Who was T.S. Eliot?
Poet and Dramatist.
Date and Place of Birth:
26th September 1888, St. Louis, Missouri, United
States of America.
Family Background:
Youngest of six children and son of Henry Ware
Eliot, a brick manufacturer and wealthy businessman and Charlotte
Champe Stearns, a teacher. Christened Thomas Stearns Eliot.
Education:
Mrs Lockwood's Academy, St. Louis, Missouri.
Smith Academy, St. Louis, Missouri. Milton College, near Boston,
Massachusetts, and Harvard University.
Chronology/Biography of T.S. Eliot:
1899: Brings out
eight issues of his own magazine "The Fireside" whilst
still at School.
1905: His poems
for the "Smith Academy Record" are the earliest poems
of his still surviving.
1908: Becomes interested
in the Symbolists in literature and is particularly influenced by
Laforgue.
1909: Studies in
his final year at Harvard University under George Santayana and
Irving Babbitt.
1910: Writes "Portrait
of a Lady" and "Prufrock". (October) Goes to Paris
after graduating, where he studies French literature at the Sorbonne.
Is inspired by the work of Charles Maurras
1911: Returns to
Harvard as post graduate and studies Sanskrit and Indian Religious
thought. Attends lectures given by the British philosopher Bertrand
Russell.
1913: Starts work
on a thesis about the work of the philosopher F. H. Bradley.
1914: Arrives in
Britain at the outbreak of the First World War on a traveling fellowship
from Harvard. (September) Meets Ezra Pound in London. Goes to study
at Oxford.
1915: At Pound's
suggestion "Prufrock" is published by Harriet Munroe in
"Poetry" a magazine based in Chicago. Pound also encourages
Eliot to stay in England. After a whirlwind romance, in which Eliot
Marries Vivien Haigh-Wood, the couple go to stay for a while with
Russell, who introduces them to the Bloomsbury
Group. Eliot takes up a number of positions teaching in schools
and starts to write reviews for the "New Statesman" magazine
in London.
1916: Though he
finally finishes his Harvard thesis on Bradley he decides not to
return to the U.S.A and begins working as an extra-mural lecturer
part-time for the University of London.
1917: (March) Joins
Lloyd's Bank (Colonial and Foreign department). (June) Becomes Assistant
Editor of Harriet Shaw Weavers "Egoist". "Prufrock
and other Observations" is published in this Journal.
1918: He tries to
join the U.S. forces, who have now entered the war, but fails to
enlist before the armistice in November.
1919: His father
dies. Eliot begins to write for the "Athenaeum" magazine.
(June) Poems published by the Woolf's-Hogarth press. Begins writing
articles for the Times Literary Supplement in London. (October)
Begins work on "He Do the Police in Different Voices"
which is the forerunner of "The Waste Land".
1920: All ELiot's
collected verse in print is published as "Ara Vos Prec"
in Britain by John Rodker, and "Poems" in the U.S. by
Knopf. Visits France and meets James Joyce. (November) Publication
of his collection of essays called "The Sacred Wood".
1921: Becomes ill
with the stress of his marriage and begins overworking and is told
by his doctor to have an extended holiday. He goes briefly to Margate
and then to Lausanne in Switzerland for therapy under Doctor Roger
Vittoz.
1922: Shows "The
Waste Land" to Pound in Paris on his way back to London. It
is published in the "Criterion" magazine in London with
the backing of Lady Rothermere and in the U.S. in "The Dial".
(December) published in book form by Leonard and Virginia
Woolf's publishing house.
1923: Begins working
on "Sweeney Agonistes".
1924: Completes
"The Hollow Men".
1925: Leaves Lloyd's
Bank to become a director at Faber and Gwyer (later to become Faber
and Faber). Faber's publish "Poems 1909-1925". He in turn
encourages other new poets including Spender and W. H. Auden.
1926: Gives a series
of Clark Lectures at Cambridge University. Begins training to enter
the Church of England.
1927: (29th June)
Confirmed as a member of the Church of England in secret. (November)
Becomes a British Citizen. "Journey of the Magi" is published
at Christmas, the first of his Ariel Poems.
1929: Death of his
mother.
1930: Publication
of "Ash Wednesday".
1933: Gives the
Page-Barbour lectures at the University of Virginia afterwards published
as "After Strange Gods".
1933: Separates
from his wife Vivien after his return from the U.S.A. and settles
in Kensington, London with Father Cheetham, the Vicar of St. Stephens.
1934: Becomes a
Church Warden at St. Stephens. His play "The Rock" is
performed in London by an amateur cast. Joins the editorial board
of the magazine "New English Weekly".
1935: His play "Murder
in the Cathedral" is performed at Canterbury.
1938: Publication
of "Essays Ancient and Modern" and collected Poems 1909-1935".
Vivien Eliot is sent to Northumberland House private mental hospital,
in Finsbury Park, London amid controversial circumstances.
1939: First performance
of "A Family Reunion" in London. Eliot gives the Boutwood
Foundation lecture series at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge which
are published in book form as "The Ideas of a Christian Society".
Publication of "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats".
which was influenced by Edward Lear and showed
an entirely different side to his character. (September) At the
beginning of the Second World War he becomes an Air Raid Warden
in Kensington
1940: Publication
of East Coker. (June) Gives the Yeats Memorial Lecture in Dublin.
Joins the Editorial Board of "Christian Newsletter". (September)
survives the Blitz in London. (October) Moves to Shamley Green in
Surrey to live out the rest of the war.
1941: Publication
of "Dry Salvages".
1942: Publication
of "Little Gidding", named after the Huntingdonshire home
of Nicholas Ferrar the leader of a Seventeenth Century religious
community.
1943: East Coker,
etc are published in Canada as "The Four Quartets" and
then later in Britain.
1945: End of the
Second World War.
1946: Moves to a
flat with John Hayward in Carlyle Mansions on the Chelsea Embankment.
Begins to make frequent trips to the continent and the U.S.A.
1947: Death of Vivien
Eliot in mental hospital.
1948: (January)
Awarded the Order of Merit. (November) Awarded the Nobel Prize for
Literature.
1949: Publication
of his play "The Cocktail Party" and it is given it's
premiere at the Edinburgh Festival.
1950: The play is
successful in London and then New York and Eliot appears on the
cover of Time Magazine.
1952: A televised
performance of "The cocktail Party" draws a huge audience.
1953: "The
Confidential Clerk" is first produced at the Edinburgh Festival.
1956: Lectures to
14,000 people in the baseball stadium of the University of Minnesota
on "The Frontiers of Criticism".
1958: "The
Elder Statesman" is first produced at the Edinburgh Festival.
1959: Gives up being
a Church Warden at St. Stephen's Church, Kensington.
Written Works:
- 1917: "Prufrock
and Other Observations".
- 1920:
"The Sacred Wood". "Poems".
- 1922:
"The Waste Land".
- 1924:
"Homage to John Dryden".
- 1925:
"Poems 1909-25".
- 1928:
"For Lancelot Andrews".
- 1929:
"Dante".
- 1930: "Ash
Wednesday".
- 1932:
"Selected Essays 1917-32". "Sweeney Agonistes".
- 1933: "The
Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism".
- 1934:
"After Strange Gods". "The Rock".
- 1935:
"Murder in the Cathedral". (Play)
- 1936:
"Essays Ancient and Modern".
- 1939: "The
Idea of a Christian Society". "The Family Reunion".
(Play) "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats."
- 1940: "East
Coker".
- 1941: "Burnt
Norton". "The Dry Salvages".
- 1942:
"Little Gidding".
- 1943: "Four
Quartets" published (Contains East Coker, Burnt Norton, The
Dry Salvages, and Little Gidding)
- 1948:
"Notes towards he Definition of Culture".
- 1949: "The
Cocktail Party". (Play)
- 1953: "The
Confidential Clerk". (Play)
- 1958:
"The Elder Statesman". (Play)
Marriage:
26th June 1915 to Vivien Haigh-Wood, the daughter
of a painter and landowner, at Hampstead Registry Office.
10th January 1957 to Valerie Fletcher, his secretary, at St. Barnabas's
Church Kensingston, London.
Places of Interest:
LONDON:
British Library.
SOMERSET:
East Coker.
Date and Place of Death:
4th January 1965, London, England.
Age at Death:
76.
Site of Grave:
St. Michael’s Church, East Coker, Somerset,
England.
