T.S. Eliot

Thomas Stearns Eliot was a poet who in lived 1888-1965. He has been a dominant force in English and American literary scene during the middle third of the twentieth century. Some of his works include the "Waste Land" in 1922, and the "Journey of the Magi" in 1927. He studied at Oxford, Paris, and Harvard. Eventually, he won the Nobel Prize for literature.

T. S. Eliot was born and grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, along the Mississippi River. But in adulthood he moved to England. In 1927 he renounced his American citizenship, became a British subject, and converted to Anglicanism. He described himself as "classicist in literature, royalist in politics, and Anglo-Catholic in religion."

Some famous lines from T. S. Eliot that are often alluded to or quoted include:

  Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
  I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach
  I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
  I do not think that they will sing to me.

(from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock")

  This is the way the world ends
  Not with a bang but a whimper.

(from "The Hollow Men")

  April is the cruellest month, breeding
  Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
  Memory and desire, stirring
  Dull roots with spring rain.

(from "The Waste Land")

External links

• The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
• The Waste Land