Blavatsky Blogger
Taking Theosophical
ideas
into the 21st
century
A Brief Biography of T S Eliot
Thomas
Stearns Eliot
(1888-1965)
Thomas
Stearns Eliot (1888-1965) was born in
Eliot has
been one of the most daring innovators of twentieth-century poetry. Never
compromising either with the public or indeed with language itself, he has
followed his belief that poetry should aim at a representation of the
complexities of modern civilization in language and that such representation
necessarily leads to difficult poetry. Despite this difficulty his influence on
modern poetic diction has been immense.
Eliot's
poetry from Prufrock (1917) to the Four Quartets (1943) reflects the
development of a Christian writer: the early work, especially The Waste Land
(1922), is essentially negative, the expression of that horror from which the
search for a higher world arises. Despite his conversion to High Anglicanism,
Theosophical and Hindu influences can be found in his work.
In 1925
Eliot published The Hollow Men. Eliot reworks deleted fragments from the first
draft of The Waste Land into a poetic sequence that meditates on the barrenness
of modern civilisation and the search for values to redeem it.
In Ash
Wednesday (1930) and the Four Quartets this higher world becomes more visible;
nonetheless Eliot has always taken care not to become a «religious poet». and
often belittled the power of poetry as a religious force. However, his dramas
Murder in the Cathedral (1935) and The Family Reunion (1939) are more openly
Christian apologies. In his essays, especially the later ones, Eliot advocates
a traditionalism in religion, society, and literature that seems at odds with
his pioneer activity as a poet. But although the Eliot of Notes towards the
Definition of Culture (1948) is an older man than the poet of The Waste Land,
it should not be forgotten that for Eliot tradition is a living organism
comprising past and present in constant mutual interaction. Eliot's plays
Murder in the Cathedral (1935), The Family Reunion (1939), The Cocktail Party
(1949), The Confidential Clerk (1954), and The Elder Statesman (1959) were
published in one volume in 1962; Collected Poems 1909-62 appeared in 1963.
T
S Eliot Chronology 1888 - 1922
Quotes By
T S Eliot
The progress
of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of
personality.
In my
beginning is my end.
I don't
believe one grows older. I think that what happens early on in life is that at
a certain age one stands still and stagnates.
Moving
between the legs of tables and of chairs, rising or falling, grasping at kisses
and toys, advancing boldly, sudden to take alarm, retreating to the corner of
arm and knee, eager to be reassured, taking pleasure in the fragrant
brilliance
of the Christmas tree.
Art never
improves, but the material of art is never quite the same.
The years
between fifty and seventy are the hardest. You are always being asked
to do
things, and yet you are not decrepit enough to turn them down.
Genuine
poetry can communicate before it is understood.
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