T.S. Eliot's Poetry
T.S. Eliot's poetry is famous for its self-subsistent structure and musicality. Many readers considered the collection of poems to be a single work. Despite its musicality, Eliot's poetry made an indelible impression on its audience. Even those who disavowed Christian beliefs recognized Eliot's intellectual integrity. Eliot received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948.
Thomas Stearns Eliot
Thomas Stearns Eliot was born in Massachusetts in 1883. His father, William Greenleaf Eliot, was a Unitarian Christian minister and established a church at Smith Academy. His paternal grandfather, Henry Ware Eliot, became the president of the Hydraulic-Press Brick Company in St. Louis, Missouri. His mother, Charlotte Champe Stearns, was a social worker. The family had six children, and Eliot was the last of six. He earned a bachelor's degree from Harvard in 1909 and continued to pursue graduate degrees in English and philosophy.
The Burial of the Dead
The setting is a surreal city, populated by ghosts of the dead. The speaker confronts a ghost from a previous battle and asks him about the fate of a corpse planted in the garden. Throughout the book, the speaker confronts many ghosts. The reader is not only snared by the surreal characters but also by the literary style of the book.
The Waste Land
The Waste Land is a poem about the death of culture and the misery of learning in a world that has lost its roots. Eliot wrote it as an elegy to a dead culture during a time when popular culture had largely replaced literature. The poem is a metaphor for knowledge, and its theme of a world without tradition and culture is a resounding one.
The Four Quartets
The Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot are composed of four poems. The poems each have a different theme and association with the world around them. Burnt Norton, for example, embodies the philosophical tone of the novel. East Coker, on the other hand, mimics the rhythms of the sea. In Little Gidding, the theme of religion is prevalent, and a key passage in the novel echoes Dante Aligjieri's Divine Comedy.
Vivienne Haigh-Wood
T.S. Eliot's poetry is a powerful statement of the horrors of female sexuality. Written between 1918 and 1922, Eliot's poems feature over-sexed female characters, such as Princess Volupine and Grishkin. In his works, Eliot also discusses the importance of preserving the family's traditions and values.
