T.S. Eliot was an American-British poet, playwright, and literary critic born in 1888 in Missouri. Some of his most influential works include The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, The Waste Land, and Four Quartets. Eliot's poetry was characterized by disjointed images and allusions to express the disillusionment of the post-WWI period. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948 for works that helped shape modern literature.

1. T.S.Eliot
By
Prof.R.R.Borse,
Eng.Dept.,
BP Arts,SMA Sci,KKC Com.College,
Chalisgaon

2. life
Awards &
Recognitions
work
style

3. life
1888-1965
Thomas Stearns
Eliot
A poet, dramatist,
literary critic, and
modernist

4. life
• He was born in Missouri on September 26, 1888.
• His father, Henry Ware Eliot, was the president of the
Hydraulic Brick Company. His mother, Charlotte Champe
Stearns, was a volunteer at the Humanity Club of St. Louis.
• He lived in St. Louis during the first eighteen years of his
life and attended Harvard University.
• In 1910, he left the United States for the Sorbonne, having
earned both undergraduate and masters degrees and having
contributed several poems to the Harvard Advocate.
• After a year in Paris, he returned to Harvard to pursue a
doctorate in philosophy, but returned to Europe and settled
in England in 1914.

5. life
• The following year, he married Vivienne Haigh-Wood and
began working in London, first as a teacher, and later for
Lloyd's Bank.
• It was in London that Eliot came under the influence of his
contemporary Ezra Pound, who recognized his poetic
genius at once, and assisted in the publication of his work
in a number of magazines.
• In 1927 he became a British citizen .
• After a notoriously unhappy first marriage, Eliot
separated from his first wife in 1933, and was remarried,
to Valerie Fletcher, in 1956.
• In 1948 he received the Nobel Prize for Literature.
• In 1965 he died in London.

6. Eliot’s Works
• Prufrock and Other Observations. (1917).
• Ara Vos Prec. (1919). Republished in the US as Poems. (1920).
• The Sacred Wood. (1920).
• The Waste Land. (1922).
• Homage to John Dryden. (1924).
• Poems 1909-1925 (includes "The Hollow Men"). (1925).
• Sweeney Agonistes (in Criterion). (1926).
• For Lancelot Andrewes. (1928).
• Ash-Wednesday. (1930).
• Anabasis, a Poem by St-John Perse (Eliot translation). (1930).
• Selected Essays 1917-1932. (1932).
• The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism. (1933).
• After Strange Gods (1933 lectures at the University of Virginia). (1934).
• The Rock: A Pageant Play. (1934).
• Murder in the Cathedral. (1935).

7. • Essays Ancient and Modern. (1936).
• Collected Poems 1909-1935 (includes "Burnt Norton"). (1936).
• The Family Reunion. (1939).
• Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats. (1939).
• The Idea of a Christian Society. (1939).
• East Coker. (1940).
• The Dry Salvages. (1941).
• Little Gidding. (1942).
• Notes Towards the Definition of Culture. (1948).
• The Cocktail Party. (1949).
• The Complete Poems and Plays, 1909-1950. (1952).
• The Confidential Clerk. (1954).
• On Poetry and Poets. (1957).
• The Elder Statesman. (1959).
• Collected Poems, 1909-1962. (1963).
Posthumous publications:
• The Waste Land: A Facsimile and Transcript of the Original Drafts
Including the Annotations of Ezra Pound, edited and with an
introduction by Valerie Eliot. (1971).Inventions of the March Hare:
Poems 1909-1917, featuring previously unpublished works, edited by
Christopher Ricks. (1996).

8. First period(1911-1922)
1911 The Love Song of J. Alfred
Prufrock 《J.阿尔弗雷德·普鲁弗洛
克的情歌》 —the first masterpiece
of Modernism in English
1917 Prufrock and Other
Observations 《普鲁弗洛克及其他
》 — First volume of poetry

9. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
1.This poem marked the start of Eliot’s career as
one of the 20th century's most influential
poets.
2.“Prufrock" is about a lonely, timid middle-aged
man who, lacking self-confidence, wants to
propose marriage to a lady but is afraid to do
so, and ultimately does not.
3.This poem showed that he was influenced by
French Symbolism,and his attention to the
predicament of modern civilization and mood
postwar disillusionment appeared in the poem.

10. second period
1922 The Waste Land《荒原》:
Eliot’s epochal masterpiece, a
representative work of the High
Modernism of the 1920s
1925 The Hollow Man《透明人》
: the spiritual and emotional
aridity of modern men，
exhibiting a pessimism

11. The Waste Land
433 lines, mainly free verse
Many quoted lines in German, French, Italian and
references and allusions to English writers as
Spencer, Shakespeare, Middleton, Milton and
Goldsmith with many explanatory notes
A picture of the spiritual ruins in Europe shortly
after the end of WWI and expressed the
disillusionment of a generation of intellectuals
A landmark in English poetry, ending the Romantic
period and signifying the emergence of Modernism
.

12. Third Period
1930 Ash Wednesday
1943 Four Quartets — Noble
Prize for literature in 1948
Literary criticism: Selected
Essays 1932, The Uses of
Poetry 1933, On Poetry and
Poets 1957, etc
1935-1958 verse plays: Murder
in the Cathedral 《大教堂中的
谋杀》

13. Style
Eliot’s poetry is difficult to read.
For one reason, the images and symbols seem very
much disconnected.
And another obvious source of difficulty lies in his
learned quotations and allusions.
To appreciate him it is good to understand that the
essence of his thought lies in the interaction between
the past, the present and the future.

14. Awards & Recognitions
Eliot received:
• the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948.
• the Order of Merit in January 1948.
• the Hanseatic Gothe Prize in 1954
• the Dante Gold Medal in 1959.
• Eliot was recognized as an Officier de la Legion d’Honneur.