T. S. ELIOT
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TIMELINE
1888, September
Thomas Stearns Eliot born, St Louis, Missouri.
1898
Enters Smith Academy, St Louis.
1905, April
‘Song’, Eliot’s first poem ‘shown to other eyes’, printed in
Smith Academy Record
.
1905, June
Delivers the valedictory poem on his graduation from Smith.
1905–1906
Passes a year at Milton Academy, Massachusetts.
1906
Enters Harvard, where he graduates BA 1909, MA 1910.
1908
Discovers the poetry of Jules Laforgue, among others, in Arthur Symons’s
The Symbolist Movement in Literature
.
1910–1911
Moves to Paris. Studies at the Sorbonne.
1912
Returns to Harvard to pursue philosophy, in particular the idealism of F. H. Bradley.
1912
Meets and falls in love with Emily Hale.
1914, August
Arrives, via Germany, in England, having gained admission to Merton College, Oxford on a travelling fellowship.
1914, September
Meets Ezra Pound
1915, June
‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ published in
Poetry
.
1915, June
Marries Vivienne Haigh-Wood, the couple having met in March.
1915, July
‘Preludes’ and ‘Rhapsody on a Windy Night’ published in Wyndham Lewis’s magazine
BLAST
.
1915, September
A term teaching in High Wycombe is followed by a year at Highgate Junior School.
1917, March
Accepts a position in the Colonial and Foreign Department of Lloyds Bank.
1917, May
Appointed Editorial Assistant at
The Egoist
.
1917, June
The Egoist Press publishes
Prufrock and Other Observations
.
1919, January
Death of Eliot’s father.
1919
Poems
is published by Hogarth Press; republished with ‘Gerontion’ as
Ara Vos Prec
.
1919, September–November
‘Tradition and the Individual Talent’ printed in
The Egoist
.
1920, November
First collection of literary criticism,
The Sacred Wood
, published by Methuen.
1921, September
Recovers from ‘nervous breakdown’ in Margate, then Lausanne, where he completes a draft of
The Waste Land
.
1922, January
Returns from Switzerland to Paris, where he and Pound work on the poem.
1922, October
First issue of
The Criterion
, funded by Lady Rothermere. At its centre is
The Waste Land
.
1925, April
Invited to join the board of Faber & Gwyer, who agree to share financial burden of
The Criterion
.
1925, November
‘The Hollow Men’ published, part of
Poems 1909–1925
.
1927, June
Received into the Anglican Church, following a private baptism.
1927, August
‘Journey of the Magi’ published in the first batch of Faber’s ‘Ariel’ Poems.
1927, November
Accepted as a British citizen.
1929, September
Death of Eliot’s mother.
1930
Publication of
Ash-Wednesday
, begun in December 1927.
1932, September
Departs for America on eight-month lecture-tour.
1932, December
Visits Emily Hale in California.
1933
Begins to arrange a legal separation from Vivienne.
1934, June
First performance of Eliot’s pageant,
The Rock
.
1935, June
Murder in the Cathedral
opens to great acclaim and, in due course, international success.
1936, April
‘Burnt Norton’, the first of
Four Quartets
, published in
Collected Poems 1909–1935.
1938, July
Vivienne is committed to Northumberland House, a private asylum near Finsbury Park.
1939, January
Final issue of
The Criterion
, with Eliot’s ‘Last Words’.
1939, October
Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats
is published.
1943, May
Four Quartets
published.
1947, January
Vivienne Haigh-Wood dies of a heart attack, aged fifty-eight.
1948, January
Awarded the Order of Merit by George VI.
1948, December
Receives the Nobel Prize for Literature.
1957, January
Marries Valerie Fletcher in a private ceremony, beginning at 6.15 am.
1965, January
T. S. Eliot dies at home in Kensington.
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