An outstanding, pioneer contribution to present-day literature was made by the famous American-English poet, playwright, editor and critic Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888-1965), a man of varied and distinguished talent and the initiator of a whole revolution in style within present-day poetry.
Early years.
Thomas Stearns Eliot was born on September 26, 1888 in St. Louis, Missouri (USA) to a well-off respected family. His predecessors had relocated to New England among the first settlers in the late 17th century. Shortly before his birth the family moved to St. Louis, where Thomas' grandfather established a university college and founded a church.
Young Thomas was brought up in St. Louis and Boston, "the stronghold of Puritan tradition-, as believed. There he studied basic disciplines first at Smith Academy, then at Milton College in Massachusetts. In 1906 he was admitted to Harvard University, where he studied philosophy and European literature, mainly of the Renaissance period. It was in Harvard that Eliot's personality really started to shape under the influence of the critic Irving Babbitt, who led his classes in literature, and Professor George Santayana, the famous American poet of the period and expert in Oriental Philosophy. Babbitt conveyed the ideas of anti-Romantic attitude to literature into young Eliot's mind. These ideas would only deepen later on, as he got to know the works of British neo-Hegelian philosophers F.H. Bradley (1846 - 1924) and T.E. Hulme, and lasted through his life. Eliot pursued his bachelor's degree in 1909, after only three instead of the usual four years. .
The next year, in 1910, Thomas Eliot sailed overseas to France, where he would attend Henri Bergson's lectures in philosophy of intuitivism at the Sorbonne. Eliot's study of the poetry of Dante, of the English writers John Webster and John Donne, and of the French symbolist Jules Laforgue, along with the influence of his new tutor-guide Bergson, helped the young poet to find his own style - unique, though close to that of the imagists.
Thomas Sterns Eliot had a few major influences in his life. ... Eliot was born in Missouri. ... In 1919, Eliot's father died, leaving Eliot without the chance to make right past conflicts about his marriage to Vivienne. ... Eliot also wrote childrens poems. ... In 1934, Eliot wrote a pageant for a church. ...
Eliot Thomas Stearns Eliot was born on September 26, 1888, in St. ... Murder in the Cathedral With his best-known play, Murder in the Cathedral (1935), based on the murder of Thomas Becket, Eliot hoped to revive poetic drama. ... Thomas Beckett was killed in 1170 in Canterbury cathedral. The play does not only recall the martyrdom of Thomas Becket. ... THOMAS: This is not true. ...
Eliot Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888-1965), was an early twentieth century poet, dramatist, publisher, playwright and literary and social critic", one of the twentieth century's major poets." and a leader of the modernist movement in literature T.S. ... Eliot's grandfather William Greenleaf Eliot had moved to St. ... Eliot was the last of six surviving children. ... Eliot actually spent much of his time in London. ... Eliot is synonymous with modernism. ...
'The Rock' was an essential step in T.s Eliot's theatrical apprenticeship.In it he taught himself how to write choral lines in greek fashion and in the style of the english morality plays'Everyman'.A request for a pageant play to raise funds for church building started Eliot off on his quest for a modern poetic drama.The effectiveness of 'the Rock'choruses ensured that the device would become an important feature of 'Murder in the Cathedral',although in the later the effects were more varied and dramatic. The Canterbury Festival had begun in 1...
Thomas Stearns Eliot was born in September 26th 1888. ... "Murder in the Cathedral" is TS Eliot's version of the murder of Thomas Beckett by 4 Royal Knights when they overheard the king wishing that the Archbishop (Thomas Beckett) would be taken care of. ... TS Eliot decided to make the drama more psychological, as he was deeply engrossed in the ever increasing secular world. ... Being a literature modernist, TS Eliot had not forgone a sense of unorthodox workings in his play. ... Yet "Murder in the Cathedral" focuses on Archbishop Thomas who is tempted with extravagance, power, more powe...
Eliot. ... It was also well liked because Eliot provided two views of martyrdom. ... It is according to this view that Thomas dies. ... Thomas argues and then refuses each tempter in turn. ... The Tempters represent evil and so Thomas avoids them. ...
One of the greatest writers of the period is Thomas Sterns Eliot. ... Eliot was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948. ... While for Chaucer, April was a time of hope and spiritual renewal, Eliot describes it as "the cruellest month " (line 1). ... In the fourth and last part of the first canto, Eliot makes references to Baudelaire, Dickens and Dante. ... Eliot manages to capture the decline in which society has fallen and using a series of symbols and references he manages to portrait this horrific image....
Brook Thomas gives his definition of what a classic should entail. ... Thomas also says that Henry Adams writes in the style of St. ... There are many opposing viewpoints given by Charles Eliot (the author of Harvard Classics) against Adams in Thomas" article, but Eliot says that a classic can be an autobiographical work: "Like Adams, Eliot felt that stories of people's lives help fulfill his educational purposes." ... Adams loathes what President Eliot has done to Harvard because of his (Eliot's) reforms to the College. ... Thomas does not answer Adams" question (Is there a proper w...
Elliot" Thomas Stearns Elliot, an American poet and dramatist, was born in St Louis, on September 26, 1888 and died on January 4, 1965. ... In 1948 King George VI bestowed the Order of Merit on him and that was the same year Eliot was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. ... It is also interesting to notice that all Eliot's poems which have no narrative pattern and are obscure. ... The themes of death and of questioning whether life can have any definable meaning, as discussed in Eliot's earlier poetry re-emerge here, but they are viewed in the light of Eliot's conversion to ...
