Poet Thomas Eliot: biography, creativity

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Thomas Stearns Eliot is an American poet originally from Missouri (St. Louis). In 1922 he published his famous poem The Waste Land. This work was called by Ezra Pound, his mentor and friend, the longest poem written in English. And in 1948, T. Eliot received the Nobel Prize.

The origin of the poet

Thomas Stearns Eliot was born into a large family. He was the youngest child. Among the poet's paternal ancestors was the Rev. W. G. Eliot, who founded Washington University in St. Louis. On the maternal side of Eliot's ancestors, Isaac Sterns is known, who was one of the first to move to Massachusetts.

Henry Ware Eliot, Thomas' father, was a we althy industrialist, and Charlotte Stearns, his mother, was a literary and well-educated woman. She created a drama in verse, as well as a biography of W. G. Eliot.

Teaching period, early creativity

Thomas started writing poetry at the age of fourteen. His early work is marked by the influence of the works of Omar Khayyam. Like all poetsavant-gardists, young Thomas was a rebel, critical of his contemporary world. However, even later, the main problem of the work of this author was the crisis of the spirit. Thomas was interested in the catastrophic processes that drive the life of society. The poet conveyed her tragedy with amazing force.

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 completed a university course in three years. In his fourth year, he received a master's degree.

By this time, writing poems in the Harvard Lawyer, of which Eliot was editor from 1909 to 1910, dates back. After that, he went to Paris, where he listened to lectures at the Sorbonne. Eliot got acquainted with French literature, with symbolist poets. Symbolism interested him even at Harvard. Thomas Eliot read Jules Laforgue, an author who belongs to this trend. He was also attracted by the book "The Movement of Symbolism in Literature" by A. Simons. She greatly influenced Eliot's development as a poet.

Decision to dedicate 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. On the Sheldon Scholarship, Thomas Eliot traveled to Germany and England. At Oxford Merton College, where Bradley taught, he studied philosophy. After much doubt and hesitation, Eliot decided to devote his life to literature, so he did not return to defend his thesis 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 his living by teaching for about a year, after which he worked as a clerk at Lloyd's Bank. In 1925, the poet began working for Faber & Guire, first as the publishing house's literary editor and then as one of the company's directors.

First marriage

Thomas Eliot got married in 1915. Vivienne Haywood became his chosen one. Despite the fact that the marriage was unhappy, the couple lived together for nineteen years. Vivien ended up in a psychiatric hospital after the divorce. Here she died in 1947.

Journal work, new works

During the period from 1917 to 1919, Thomas worked in the magazine "Egoist" as deputy editor-in-chief. His early poems began to appear in a number of periodicals, including E. Pound's Catholic Anthology. Here his works were published in 1915. In the Hogarth Press, Leonard and Virginia Woolf placed two new volumes of Thomas' poetry, Prufrock and Other Observations (1917) and Poems (1919). These Laforgue-influenced works bear the stamp of disillusionment with reality.

Thomas Eliot's first significant poem was J. Alfred's Love SongPrufrock . It depicts a helpful, ornate, respectful, well-meaning hero who is both tongue-tied and indecisive, especially with women. This work became 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 began.

T. Eliot is a critic

As Thomas Eliot grew in popularity as a poet, so did his reputation as a literary critic. Since 1919, Thomas has been a regular contributor to The Times Literary Supplement. Here appeared his series of articles on Jacobean and Elizabethan drama. Together with others, they were included in the collection of works by Thomas Eliot "The Sacred Forest" (1920). In critical articles about Dante, Shakespeare, Marlowe, Dryden, George Herbert, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, the author tried to bring the poet back to life, which, in his opinion, is the enduring and great task of criticism. Many of Eliot's views were later reflected in The Criterion, a fairly popular critical journal that appeared four times a year from 1922 to 1939

Bad Land

In 1922, Thomas Eliot published his famous poem. As we have 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) of the abundance of allusions and poetic concentration in this poem. By the way, Pound participated in the editing of the work. He cut the final version of the poem by about a third.

Many well-known critics believe that the best work that Thomas Eliot created is "The Waste Land". 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

T. S. Eliot was baptized in the Anglican Church in 1927. Then he was granted British citizenship. Thomas Eliot, whose poetry was then already popular, in the preface to his collection of essays en titled "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 jokingly called him an Englishman in everything except citizenship and accent. Thus, British citizenship met his aspirations. However, Eliot's move to the Anglican Church was a departure from the Unitarian traditions of his family, despite the fact that it satisfied his need for clear and strict moral guidelines (Thomas was a Puritan by birth).

Eliot's poem "Ash Wednesday" (1930) reflected the anguish that marked his conversion. During this period of spiritual and intellectual confusion, Thomas translated the poem "Anabasis" by Saint-John Perse (in 1930). itthe work is a kind of spiritual history of all mankind.

Elliot Plays

In the 1930s, Thomas wrote the poetic dramas Murder in the Cathedral (1935) and The Stone (1934). These works were created for religious performances. The first of these is a philosophical morality. Its theme is the suffering of St. T. Becket. The poem is considered to be Thomas Eliot's finest play. It was a huge success in the theaters of the USA and Europe.

Eliot's plays about modern life such as "Family Reunion", Cocktail Party", "Personal Secretary" and "The Elderly Statesman" (1939, 1950, 1954 and 1959 respectively) are considered less significant. succeeded in filling the theme of ancient tragedy with modern content. True, "Evening Cocktail" at one time was a great success in theaters located on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.

1940 Poems and Nobel Prize

In the 1940s, Thomas wrote such poems as "East Cocker" (in 1940), "Burnt Norton", "Dry Salvages" (all in 1941), "Little Gidding" (in 1942) and "Four Quartets" (in 1943). Many critics recognize these works as the most mature in Eliot's work. Each of them is a reflection, inspired by landscapes, in which the author weaves judgments about time, history, the nature of language, personal memories.

Eliot Thomas, whose books were recognized worldwide, won the Nobel Prize in 1948year. Anders Esterling, one of the members of the Swedish Academy, emphasized in his speech that Thomas's poems have the property of "cutting into the consciousness of the modern generation with the sharpness of a diamond."

Second marriage and poet's death

In 1957 he married E. V. Fletcher Thomas Eliot. His biography ends in 1965, when he died, having lived to the age of 76. T. Eliot is buried in East Cocker.

Reasons for Eliot's popularity

Why is the work of Thomas Eliot still of interest to many? The reasons are varied. The main one is that this author has become the largest updater of poetic creativity. Poems in English by T. Eliot were translated by Jimenez, Montale and Seferis. By 1969, Thomas's works had been translated into major European languages, as well as Chinese, Japanese, Urdu, Hindi, Arabic, etc. And today, any book on modern poetry published in America or England, as a rule, begins with the thesis about the significance of Thomas Eliot, about the great contribution that he made to the development of verbal creativity.

Difficulty perceiving Eliot's work

Understanding this author's poems in English is not easy, as is the translation of his works. The fact is that Eliot is an elitist poet. His works are not just absolutely new in world poetry. In his work, Thomas did not stagnate. He constantly turned to solving more and more artistic problems.

Deliberate elitism, avant-gardethe nature of the work of this author lead to the fact that his writings are not easy to understand. The first difficulty lies in the complex philosophy. 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 is that echoes, omissions, allusions, etc. play a special role in his work. their connection with other cultural phenomena, with the past. Therefore, editions of this author's works usually include detailed commentaries.

The third feature of Eliot's work, which complicates his understanding, is the great importance that the poet gives to form. For example, the work "Four Quartets" has a clear melodic scheme, which was suggested to Eliot by his understanding of Beethoven (more precisely, his later quartets).

One could talk for a long time about the features of Eliot's works. 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 originality of the poetic problems that he posed and solved.

Cat Book

But T. Eliot is not always like thiscomplex, not always his work is elitist. This may be somewhat unexpected, but even pets were of interest to 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 were written for the godchildren of Thomas Eliot.

Currently, this collection is perhaps the most famous book about cats in the world. Every lover of these animals knows him. The musical "Cats" by E. L. Webber, staged based on his motives, brought a large share of fame to the collection.