I through a collage of voices, languages, and references. He also wrote "The Hollow Men" (1925), "Ash Wednesday" (1930), and "Four Quartets" (1943), which explore themes such as spirituality, history, culture, and time. Eliot was also a prolific critic and editor. He founded The Criterion, a literary magazine that published works by contemporary writers such as James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, D.H. Lawrence, and W.B. Yeats. He also wrote influential essays on topics such as poetry, drama, religion, culture, and tradition. He championed the works of poets such as John Donne, Dante Alighieri, William Shakespeare, and Charles Baudelaire. He also criticized the Romantic poets such as William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge for their excessive emotionality and individualism. Eliot also ventured into drama and wrote seven plays that were performed on stage or radio. His most famous plays are "Murder in the Cathedral" (1935), which dramatizes the assassination of Archbishop Thomas Becket by King Henry II's knights; "The Family Reunion" (1939), which is inspired by the Greek tragedy of Orestes; "The Cocktail Party" (1949), which is a comedy of manners that explores the themes of guilt, forgiveness, and conversion; and "The Confidential Clerk" (1953), which is a satire on social class and identity. Eliot received many honors and awards for his literary achievements. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948, "for his outstanding, pioneer contribution to present-day poetry". He also received the Order of Merit, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the British Academy's Gold Medal. He was also offered a burial place in Westminster Abbey, but he declined and chose to be buried in the village church of East Coker, the ancestral home of his family. Eliot was a remarkable poet, critic, and dramatist who shaped the course of modern literature and culture. He was a master of language, style, and form who created works that challenged and enriched the readers and audiences. He was also a man of faith, tradition, and intellect who sought to understand and express the human condition in all its complexity and mystery.