Thomas Sterns Eliot is an American poet hailing from Missouri (St. Louis). In 1922, he published his famous poem, The Badlands. This work of Ezra Pound, his mentor and friend, called the longest of the poems written in English. And in 1948, T. Eliot received the Nobel Prize.
Origin of the poet
Thomas Sterns Eliot was born into a large family. He was the youngest child. Among the paternal ancestors of the poet was Rev. W. G. Eliot, who founded the University of Washington in St. Louis. From the maternal side of the ancestors of Eliot, Isaac Sterns is known, who was one of the first to relocate to Massachusetts.
Henry Ware Eliot, Thomas's father, was a wealthy industrialist, and Charlotte Sterns, his mother, was a literally gifted and well-educated woman. She created a drama in poetry, as well as a biography of W. G. Eliot.
Period of study, early work
Thomas began to write poetry at the age of fourteen. His early work is marked by the influence of the works of Omar Khayyam. Like all avant-garde poets, young Thomas was a rebel, critical of the modern world. However, later, the main problem in the work of this author was a crisis of the spirit. Thomas was interested in the catastrophic processes that drive the life of society. The poet conveyed her tragedy with amazing power.
After graduating from a private school located in St. Louis, Thomas continued his studies at a private college in Massachusetts. A year later, in 1906, he was enrolled at Harvard University. An outstanding, talented student graduated from a university course in three years. In the fourth year, he received a master's degree.
By this time, writing poems in "Harvard Advocate", the editor of which Eliot was from 1909 to 1910, dates back. After that, he went to Paris, where he attended lectures at the Sorbonne. Eliot met with French literature, with symbolist poets. Symbolism interested him at Harvard. Thomas Eliot read Jules Laforgue, an author who refers to this trend. He was also attracted to the book "The Movement of Symbolism in Literature" by A. Simons. She greatly influenced the development of Eliot as a poet.
The decision to devote my life to literature
Returning to Harvard in 1911, Thomas began writing a dissertation on F. G. Bradley, the English idealist philosopher. He also studied Buddhism and Sanskrit. Under the Sheldon scholarship, Thomas Eliot went to Germany and England. At Oxford Merton College, where he taught Bradley, he studied philosophy. After much doubt and hesitation, Eliot decided to devote his life to literature, so he did not return to defend his dissertation at Harvard. Thomas stayed in London, where he wrote poetry. Some of them, with the assistance of Wyndham Lewis and Ezra Pound, were published in 1915.
Eliot had to earn a living by teaching for about a year, after which he served as a clerk at Lloyd Bank. In 1925, the poet began working for Faber & Guyer, first as the literary editor of this publishing house, and then as one of the directors of the company.
First marriage
Thomas Eliot married in 1915. His chosen one was Vivien Heywood. Despite the fact that the marriage was unhappy, the couple lived together for nineteen years. Vivien after a divorce was in a psychiatric hospital. Here she died in 1947.
Work in the magazine, new works
From 1917 to 1919, Thomas worked in Egoist magazine as deputy chief editor. His early poems began to appear in a number of periodicals, including E. Pound's "Catholic Anthology." Here his works were published in 1915. Leonard and Virginia Woolf placed two new collections of Thomas’s poems in Hogarth Press: Proofrock and Other Observations (1917) and Poems (1919). These works created under the influence of Laforg are marked with a seal of disappointment in reality.
The first significant poem by Thomas Eliot was The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. It captures a helpful, ornate, respectful, well-intentioned hero who is simultaneously tongue-tied and indecisive, especially with women. This work was an important milestone in the poetry of the 20th century. Many critics wrote about the meaning of the poem, and J. Berryman, an American poet, believed that it was with her that modern poetry begins.
T. Eliot - critic
With the growing popularity of Thomas Eliot as a poet, his reputation as a literary critic was also affirmed. Since 1919, Thomas has been a regular contributor to The Times (The Times Literature Supplement). Here appeared his series of articles on the Jacobin and Elizabethan drama. Together with others, they became part of the collection of works by Thomas Eliot "The Sacred Forest" (1920). In critical articles about Dante, Shakespeare, Marlo, Dryden, George Herbert, John Donne, Andrew Marvelle, the author tried to bring the poet back to life, which, in his opinion, is an enduring and great task of criticism. Many of Eliot’s views were later reflected in Kraiterion, a rather popular critical journal that appeared four times a year from 1922 to 1939.
Badlands
In 1922, Thomas Eliot published his famous poem. As we already noted, it was called the longest among the poems created in English. Ezra Pound hints with her hyperbole (after all, the work consists of only 434 lines) at the abundance of allusions and poetic concentration in this poem. By the way, Pound was involved in editing the work. He reduced the final version of the poem by about a third.
Many well-known critics believe that the best work that Thomas Eliot created is Badlands. She influenced the further development of poetry. The work consists of 5 parts. They are united by the themes of erosion of values and infertility. The poem, which reflected the disappointments and doubts of the post-war period, expressed the mood of an entire era.
Baptism and British Citizenship
TS S. Eliot in 1927 made a baptism in the Church of England. Then he was granted British citizenship. Thomas Eliot, whose poems were already popular then, in the preface to his collection of essays entitled "In Defense of Lancelot Andrews" calls himself a classicist in literature, an Anglo-Catholic in religion and a royalist in politics. Thomas, as a student, was keenly interested in English culture. Fellow students even called him jokingly an Englishman in everything, except for citizenship and emphasis. Thus, British citizenship met his aspirations. However, the transition of Eliot to the Church of England was a departure from the traditions of unitarianism adopted in his family, despite the fact that he satisfied his need for clear and rigorous moral principles (Thomas was a Puritan by birth).
In the poem of Eliot "Ash Wednesday" (1930) reflected mental torment, which marked his conversion to faith. During this period of mental and intellectual confusion, Thomas translated the poem "Anabasis" by Saint-John Persian (in 1930). This work is a kind of spiritual history of all mankind.
Eliot's plays
In the 1930s, Thomas wrote the poetic dramas "Murder in the Cathedral" (1935) and "Stone" (1934). These works were created for religious performances. The first of these is philosophical morality. His theme is the suffering of St. T. Becket. The poem is considered the best play of Thomas Eliot. With great success she went to theaters in the USA and Europe.
Eliot’s plays about modern life, such as Family Reunion, An Evening Cocktail, Personal Secretary, and An Elder Statesman (1939, 1950, 1954, and 1959, respectively) are considered less significant. Thomas was not very successful in filling out the theme of ancient tragedy However, the Evening Cocktail was a great success in theaters located on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.
1940 poems and Nobel Prize
In the 1940s, Thomas wrote poems such as East Cocker (in 1940), Burnt Norton, Dry Salvages (all in 1941), Little Guiding (in 1942), and Four Quartets ( in 1943). Many critics recognize these works as the most mature in the work of Eliot. Each of them is a reflection inspired by landscapes, into which the author weaves judgments about time, history, the nature of the language, personal memories.
Eliot Thomas, whose books were recognized worldwide, received the Nobel Prize in 1948. Anders Österling, one of the members of the Swedish Academy, emphasized in his speech that Thomas’s poems have the property “with the sharpness of diamond” to plunge into the consciousness of the modern generation.
The second marriage and death of the poet
In 1957 he married E.V. Fletcher Thomas Eliot. His biography ends in 1965, when he died, having lived to be 76 years old. T. Eliot is buried in East Cocker.
Reasons for Eliot's popularity
Why is the work of Thomas Eliot still interested in many? The reasons are varied. The main one is that this author has become the largest update of poetry. Poems in English T. Eliot translated Jimenez, Montale and Seferis. By 1969, Thomas's works were translated into the main European languages, as well as into Chinese, Japanese, Urdu, Hindi, Arabic, etc. And nowadays, any book on contemporary poetry published in America or England usually begins with the thesis about the significance of Thomas Eliot, about the great contribution that he made to the development of verbal creativity.
The difficulty of perceiving the work of Eliot
To understand poetry in English by this author is not easy, as is the translation of his works. The fact is that Eliot is an elite poet. His works do not just represent a whole new world poetry. In his work, Thomas did not stagnate. He constantly turned to solving more and more artistic problems.
The deliberate elitism and avant-garde nature of this author’s work lead to the fact that his works are not easy to perceive. The first difficulty is complex philosophical. The author is occupied with the fundamental questions of human existence. Eliot refers in his work to the latest aesthetic and philosophical concepts. He does not just carry out their artistic illustration. The poet himself is trying to find solutions to certain problems.
The second difficulty consists in the fact that echoes, omissions, hints, etc. play a special role in his work. This allows the poet to push the culture of different peoples and times in his works, not only reflect modern ideas about the world, but also indicate their connection with other phenomena culture, with the past. Therefore, in the publications of the works of this author, detailed comments are usually given.
The third feature of Eliot's work, which complicates his understanding, is the great importance that the poet devotes to form. For example, the work “Four Quartets” has a clear melodic pattern, which was prompted to Eliot by his understanding of Beethoven (more precisely, his later quartets).
One could talk for a long time about the features of the works of Eliot. However, in one article it is impossible to cover this significant and extremely original phenomenon of art. Crucially, for Thomas Eliot, complexity was not an end in itself. It was a reflection of the diversity and non-standard of poetic problems that he posed and solved.
Book about cats
But T. Eliot is not always so complex, his work is not always elitist. This may be somewhat unexpected, but pets were interested in such a poet as Thomas Eliot. Cats became the protagonists of his famous collection of poems, published in 1939 ("The Popular Science of Cats ..."). The works included in it were created in the 1930s. They are written for the godchildren of Thomas Eliot.
Currently, this collection is perhaps the most famous book in the world about cats. Every lover of these animals knows him. The musical “The Cats” by E. L. Webber, based on his motives, brought a great deal of fame to the collection.