T.S. Eliot Life & Poetry

Eliot attended Harvard University from 1906 to 1909 (during which time he obtained a BA) and earned a Master's Degree the following year. Upon World War I, Eliot moved to England where he spent much time. Also during that time, he'd been working on his dissertation and finally submitted it to Harvard in 1916. Despite the fact that it had been accepted, Eliot had not received his Ph.D because he wasn't present to defend it.

He lived in London after he moved to the UK; New Bedford, Massachusetts is where William Greenleaf Eliot, T.S. Eliot's grandfather was born; he was awarded a scholarship to Merton College in Oxford.

Tom and Vivienne were married on June 26, 1915. He married Esme on January 10, 1957. Joan Aiken was the daughter of his friend Conrad Aiken. Dora Black was married to Bertrand Russell, who had a brief affair with Vivienne.

At the very beginning is written "For Ezra Pound - il miglior fabbro." That translates into "the better craftsman".

Eliot and Joyce were friends, and "The Wasteland" was considered to be a counterpart of Joyce's "Ulysses", published in the same year.

William B. Yeats had been influenced by Eliot.

The magazine "Poetry : A Magazine of Verse" published the poem in June 1915, at the request of Ezra Pound (who was the foreign editor of the magazine). Pound became a mentor and lifelong friend of Eliot.

There are a total of six languages in the poem: Latin, Greek, Italian, German, French and, of course, English.

"Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats" is an assorment of Eliot's poems about feline psychology and sociology. A second edition was published in the early 80s that featured illustrations.

On June 29 he converted to Anglicanism and in November he became a British citizen. Also, he decided to drop his American citizenship (during November). In 1928, Eliot summarized his beliefs when he wrote in the preface to his book, "For Lancelot Andrewes", that "the general point of view may be described as classicist in literature, royalist in politics, and Anglo catholic in religion."

Frazer's "The Golden Bough" had a deep effect on Eliot. Although he was deeply influenced by Weston's "From Ritual to Romance" as well, the book had more to do with the Grail legend--and the Fisherking in Eliot's poem. "Sacred Times" William Bloom's description of a new approach to festivals. "The Nibelungenlied" is an epic poem, the story of dragon-slayer Siegfried at the court of the Burgundians, how he was murdered, and of his wife Kriemhild's revenge.

"Gerontion" is a poem by Eliot that was published in 1920. Eliot scholar Grover Smith made a comment of this poem that quotes, "If any notion remained that in the poems of 1919 Eliot was sentimentally contrasting a resplendent past with a dismal present, "Gerontion" should have helped to dispel it." Despite this, the poem is still regarded as antisemitic and harsh Eliot critics have never considered the poem as anything like what has Smith commented.