T.S.+Eliot

"Anxiety is the hand maiden of creativity. "-T. S. Eliot
 * T.S. ELIOT**

T. S. Eliot was born in St. Louis, Missouri on September 26 in the year 1888 to Henry and Charlotte Eliot. He was the youngest of 7 children, and his parents were wealthy. his father was the chairman of a brick company and his mother, a former teacher, was a social work volunteer/ amateur poet. . Besides his parents, Eliot had four sisters ages 11-19 and a brother eight years his senior. His family came to live in St. Louis in 1834. His grandfather was the family's patriarch and founded many charities, universities, and schools.
 * Birth:**
 * Family**

T. S. Eliot began writing poems when he was fourteen. his first poem to be seen was used for an excercise when he was fifteen.at age sixteen he attended Smith Academy in St. Louis**.** At Smith he studied Latin, German, French, and Ancient Greek. 1905 after he graduated from Smith, he attended Milton Academy for a prep year. After graduating at Milton Academy, he wrote and recited a valedictory poem for his graduation. Soon after, he went on to attend Harvard University. He stayed at Harvard to get his Masters degree in Philosophy which came toi be disrupted by a year overseas in the University of Paris in France.In 1911 he returned, but then he went back overseas in 1914. When the first world war broke out he transferred to Merton in Oxford where he was discovered by the young poet, Ezra Pound. Then He married Vivienne Haigh-Wood. In Enlgand he taught at a boy's school(1915-1916) and later worked for a bank.
 * Career/Education**

He became an Anglo-Catholic and a citizen in Great Britain in the year of 1927. He also wrote many books and poems on the subject. One of these particular poems is six verses long and speaks of Lent. This poem is also about a man who doesn't know God and goes in search of him.He even wrote one about a murder in a cathedral.
 * Religion**


 * Famous Works Timeline**

Eliot only married twice. His first wife died the year before he won the Nobel Prize and the BOM (British Order of Merit). Then he married his secretary in 1957 and the remained together until his death in January 1965. His ashes remain to this day in East Coker, in the church of St Michael's.
 * Marriage and Death**

This Poem is one of his most famous works.

THE LOVE SONG OF J. ALFRED PRUFROCK Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient etherised upon a table; Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, The muttering retreats Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: Streets that follow like a tedious argument Of insidious intent To lead you to an overwhelming question... Oh, do not ask, "What is it?" Let us go and make our visit.
 * // by: T.S. Eliot (1888-1965) //**

In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes, The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes, Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains, Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys, Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap, And seeing that it was a soft October night, Curled once about the house, and fell asleep. And indeed there will be time For the yellow smoke that slides along the street Rubbing its back upon the window-panes; There will be time, there will be time To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet; There will be time to murder and create, And time for all the works and days of hands That lift and drop a question on your plate, Time for you and time for me, And time yet for a hundred indecisions, And for a hundred visions and revisions, Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?" Time to turn back and descend the stair, With a bald spot in the middle of my hair— (They will say: "How his hair is growing thin!") My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin, My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin— (They will say: "But how his arms and legs are thin!") Do I dare Disturb the universe? In a minute there is time For decisions and revisions which a minute win reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all— Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons; I know the voices dying with a dying fall Beneath the music from a farther room. So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all— The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase, And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin, When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall, Then how should I begin To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways? And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all— Arms that are braceleted and white and bare (But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!) Is it perfume from a dress That makes me so digress? Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl. And should I then presume? And how should I begin?

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?

I should have been a pair of ragged claws Scuttling across the floors of silent seas. . . . . . And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully! Smoothed by long fingers, Asleep ... tired ... or it malingers, Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me. Should I, after tea and cakes and ices, Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis? But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed, Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter, I am no prophet-and here's no great matter; I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all, After the cups, the marmalade, the tea, Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me, Would it have been worth while, To have bitten off the matter with a smile, To have squeezed the universe into a ball To roll it towards some overwhelming question, To say: "I am Lazarus, come from the dead, Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all"— If one, settling a pillow by her head, Should say: "That is not what I meant at all. That is not it, at all."

And would it have been worth it, after all, Would it have been worth while, After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets, After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor— And this, and so much more?— It is impossible to say just what I mean! But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen: Would it have been worth while If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl, And turning toward the window, should say: "That is not it at all, That is not what I meant, at all."

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be; Am an attendant lord, one that will do To swell a progress, start a scene or two, Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool Deferential, glad to be of use, Politic, cautious, and meticulous; Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse; At times, indeed, almost ridiculous— Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old ... I grow old ... I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach? I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves Combing the white hair of the waves blown back When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

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