T. S. Eliot

Thomas Stearns Eliot, OM (September 26, 1888 – January 4, 1965) was an Anglo-American poet, dramatist, and literary critic, whose works like The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, The Waste Land and Four Quartets, are considered major achievements of twentieth-century Modernism.

Literary career

Eliot made his life and literary career in Britain. After the war, in the 1920s, he would spend time with other great artists in the Montparnasse Quarter in Paris where he was photographed by Man Ray. He dabbled in the study of Sanskrit and eastern religions and was a student of G. I. Gurdjieff.

Related Topics:
Britain - 1920s - Montparnasse - Paris - Man Ray - Sanskrit - G. I. Gurdjieff

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Poetry

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

In 1915, Ezra Pound, then the overseas editor of Poetry magazine, recommended to Harriet Monroe, the magazine's founder, that she publish "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock". Although Prufrock is of decided late middle-age, Eliot wrote most of the poem when he was only 22.

Related Topics:
Ezra Pound - ''Poetry'' magazine - The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

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Its mainstream reception can be gauged from a review by F. Dalton in The Times Literary Supplement, 31 June 1917:

Related Topics:
The Times Literary Supplement - 1917

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"The fact that these things occurred to the mind of Mr. Eliot is surely of the very smallest importance to anyone – even to himself. They certainly have no relation to 'poetry'..."

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Its now-famous opening lines with a comparison of the evening sky to "a patient etherised upon a table" were particularly shocking and offensive at a time when the poetry of the Georgians was hailed for its weak derivations of the nineteenth century Romantic Poets.

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The Waste Land

In October 1922, Eliot published the long poem The Waste Land in The Criterion. Composed during a period of personal difficulty for Eliot—his marriage was foundering, and both he and Vivienne suffered from precarious health—The Waste Land became one of the principal examples of a new trend in English poetry and came to represent the disillusionment of the post-World War I generation. Even before The Waste Land had been published as a book (December 1922), Eliot had distanced himself from the poem's vision of despair; "As for The Waste Land, that is a thing of the past so far as I am concerned and I am now feeling toward a new form and style" he wrote to Richard Aldington on November 15, 1922.

Related Topics:
1922 - The Waste Land - Richard Aldington - November 15

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Despite the alleged obscurity of the poem—its slippage between satire and prophecy; its abrupt changes of speaker, location, and time; its elegiac but intimidating summoning up of a vast and dissonant range of cultures and literatures—, it has become a familiar touchstone of modern literature. Among its famous phrases are "April is the cruellest month"; "I will show you fear in a handful of dust"; and "Shantih shantih shantih."

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Eliot's work was hailed by the W.H. Auden generation of 1930s poets. On one occasion Auden read out loud the whole of The Waste Land to a social gathering.

Related Topics:
W.H. Auden - 1930s

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The publication of the draft manuscript of the poem in 1972 showed the strong influence of Ezra Pound upon its final form, prior to which Part I had been titled "He Do the Police in Different Voices". Part IV "Death by Water" was reduced to its current ten lines from an original ninety-two. Pound advised against Eliot's thought of scrapping it altogether. Eliot thanked Pound for "helping one to do it in one's own way."

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Religious Conversion

Eliot's work, following his religious conversion, is sometimes religious in nature, but it also attempts to preserve historical English values that Eliot thought important. In 1928, Eliot summarised his beliefs well when he wrote in the preface to his book For Lancelot Andrewes that "The general point of view may be described as classicist in literature, royalist in politics, and anglo-catholic in religion." This period includes such works as Ash Wednesday, The Journey of the Magi, and Four Quartets.

Related Topics:
1928 - Essay - Classicist - Literature - Royalist - Politics - Anglo-catholic - Religion - Ash Wednesday - The Journey of the Magi - Four Quartets

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Four Quartets

Eliot considered Four Quartets his masterpiece, as it draws upon his knowledge of mysticism and philosophy. It consists of four long poems, initially published separately: "Burnt Norton" (1936), "East Coker" (1940), "The Dry Salvages" (1941) and "Little Gidding" (1942), each in five sections. Although they resist easy characterisation, they have many things in common: each begins with a rumination on the geographical location of its title, and each meditates on the nature of time in some important respect—theological, historical, physical, and on its relation to the human condition. Also, each is associated with one of the four classical elements: air, earth, water, and fire. A reflective early reading suggests an inexact systematicity among them; they approach the same ideas in varying but overlapping ways, although they do not necessarily exhaust their questions.

Related Topics:
Four Quartets - Mysticism - Philosophy - 1936 - 1940 - 1941 - 1942 - Classical elements

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"Burnt Norton" asks what it means to consider things that aren't the case but might have been. We see the shell of an abandoned house, and Eliot toys with the idea that all these "merely possible" realities are present together, but invisible to us: All the possible ways people might walk across a courtyard add up to a vast dance we can't see; children who aren't there are hiding in the bushes.

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"East Coker" continues the examination of time and meaning, focusing in a famous passage on the nature of language and poetry. There is a sense of bitterness and loss, where the world is compared in a Shakespearian fashion to a stage. Out of darkness Eliot continues to reassert a solution ("I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope").

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"The Dry Salvages" treats the element of water, via images of river and sea. Its sections are less distinctive and its lines less memorable than the other Quartets. It again strives to contain opposites ("...the past and future/Are conquered, and reconciled").

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"Little Gidding" (the element of fire) stands out as the tour de force and most anthologised of the individual Quartets. Eliot's own experiences as an air raid warden in the Blitz, empower the poem, and he imagines meeting Dante during the German bombing. The beginning of the Quartets ("Houses.../Are removed, destroyed") had become a violent everday experience; this creates an animation, where for the first time he talks of Love - as the driving force behind all experience. From this background, the Quartets end with the triumphant affirmation of Mother Julian of Norwich "all shall be well and/All manner of things shall be well".

Related Topics:
Blitz - Dante - Mother Julian of Norwich

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Plays

Eliot's plays, mostly in verse, include "Sweeney Agonistes" (1925), Murder in the Cathedral (1935), The Family Reunion (1939), The Cocktail Party (1950), The Confidential Clerk (1953) and The Elder Statesman (1958).

Related Topics:
Sweeney Agonistes - 1925 - Murder in the Cathedral - 1935 - The Family Reunion - 1939 - The Cocktail Party - 1950 - The Confidential Clerk - 1953 - The Elder Statesman - 1958

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Murder in the Cathedral is about the death of Thomas a Becket. Eliot confessed to being influenced by, among others, the works of 17th century preacher, Lancelot Andrewes.

Related Topics:
Murder in the Cathedral - Thomas a Becket - 17th century - Lancelot Andrewes

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Critical writing

Eliot is also known for his critical and theoretical writing, particularly for his advocacy of the "objective correlative", the notion that art should not be a personal expression, but should work through objective universal symbols. There is, however, evidence throughout his work of contrary practice (e.g. part II of "The Waste Land" in the section beginning "My nerves are bad tonight.")

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Other works

He was appointed to the committee formed to produce the "New English" translation of the Bible. In 1939, he published a book of poetry for children, Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats ? "Old Possum" being a name Pound had bestowed upon him. After his death, this work became the basis of the hit West End and Broadway musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber, Cats.

Related Topics:
New English - Bible - 1939 - Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats - West End - Broadway - Musical - Andrew Lloyd Webber - Cats

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