T.S. Eliot
1888–1965 · American-British (St. Louis/London) · High Modernism
Known for: Most influential English-language poet of the 20th century—The Waste Land, Four Quartets, 'Prufrock.' Nobel Prize 1948
Thomas Stearns Eliot was a St. Louis banker's son who became the supreme arbiter of English literary taste from his position at Faber and Faber in London. The Waste Land (1922), with its collage technique and polyglot allusions, defined literary modernism. He converted to Anglo-Catholicism and became increasingly conservative.
His first marriage to Vivienne Haigh-Wood was disastrous—she was eventually committed to a mental hospital. His second marriage at 68 was reportedly happy. He also wrote Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, which became the musical Cats. His antisemitism has complicated his legacy.
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