1888
September 26: Thomas Stearns Eliot born in St. Louis, Missouri to Henry
Ware and Charlotte Stearns Eliot.
1898 A student at Smith Academy in St. Louis
1905 To Milton Academy in Massachusetts
1906-10 Undergraduate years at Harvard.
Reads Symons’s The Symbolist Movement in Literature and the
poetry of Laforgue. Studies with George Santayana and Irving
Babbitt.
1910-11 Having finished BA and MA degrees
at Harvard, spends a year at the Sorbonne in Paris. In the summer of
1911, finishes a version of "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"
1911-14 Returns to Harvard to study
philosophy as a graduate student. Begins doctoral thesis on F.H.
Bradley.
1914 To England on fellowship; meets Ezra
Pound.
1915 Marries Vivien Haigh-Wood on June 26th;
begins publishing poems that later appear in the Prufrock volume.
1916 Eliot working as teacher at Highgate
Junior School and as University Extension Lecturer.
1917 Prufrock and Other Observation published.
Eliot takes a position at Lloyds Bank in the Colonial and
Foreign Department.
1919 Ara Vos Prec published, with
"Gerontion" and the poems later published in Poems – 1920.
"Tradition and the Individual Talent" appears in The Egoist.
1920 The Sacred Wood published.
1921 Ill and exhausted, Eliot takes leave
from Lloyds Bank. Recuperating at Margate and Lausanne, finishes the
drafts of The Waste Land, which he then shows to Pound.
1922 The Waste Land published.
First issue of Criterion appears.
1925 Poems 1909-1925 published (with
"The Hollow Men"). Eliot joins the publishing house of Faber &
Gwyer, leaves Lloyds bank.
1927 Enters the Church of England and
assumes British citizenship
1928 For Lancelot Andrewes published.
1930 Ash-Wednesday published.
1932 Selected Essays 1917-1932
1933 Eliot’s 1932-33 Norton lectures at
Harvard published under the title The Use of Poetry and the Use of
Criticism (1933). At the University of Virginia, he delivers the
lectures later published as After Strange Gods (1934). Obtains
legal separation from Vivien.
1934 The Rock: A Pageant Play
performed and published.
1935 Murder in the Cathedral
performed.
1936 Collected Poems 1909-1935
(first appearance of "Burnt Norton").
1939 The Family Reunion performed.
The Idea of a Christian Society published. Last issue of
Criterion.
1940 East Coker published.
1941 The Dry Salvages published.
1942 Little Gidding published.
1947 Vivien Eliot dies.
1948 Wins Nobel Prize for Literature. Notes
Towards the Definition of Culture published.
1949 The Cocktail Party performed.
1953 The Confidential Clerk
performed.
1957 Married Valerie Fletcher on January
10. On Poetry and Poets published.
1958 The Elder Statesman performed.
1963 Collected Poems 1909-1962.
1965
Dies on January 4th; his ashes to East Coker.
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