T S Eliot, poet and playwright

Thomas Stearns Eliot was born on 26^th September 1888 in St Louis, Missouri, USA, the seventh and easily the youngest child of Henry Ware Eliot, a businessman, and Charlotte Champe Stearns, a teacher and amateur poet.

After being schooled at Smith Academy he went to Harvard University in 1906, although he was only moderately successful as a student, despite discovering the world of poetry.

In 1910 he spent a postgraduate year in Paris at the Sorbonne, where he was introduced to European culture and the conflicting philosophical and political ideas of the age. He returned to Harvard in 1911 to undertake a doctoral level study of philosophy.

He had already started to write some of his best-known poems at this stage, including “The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock”, “Portrait of a Lady” and “Rhapsody on a Windy Night”.

His philosophical studies were wide-ranging, but he became particularly interested in exploring states of consciousness. This led him to study Eastern thought as well as Western, and to be critical of the emerging subjects of psychology and sociology. Among those who influenced him at Harvard were William James, Bertrand Russell and George Santayana.

The influence of his studies on the poetry he wrote at that time can be seen from the themes of madness and unreality that pervade such works as “The Descent from the Cross”, but he found this work to be sterile and unsatisfying.

In 1914 Eliot travelled to Europe, firstly to Germany and then to Britain, his plans being somewhat changed by the outbreak of war. Ezra Pound was shown some of Eliot’s manuscript poems and was greatly impressed, visiting Eliot in London.

Eliot was also introduced to Vivien Haigh-Wood, and they were married in June 1915, which nearly caused a rift with his parents. This weakening of family ties, plus the separation caused by the war, led Eliot to see his future as belonging on the eastern side of the Atlantic. Despite finishing his doctoral thesis, he was unwilling to travel to Harvard to defend it, and so never became “Dr Eliot”.

Eliot needed to support himself in London, starting with teaching and moving on to reviewing and lecturing. He eventually obtained a more regular income by joining Lloyds Bank, which had a need for his foreign language skills. This in turn gave him the impetus to resume his career as a poet, and “Prufrock and Other Observations” was published in late 1917.

Eliot’s connections, particularly with Bertrand Russell who had offered the Eliots their first married home, enabled him to meet some of the brightest stars of the English intellectual firmament of the time. These included members of the Bloomsbury Group, as well as W B Yeats and Wyndham Lewis.

1920 saw the publication of “The Sacred Wood”, a volume of critical essays that proved to be highly influential in shifting the focus of English criticism for the 20^th century.

However, things now took a turn for the worse. Eliot’s father had died in 1919, thus removing the chance for father and son to be reconciled. Vivien’s health deteriorated, and Eliot found the strain too much for him. He therefore, in 1921, took three months out to recuperate, spending part of the time in Switzerland.

This gave him the opportunity he needed to finish a project that had been brewing since 1914 and had been taking shape for a couple of years. The was to be “The Waste Land”, an avant-garde work for the Jazz Age, using highly original rhythmic devices and countless literary, historical and mythological allusions to achieve deep emotional insights. It therefore had much in common with Joyce’s “Ulysses”, which was published in book form in the same year, 1922.

Eliot was invited to become the first editor of a new literary magazine, “The Criterion”, and in 1925 he joined the board, as literary editor, of publishers Faber and Faber, which was the chance he needed to turn his back on banking. From this position, Eliot was able to exert a considerable influence on the British poetry scene in the 20^th century.

Eliot now underwent two conversions. One was to the Church of England, into which he was baptised in 1927, and the other was to Great Britain, taking British citizenship in the same year.

His religion, like his politics, now took a distinctly conservative tone as he aligned himself with the Anglo-Catholic wing of the Church of England. He took his religion very seriously, becoming a churchwarden and giving lectures at church events.

His poetry also turned more towards religious themes (although religion had always been present in much of his work to date). Notable poems from this time include “The Journey of the Magi”, “A Song for Simeon” and “Ash Wednesday”.

The writing of drama began to dominate Eliot’s literary output from about 1934, although “Sweeney Agonistes” had been started (it was never finished) as early as 1923.  His first completed dramas had overtly religious themes, namely “The Rock” in 1934 and “Murder in the Cathedral” in 1935, both commissioned by Anglican bishops.

His later plays were designed more for the commercial theatre, notable ones being “The Family Reunion” in 1939 and “The Cocktail Party” in 1949.

Just as “The Waste Land” had been precipitated by a crisis in Eliot’s personal life, the same could be said of his other “greatest work”, namely “Four Quartets”.  He found it impossible to maintain full marital relations with Vivien from about 1928, and in 1930 he decided to separate from her, although this was against her will. Vivien was eventually committed to a mental hospital in 1938. Thomas became very friendly with an old flame of his, Emily Hale, especially when she spent the summer of 1934 in the Cotswolds and they visited the abandoned manor house of Burnt Norton together. However, divorce was out of the question for the convinced high Anglican, and so Thomas and Emily never married.

“The Criterion” ceased publication on the outbreak of war in 1939, and Eliot’s war service consisted of being an air raid warden. His sombre mood at a sombre time led to his writing of the Quartets, “Burnt Norton” (finished back in 1935) being followed by “East Coker” (1940), “The Dry Salvages” (1941) and “Little Gidding” (1942).

The Quartets marked the virtual completion of Eliot’s poetical works, as he concentrated after the war on drama and criticism. The latter included the influential “Notes Toward a Definition of Culture” in 1948.

Eliot was recognised far and wide as a leading light of the literary scene both before and after the Second World War, accepting invitations to give prestigious lecture series on both sides of the Atlantic, and receiving a multitude of academic and other honours. These included the Order of Merit and the Nobel Prize for Literature, both in 1948.

Vivien died in 1947, and Thomas married his secretary in 1957. He died of emphysema on 4^th January 1965, aged 76.  His ashes were buried at East Coker, the ancestral home of the Eliot family, and a memorial service was held for him in Westminster Abbey.

When one considers the life of T S Eliot, the impression is of a deeply philosophical, religious, conservative, and above all serious man. It is therefore a surprise to realise that he was also the author of a very unserious collection of poems, namely “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats”. These whimsical, light, funny and very “human” poems seem totally out of keeping with the author of “The Four Quartets”, especially when one appreciates that “Old Possum” was written at about the same time (1939 to be precise).

However, it is as the originator of the text for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s hit musical “Cats” that most people will know the work of one of the greatest poets and playwrights of the 20^th century.

© John Welford