T.S. Eliot was an American-English poet, playwright, literary critic, and editor. He was born on September 26, 1888, in St. Louis, Missouri, and lived there during the first eighteen years of his life. Eliot attended Harvard University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in three years and contributed several poems to the Harvard Advocate. He is best known as a leader of the Modernist movement in poetry and as the author of such works as The Waste Land (1922) and Four Quartets (1943). Eliot exercised a strong influence on Anglo-American culture from the 1920s until late in the century. His experiments in diction, style, and versification revitalized English poetry, and in a series of critical essays, he shattered old orthodoxies and erected new ones. Eliot became a British citizen in 1927 and received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948.
For the sake of brevity, this post will concentrate on four of his works, which include The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915), The Waste Land (1922), The Hollow Men (1925), and Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats (1939). I believe these show his range as a poet. If you would like to explore more of his works, Eliot’s complete poems have been published in two definitive scholarly editions edited by Christopher Ricks and Jim McCue: “T. S. Eliot The Poems Volume One” and “T. S. Eliot The Poems Volume Two,”
“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is a significant work in T.S. Eliot’s body of work as it is considered one of the quintessential works of modernism, a literary movement at the turn of the 20th century that emphasized themes of alienation, isolation, and the diminishing power of traditional sources of authority. The poem is a dramatic monologue, in which the speaker narrates the anxieties and preoccupations of his inner life. It is an examination of the tortured psyche of the prototypical modern man—overeducated, eloquent, neurotic, and emotionally stilted. The poem explores themes of anxiety, desire, and disappointment, and the speaker’s interior life, hidden from the rest of the world, is alive for the reader. The poem is also known for its fragmented poetic landscape, making it difficult to pin down one exact feeling within “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.”
“The Hollow Men” is a significant work in T.S. Eliot‘s body of work as it reflects the spiritual and emotional sterility of modern man. The poem is a commentary on the moral decay of society and the fragmentation of the world, exploring themes of faithlessness and societal emptiness. The hollow men of Eliot’s poem represent the people living amongst a barren landscape following the devastation of the war with no end to their listless existence. The hollow men have lost their faith and pray blindly to broken stones, representing false gods. The poem uses a tight and interrelated group of symbols, including deserts, rats, twilight, fading stars, and the hollow/stuffed men themselves, to summon a decaying civilization. The poem is also known for its suggestive symbolism, which reveals a more complex and ambiguous picture of the poem’s meaning. “The Hollow Men” is a powerful and haunting work that continues to be studied and analyzed by scholars and readers alike.
“The Waste Land” is a significant work in T.S. Eliot’s body of work as it is considered one of the most important poems of the 20th century and a quintessential work of modernism. The poem reflects the disillusionment and despair of the post-World War I generation and the fragmentation of modern life. It is a complex and multi-layered work that draws on a vast number of literary and cultural allusions. The poem is divided into five sections, each with its own distinct theme and style. Eliot’s radical use of language, form, and structure in “The Waste Land” broke new ground when it was first published in 1922. The poem has given rise to more critical analysis and scholarly interpretation than just about any other poem, and it continues to be studied and debated by scholars and readers alike.
“Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats” is a significant work in T.S. Eliot’s body of work as it is a collection of whimsical light poems about feline psychology and sociology. Eliot wrote the poems in the 1930s and included them, under his assumed name “Old Possum,” in letters to his godchildren. The poems were collected and published in 1939, with cover illustrations by the author, and quickly re-published in 1940, illustrated in full by Nicolas Bentley. “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats” serves as the basis for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 1981 musical “Cats.” While the book is not as weighty or complex as some of Eliot’s other works, it is a charming and delightful collection of poetry that showcases Eliot’s whimsical side.
T.S. Eliot died on January 4, 1965, at his home in Kensington, London at the age of 76. He died of emphysema and was cremated at Golden Green Crematorium. In accordance with his wishes, his ashes were taken to St Michael and All Angels’ Church, East Coker, the village in Somerset from which his Eliot ancestors had emigrated to America. A wall plaque in the church commemorates him with a quotation from his poem East Coker: “In my beginning is my end. In my end is my beginning.