T. S. Eliot
T.S. Eliot was an extremely private individual, leaving little behindfor biographers. During his lifetime, Eliot earned a respected place inthe literary world and his poetry is considered to be some of the mostinfluential of the twentieth century. Born Thomas Stearns Eliot on September 26, 1988 to one of the mostdistinguished families of St. Louis, Missouri, Eliot was related to bothNathaniel Hawthorne and Henry Adams (Pettingell pg). He spent the firsteighteen years of his life in St. Louis and then attended HarvardUniversity, earning both undergraduate and masters degrees, then in 1910left the United States to study at the Sorbonne in Paris (T.S. pg). Hethen returned to Harvard and earned a doctorate in philosophy, then in1914, Eliot returned to Europe and settled in England, becoming a Britishcitizen in 1927 (T.S. pg). He married Vivien Haigh-Wood the following yearand began working as a teacher, the later for Lloyd's Bank in London (T.S.pg). While in London, Ezra Pound took notice of Eliot, recognizing at oncehis poetic genius and became a great influence in Eliot's life (T.S. pg).Pound assisted Eliot in the publication of his work in a several magazines
Equitone" and moreover she cannot even see the meaning of all her cards (Kaiser pg). Mathew Gold suggests that 'The Waste Land' is actually a record ofEliot's sickness and his cure, and that few critics have examined Eliot'sstay at Lausanne, and its relation to the poem. Ever, the private person, it is said thatEliot was so furious when she did this that he destroyed all of the lettershe had received from her (Pettingell pg). Through the years, there have been countless reviews of Eliot's 'TheWaste Land,' however as Jo Ellen Kaiser writes in her article 'DiscipliningThe Waste Land' for Twentieth Century Literature, the still best-knownreview of the poem is by Edmund Wilson in 1922 (Kaiser pg). The otherearly reviewers of Eliot's poem had to interpret it on their own, whereasWilson had access to Eliot's unpublished notes, although, before readingthe notes, Wilson believed the poem to be "nothing more or less than a mostdistressingly moving account of Eliot's own agonized state of mind" (Kaiserpg). However, the desire for order deconstructs itself continuously, as "set mylands in order" appears the presence of chaos as its foundation (Kaiserpg). Eliot wrote most of the poem whilerecuperating at a Swiss spa after his separation from Vivien, who in abiography by Lyndall Gordon "comes across as the primary influence on theyoung man - his dark Muse, who made life Hell, but transformed him from aminor poet into one of the pre-eminent voices of the twentieth century"(Pettingell pg). Vittoz's hand, to bringhimself under control. In1922, Eliot founded the literary journal, 'Criterion,' and remained editorfor seventeen years (Thomas pg). When post-structuralisttheorists began expounding that the "expertise of the professional criticis a product of the very cultural crisis it is designed to overcome, thenotes have ceased to have their unifying effect" (Kaiser pg).
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Acceptance Essays
