Biography
Thomas Sterns Eliot or T.S. Eliot was born in Saint Louis Missouri on September 26, 1888. He was the youngest of seven other siblings. T.S. Eliot was born in a good time, his father's Hydraulic-Press business was thriving. T.S. Eliot's family was originally from New England.
T.S. Eliot first attended Smith Academy, locally located in Saint Louis, then the Milton Academy in Massachusetts. He began studying at Harvard in the fall of 1906. He joined a copious amount of clubs including the literary signet. This had a huge influence on T.S. Eliot and pushed him more towards the creative parts of literature. He also met a romantic interest, Emily Hale, at the club In 1908 T.S. Eliot found in the Harvard library a book that would influence him even more. It was titled The symbolist movement by Arthur Symons. It really threw T.S. Eliot into the world of poetry. By 1909 T.S. He became the secretary of the magazine called the Advocate.
A case of scarlet fever nearly prevented T.S. Eliot from graduating Harvard. He was well enough to undertake post graduate year in Paris. in Paris he met with a medical student named Jean Verdenal. Jean died in the battle of Dardanelles. T.S. Eliot would later dedicate 'The Love Song of J. Alfread Prufrock' to him. in that year, T.S. Eliot copied into a notebook the poems that would create his fame and reputation such as previously mentioned, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," and other works such as "Portrait of a Lady," "La Figlia Che Piange," "Preludes," and "Rhapsody on a Windy Night. The he took on many themes such as alienation and symbolism.
By late 1911, T.S. Eliot was working hard on his literature. He undertook many philosophy classes and Sanskrit in Harvard. And later he went traveling to Europe where he has a number of Harvard philosophers to regard him as a potential colleague. With the impending war looming, he quickly went to London where a friend introduced T.S. Eliot's poems to Ezra Pound, a revered turn of the century poet. He was won over by Eliot's works.
T.S. Eliot was introduced to Vivien Haigh-Wood. He was drawn to her forthrightness and charmed by her family. He abandoned all negative thoughts he had previously towards women and married her on pure whim. His family was shocked when they found about her past problems. it nearly caused a family split. Vivien refused to cross the ocean during wartime. German submarines were known to shoot down passenger ships if they were lead to believe they were smuggling weapons. So T.S. Eliot got a job as a school teacher, then more steady work as a banker.
T.S. Eliot has a life long friendship with Ezra Pound and has great roots in London's intellectual groups to bounce ideas off of thanks to get together thrown together by Ezra's flat. He went on the write great poems such as 'the waste land' containing post war disillusionment. T.S. Eliot eventually moved to a publishing house and won a Nobel Prize in literature in 1948. He died at 1965, at the age of 76 in London, England.
