Thomas Stearns Eliot – Life and Works
Thomas Stearns Eliot or more known as T.S. Eliot was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1888. He was very prominent in the literature field specifically in writing poems. He attended as an undergraduate at Harvard University in 1906 wherein he was able to join literary groups or organizations there. T.S.Eliot is a famous American author, poet, literary critic, and playwright who wrote during the early 20th century in England.
His first poem, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, garnered a lot of praise that paved the way for his works to be classified under Modernist poetry. Eliot’s most prominent work is The Waste Land. The underlying themes in this specific poem revolve around death, war, trauma, and religion. He completed writing The Waste Land because of his father’s death. As the title of the poem, it implies decay in the spiritual and intellectual aspects of the modern world.
But for Eliot, he believes his greatest work is not The Waste Land. For him, it was The Four Quartets which was published in 1943. The theme of this poem revolves around the concepts of religion, an attempt of finding meaning in life, and relationships in time. This was his greatest work after venturing into the theatre.
Four Quartets is a volume of poems and this is my favorite work from the author as well. I love how he did not limit the themes to religion so we can analyze it in various aspects. I have read that the poems contained personal experiences from Eliot but the poems aren’t just about his personal experiences but expounding these experiences universally with the use of his theory of impersonality. This also garnered a lot of attention as it tackles the uncertainty of the future and how the poem responded to the uncertainty of the future by offering hope. This was a relevant poem during their era as there was a high uncertainty of survival for everyone at that time of war.
Overall, Eliot has definitely left an impact on this world. His works are remarkable and can still be relevant right now in our society. Especially the Four Quartets wherein it tackles uncertainty. Right now, the association of uncertainty in what is happening with us right now is very timely. Despite these works being published years ago, it is no doubt that Eliot left a notable impact in the literary field.
