A Man of Words

The Move to England and Married Life

     In 1914, Eliot moved to England to live his life. Eliot liked to travel and had already been to the United Kingdom and France, but it wasn't until 1914 that Eliot decided to permanently live there. In 1915, Eliot married his first wife Vivienne Haigh-Wood. Eliot's first marriage wasn't very successful because by the 1930s Eliot was ready to separate from Vivienne. However, Eliot's marriage to Vivienne was failing long before the 1930s. While Eliot was writing The Waste Land, one of his most notable poems, his marriage had started to fail. At one point in their marriage Vivienne was actually put in a institution by her brother, and Eliot would travel just to avoid her. However, even with their unhappy marriage, the two stayed together until Vivienne's death in 1947, although Eliot had separated from her in 1933. In fact, after the separation, Eliot would tell people not to tell her were he was because he had no tolerance for her anymore. Eliot, the creative writer that he was, also had problems in his life and his marriage clearly reflected it.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

     In 1915, Eliot published The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock which became Eliot's first hugely successful poem. This poem is often thought to be one of Eliot's more complex poems because it comes from the narrator's consciousness. Some readers often wonder whether the narrator is talking to them or to himself, and it is in fact hard to tell. In the poem, Eliot depicts a typical, or maybe white he believes will become typical, middle-age white male of the time. As the poem begins, the narrator has thoughts he believes society would look down upon and therefore keeps all his thoughts to himself, however, he sometimes thinks about saying something but then he imagines the faces of those around him and decides not to. For then rest of the poem, the narrator contemplates his life and realizes he hasn't actually achieved anything in life, and that his existence is virtually meaningless.

The Waste Land

     In 1922, Eliot published The Waste Land, which has become one his most famous poems in the 21 century. This poem consisted of five parts: The Burial of the Dead, A Game of Chess, The Fire Sermon, Death by Water, and What the Thunder Said. Eliot wrote this poem in response to World War I and war torn Europe. Eliot, who was living in England at the time of World War I, experienced the war from Europe's point of view rather than the American view, even though he was still an American citizen at the time. The poem used a lot of references to past authors and plays, such as Shakespeare and John Webster. The poem incorporated multiple characters and a variety of views of the war. The overall concept of the poem is to nourish a dying world with their culture but the only way they can do this is with "personal responsibility, self-control, and a faith in cultural continuity based on common Western European values." ("Waste Land-Summary").

The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism

     In 1933, Eliot published The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism, and this book became one of Eliot's most important books about critical writings. In this book, Eliot goes over poetry from the Elizabethan period to current poetry, or at least poetry that would've been current to him. Eliot talks about the relationship of poetry and criticism, and urges people to figure out what the use of both of them is. Eliot urges this by saying, “start with the supposition that we do not know what poetry is, or what it does or ought to do, or of what use it is; and try to find out, in examining the relation of poetry to criticism, what the use of both of them is.” In the end, Eliot "suggests that that we can learn what is permanent about the nature of poetry, and makes a powerful case for both its autonomy and its pluralism in this century." ("Use of Poetry and Use of Criticism — T. S. Eliot").

Four Quartets

     In 1943, Eliot published Four Quartets, which consisted of four separate poems that were interconnected. The four poems were: Burnt Norton, East Coker, The Dry Salvages, and Little Gidding. Each poem was associated with a different place. The four places the poems were set around was a Gloucestershire mansion in Burnt Norton, the village of Eliot's ancestors in Massachusetts in East Coker, three small islands that Eliot visited when he was a kid in The Dry Salvages, and a religious community where King Charles I surrender to his death in Little Gidding. Even though Four Quartets was centered around four different places they had a common theme. The theme was "One may seek or wait in any place at any time, for God is in all places at all times."  ("T. S. Eliot Biography"). This theme was brought about in different ways in each of the poems, but it was always there, which is why Eliot put these poems together in the Four Quartets.

Prizes and Marriage

     In 1948, Eliot won two prizes. One prize was the Nobel Prize for Literature which was given to him for his contributions to "modern-day" poetry. The second prize was the Order of Merit which was given to him by King George VI for his contributions to literature. Both of these awards were outstanding achievements for Eliot, but they weren't the last awards he got.
     In 1957, Eliot got remarried to Valerie Fletcher, who'd worked as his secretary at Faber and Faber for years. Unlike his first marriage, Eliot had a happy life with Valerie, even though she was about 38 years younger than him. Valerie, although she was a secretary, sometimes edited Eliot's work due to the trust he'd given her when they'd first gotten together. It was said that Eliot was a private person, and he didn't want biographers "stirring the ashes of his life" (Weber). Because of that, Valerie fiercely guarded Eliot's legacy after his death and routinely turned down biographers requests for information.