Group 1 English Advanced

T.S. Eliot
Occupation
Eliot, aside from being an influential poet, playwright and literary critic, was also involved in several related occupations. Eliot worked in England as a schoolmaster and a bank clerk, before eventually taking position as the literary editor for publishing house, Faber and Faber. After leaving Merton College, Eliot worked as a school teacher in Highgate School, where he was the French and Latin teacher. He also taught at Royal Grammar School. Eliot wrote book reviews and lectured at evening extension courses in an attempt to earn extra money. In 1917, he worked in Lloyds Bank in London, working on foreign accounts. In 1925, Eliot left Lloyds to join the publishing firm Faber and Faber, where he remained for the rest of his career, eventually becoming director of the firm. He was responsible for publishing important English poets like H.W. Auden, Stephen Spender and Ted Hughes.

Nationality
Eliot was born in St Louis, Missouri to Henry Ware Eliot, an American industrialist and philanthropist and Charlotte Champe Stearns, who was a school teacher, poet and social worker and was born in Baltimore, Maryland. Eliot had studied at a range of schools, before being awarded a scholarship to attend Oxford in 1914. He had his first job at Lloyds Bank in London in 1917, before taking a British citizenship and converted from Unitarian to Anglican on the 29th of June, 1927. After converting to the Church of England, Eliots work began to move radically away from the libertine and liberated style of his fellow modernists. From the time of his conversion, his poetry can be characterized as almost always religious in nature, concerned expressly with trying to preserve historical English.

Early Life
Thomas Stearns Eliot 26/9/1888 4/1/1965 was the youngest of seven children, born with a medical condition which prevented him from participating in physical activities and interacting socially, thus causing his obsession with literature. Eliot attended Smith Academy in St Louis and soon went to Milton Academy, studying philosophy at Harvard. In December 1908, Eliot was introduced to his primary role model, Jules Laforgue. In 1910 and 1911, Eliot copied into a leather notebook of the poems which would change his reputation; The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, Portraid of a lady La figlia Che Piange, Preludes and Rhapsody on a Windy Night. Through Aiken, a mutual friend, Eliot met Ezra Pound on 22/9/1914, who deemed Eliot Worth watching and began promoting Eliot through social events and literary gatherings.

Education
In 1898, T.S. Eliot enrolled in the Smith Academy. His studies consisted of Latin, Ancient Greek, French and German. After his graduation in 1905, he attended the Milton Academy in Massachusetts, before studying philosophy at Harvard College from 1906 to 1909. Eliot completed his Bachelor of Arts degree in three years. From 1910-1911, Eliot moved to Paris and studied philosophy at Sorbonne. He returned to Harvard in 1911 to study Indian philosophy. He then took a scholarship at Oxford, where he met Ezra Pound.

Group 1 English Advanced

Timeline
Sep 26, 1888 - Thomas Stearns Eliot was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the child of Henry Ware Eliot and Charlotte Stearns Eliot. 1898 - Eliot begins school at Smith Academy, a preparatory school for Washington University in St. Louis. 1905 - Graduates from Smith Academy, where he studied Latin, French, Greek, and German. Eliot first spends a preparatory year at Milton Academy, near Boston, Massachusetts. 1906 - Eliot enrols at Harvard University. Eliot wrote poems for the Harvard Advocate. 1910 - Eliot graduates from Harvard with bachelors and master's degrees 1911 - Eliot returns to Harvard and begins work on a doctorate in philosophy. 1914 - Eliot receives a fellowship to study at Merton College, at Oxford University, where he meets another young poet and fellow student named Ezra Pound. 1915 - His first major poem, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," is published in the journal Poetry. On June 26th, Eliot marries Vivienne Haigh-Wood. He takes a teaching job at Highgate School. 1916 - Eliot submits his doctoral dissertation, "Experience and Objects of Knowledge in the Philosophy of F.H. Bradley." Harvard does not confer his doctorate. 1917 - Prufrock and Other Observations is published. Eliot works as a foreign account manager at Lloyds Bank in London for 10 years. He also becomes assistant editor of the literary journal Egoist. 1919 - Egoist publishes "Tradition and the Individual Talent," an essay by Eliot. In it, he argues that a poet is obligated to serve poetic traditions rather than his personal emotions. 1920 - Eliot publishes The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism , his seminal collection of literary criticism. 1921 - Eliot suffers a nervous breakdown and is forced to take a leave of absence from Lloyds. 1922 - Eliot launches Criterion, a quarterly literary journal. Its first issue contains The Waste Land, a 434-line epic about the alienation of post-World War I life. 1925 - Eliot publishes Poems 1909-1925, a collection that includes "The Hollow Men". He leaves his job at Lloyds and goes to work as an editor for the publishing house Faber & Faber, until 1960s. 1927 - Eliot becomes a British subject and a member of the Anglican Church at age 39. He first moved to the United Kingdom, in 1914 at the age of 25. 1930 - "Ash Wednesday," a poem about Eliot's religious awakening, is published. 1932 - Eliot accepts a yearlong teaching position at Harvard 1933 - Eliot returns to England and officially separates from Vivienne. Not long after, Vivienne is committed to a mental hospital north of London, where she remains for the rest of her life. Jun 15, 1935 - Eliot's play Murder in the Cathedral, a drama about the assassination of Archbishop Thomas Becket, premieres at Canterbury Cathedral. 1936 - Collected Poems 1909-1935 appears. The collection containing "Burnt Norton" 1940 - The poem "East Coker" is published. Eliot serves as a night watchman at his office building to look out for German bomber planes. 1941 - "The Dry Salvages," a poem written during the London air-raid drills, is published. 1942 - "Little Gidding," the fourth poem of the Four Quartets, is published. 1947 - Eliot's first wife dies at her mental hospital in Northumberland. 1948 - Eliot is awarded the Nobel Prize for literature 1950 - Eliot's play The Cocktail Party, wins the Tony Award for Best Play Jan 10, 1957 - Eliot marries his secretary, Esm Valerie Fletcher, a woman 37 years his junior. Jan 4, 1965 - T.S. Eliot dies of emphysema at age 76, and is cremated at Golders Green Crematorium. His ashes are interred at St. Michael's Church in East Coker, England.