The Life of Thomas Stearns Eliot

1173 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Shakespeare's influence on Elizabethan era

Thomas Stearns Eliot, also known as T.S. Eliot , was an extraordinarily influential poet and playwright who captured the true essence of his modern day society, and brought it to life through his various works. He believed that ``poetry should aim to represent the the complexities of modern civilization.`` (Noble Media 1) Through his momentous, yet classical arrays of literary art, T.S. Eliot`s masterpieces are fine examples of an author`s ability to successfully relate to the circumstances and productivities around him. As a citizen who lived during the Elizabethan Era, Eliot`s pieces symbolize the Golden Age of dramas and fine arts that arose from this period of time.

T.S. Eliot`s early life and childhood heavily anchored his decision to eventually become notary writer. Eliot was born on September 26, 1888 in St. Louis, Missouri. T.S. Eliot was the youngest of seven children to New Englanders Henry Ware Eliot and Charlotte Champe Stearns Eliot. As a result of having congenital double hernia,T.S. Eliot was raised under the special care of his mother and nurse, and luckily, grew up during the wealthy generation of his family. His father had become a successful businessman at the time of his birth, and his mother was a schoolteacher.

As a result of his family`s valued fortune, Eliot, later on in his life, enjoyed the luxuries of a prestigious lifestyle and education. As a young child, he was heavily exposed to diverse cultures and loved to explore. It is even said of him that ``T.S. knew both the city`s muddy streets, as well as its exclusive drawing rooms.`` (Bush 1)

T.S.`s parents owned several properties; the most prominent ones were located in Boston, Massachusetts, along the New England coast. As a part o...

... middle of paper ...

...erspective. Today, his works are also not merely used for classic pleasure, but as literary and figurative examples of how a person can capture the true essence of his or her society.

Bibliographies:

Bush, Ronald. ``T.S. Eliot`s Life and Career. Oxford

University Press, 1999. Web. 02 Apr. 2014.

Kerley,Gary. ``Eliot`s Letters, 1898 - 1925: A Review.``

Yeats Eliot Review 29.3 - 4 (2012): 25+. Questia

School. Web. 03 Apr. 2014.

``T.S. Eliot - Biographical``. Nobleprize.org. Nobel Media

AB 2013. Web. 03 Apr. 2014.

Shuman, R. Baird, ed. Great American Writers: Twentieth Century. Vol. 4. New York: Marshall Cavendish, 2002. Questia School. Web. 3 Apr. 2014.

Maxwell, D. E. S. The Poetry of T. S. Eliot. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1960. Questia School. Web. 29 Apr. 2014.

Show More
Related

  • TS Eliot paper

    1024 Words  | 3 Pages

    (T.S. Eliot Quotes.) TS Eliot was not only a poet, but a poet that wanted to change his world. He was writing in the hopes that it would give his society a reality check that would encourage them to change themselves and make their lives more worthwhile. Through his themes of alienation, isolation, and giving an example of a decaying society, TS Eliot wanted to change his society.

    Read More

  • Old Leisure - Literary Devices

    689 Words  | 2 Pages

    History has seen advancements in technology, philosophy, and industry, all of which radically changed the lives of those witnessing such developments. Slower, more relaxed lifestyles have given way to lifestyles of a faster paced nature. George Eliot describes her preference for the leisure of the past, conveying the message that the rushed leisure of her time is hardly leisure at all. She accomplishes this by using several stylistic devices, including personification, imagery, and diction.

    Read More

  • A Comparison Of Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne, And Edgar Allan Poe

    1201 Words  | 3 Pages

    When a writer starts his work, most often than not, they think of ways they can catch their reader’s attention, but more importantly, how to awake emotions within them. They want to stand out from the rest and to do so, they must swim against the social trend that marks a specific society. That will make them significant; the way they write, how they make a reader feel, the specific way they write, and the devotion they have for their work. Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Edgard Allan Poe influenced significantly the American literary canon with their styles, themes, and forms, making them three important writers in America.

    Read More

  • T.S. Elliot’s Personal Poem

    656 Words  | 2 Pages

    Thomas Stearns Eliot was perhaps one of the most critical writers in the English language’s history. Youngest of seven children and born to the owner of a Brick Company, he wasn’t exactly bathed in poverty at all. Once he graduated from Harvard, he went on to found the Unitarian church of St. Luis. Soon after, Eliot became more serious about literature. As previously stated, his literature works were possibly some of the most famous in history. Dr. Tim McGee of Worland High School said that he would be the richest writer in history if he was still alive, and I have no choice but to believe him. In the past week many of his works have been observed in my English literature class. Of Thomas Stearns Eliot’s poems Preludes, The Journey of the Magi, The Hollow Men, The Waste Land, and Four Quartets, I personally find his poem The Hollow men to be the most relatable because of its musical allusions, use of inclusive language, and his opinion on society.

    Read More

  • The Poetry of T.S. Elliot

    1660 Words  | 4 Pages

    Who is the magnificent Thomas Stearns Eliot or T.S Eliot for short? Besides the fact that he was long distant family to former presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams, he was an incredible poet. Eliot had come out the womb writing in September 23, 1888 in the small city of St. Louis, Missouri (Murphy 3). You can call him “the man who virtually invented the idea of separating the poet from the poem and the life and times from work has been subjected to more analysis and interpretation” (Murphy 3). His mother Charlotte influenced him due to the fact that,” she was a school teacher” and always was teaching students (Murphy 3). T.S Eliot grew up in a well-active community along the Mississippi River which “shaped Eliot’s poetry and acute sense of place” (Murphy 3). Thomas being so active and known widely throughout is community gave him a push towards writing poetry. He studied at Harvard University and majored in Sanskrit. The Letters of T.S Eliot was amongst the greatest literary successes he had. He had done numerous of poems, plays and wrote skits. Like they say good things must come to an end, T.S Eliot was pronounced dead on January 4, 1955 due to Emphysema.

    Read More

  • The Pitiful Prufrock of The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

    1314 Words  | 3 Pages

    T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 6th ed. Vol. 2. ed. M. H. Abrams New York, London: Norton, 1993.

    Read More

  • Renewal in Yeats' Second Coming and Eliot's Journey of the Magi

    2424 Words  | 5 Pages

    Williamson, George. A Reader's Guide to T.S. Eliot; a Poem by Poem Analysis. New York:

    Read More

  • Analysis Of T. S. Eliot Vs. Wallace Stevens

    1780 Words  | 4 Pages

    During T. S. Eliot’s time many of his contemporaries including himself were in the custom of alluding to classic works of poetry. They incorporated references to notable texts like Dante. Eliot especially is a main perpetrator of alluding. Eliot has the ability create a picture for the reader and provide historical context to his works. A contemporary of Eliot, Pound, once said you should try to “be influenced by as many great artists as [they] can” (Pound 95). Eliot is following what Pound said by incorporating allusions in his works.

    Read More

  • The Second Coming a Poem by W.B. Yeats

    1871 Words  | 4 Pages

    ...s, Colleen. The love song of T.S. Eliot: elegiac homoeroticism in the early poetry. Gender, Desire, and Sexuality in T. S. Eliot. Ed. Cassandra Laity. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2004. p. 20

    Read More

  • Essay Comparing Eliot’s Parody and Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra

    1143 Words  | 3 Pages

    Other images of Eliot’s, in contrast, are much larger than Shakespeare, but again succeed in making Eliot’s character look small and insignificant in comparison. Eliot describes the enormous amount of adornments around the room, including her ‘vials of ivory and coloured glass’, which contain many perfumes, which are described as ‘drowning the sense in odours’ and again it is the lack of subtlety t...

    Read More

  • T.S. Eliot's Writing Style and Use of Symbolism

    798 Words  | 2 Pages

    T.S. Eliot was a poet, dramatist and he was also a literary critic. “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” and “The...

    Read More

  • Psychoanalytic Criticism In The Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock

    881 Words  | 2 Pages

    T.S. Eliot is often considered one of the greatest and most influential poets of the 20th Century. Not only were his highly regarded poems such as “The Wasteland” and “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” influential to the literary style of his time, but his work as a publisher highlighted the work of many talented poets. Analyzing his poem, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” with psychoanalytic criticism reveals several core issues in the speaker of the poem, and may reflect Eliot himself.

    Read More

  • qweqweqwe

    1816 Words  | 4 Pages

    In T.S Eliot's poem, Portrait of a Lady, he gives a glimpse into the upper class of post war society- something rather dispirited and forlorn. It is filled with people from the higher social standings and they are as soulless and empty as the lady in the poem. The upper class was also represented by the main character himself, who is truly unable to connect as a whole to his surroundings. He initially describes the world in the poem as dark, covered in smoke and haze – the scene that is in and of itself a mere half life, the individuality of the characters already swallowed by the abyss of ritual that has devoid of meaning. The truly shocking part that links this poem to the author’s previous poems is the underlying brokenness and the soullessness that the characters seem to inhabit. The main character of t...

    Read More

  • The Life Of The Hollow Man By T. S. Eliot

    1492 Words  | 3 Pages

    Faced with a world lacking variety, viewpoints, vibrancy, and virtue- a world without life- a fearful and insecure T.S. Eliot found himself the only one who realized all of civilization had been reduced to a single stereotype. Eliot (1888-1965) grew up as an outsider. Born with a double hernia, he was always distinguished from his peers, but translated his disability into a love of nature. He developed a respect for religion as well as an importance for the well-being of others from his grandfather at a young age, which reflected in his poetry later in life. After studying literature and philosophy at Harvard, Eliot took a trip to Paris, absorbing their vivid culture and art. After, he moved on to Oxford and married Vivien Haigh-Wood. Her compulsivity brought an immense amount of stress into his life, resulting in their abrupt separation. A series of writing-related jobs led Eliot to a career in banking and temporarily putting aside his poetry, but the publication of “The Waste Land” brought him a position at the publishing house of Faber and Gwyer. His next poem, called “The Hollow Men” reflected the same tone of desolation and grief as “The Waste Land.” Soon after, he made a momentous shift to Anglicanism that heavily influenced the rest of his work in a positive manner. Eliot went on to marry Valerie Fletcher, whom he was with until the end of his life, and win a Nobel Prize in literature. T.S. Eliot articulates his vast dissatisfaction with the intellectual desolation of society through narrators that share his firm cultural beliefs and quest to reinvigorate a barren civilization in order to overcome his own uncertainties and inspire a revolution of thought.

    Read More

  • Modernism in T.s. Eliots's the Wasteland

    891 Words  | 2 Pages

    middle of paper ... ... What can be said is that Eliot's poetry, as misinterpreted, misread, and misunderstood as it may be, is a quintessential cornerstone in modernist thought, a fragment in the puzzle, which may yield an emergent whole, though it may not be fully grasped. Works Cited Eliot, T. S. & Co. Wasteland, Prufrock, and other poems.

    Read More

More about The Life of Thomas Stearns Eliot

Open Document