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The Birth of Thomas Stearns Eliot
Thomas Stearns (TS) Eliot was born in Saint Louis, Missouri on September 26, 1888. He was a famous poet and playwright. -
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The Life of Thomas Stearns Eliot
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Smith Academy
From 1898 to 1905, Eliot attended Smith Academy, where his studies included Latin, Ancient Greek, French, and German. He began to write poetry when he was fourteen under the influence of Edward Fitzgerald's Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, a translation of the poetry of Omar Khayyam. -
Milton Academy
Eliot attended Milton Academy in Massachusetts for a preparatory year, where he met Scofield Thayer, who would later publish The Waste Land. -
Harvard University
He studied philosophy at Harvard from 1906 to 1909, earning his bachelor's degree after three years, instead of the usual four. -
Moving to Paris
Eliot moved to Paris, where from 1910 to 1911, he studied philosophy at the Sorbonne. He attended lectures by Henri Bergson and read poetry with Alain-Fournier -
Back to Harvard University
From 1911 to 1914, he was back at Harvard studying Indian philosophy and Sanskrit. -
Oxford University
Eliot was awarded a scholarship to Merton College, Oxford in 1914. He first visited Marburg, Germany, where he planned to take a summer program, but when the First World War broke out, he went to Oxford instead. At the time, so many American students attended Merton that the Junior Common Room proposed a motion "that this society abhors the Americanization of Oxford. -
Publisjhing the first major poem
In 1917, with the encouragement of hisd friend and mentor, American Poet Erza Pound, he published his first major poem, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufock" -
Writing "The Waste Land"
In 1922, he wrote the poem "The Waste Land". It expressed his horror at the spiritual turmoil of modern Europe. -
The Nobel Prize Award
In 1948, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. -
The Death of Thomas Stearns Eliot
Eliot died of emphysema in London on January 4, 1965. For many years he had had health problems caused by his heavy smoking, and had often been laid low with bronchitis or tachycardia.