T.S. Eliot

In 1888, Thomas Stearns Eliot, also known as T.S. Eliot, was born in St. Louis, Missouri to Henry Ware Eliot and Charlotte Champe Stearns (T.S. Eliot: Biographical Timeline 1). He was the youngest of seven children and born when his parents were wealthy and secure, after recovering from a previous business failure. His grandfather, William Greenleaf Eliot, had been a protégé of William Ellery Channing, the dean of American Unitarianism. William Eliot graduated from Harvard Divinity School, and then moved toward the frontier. He founded the Unitarian church in St. Louis and became a strong backbone in the St. Louis society. As the city began to run down, the Eliot family remained while many of their colleagues moved to the suburbs (Bush 1). In St. Louis, from 1898 until 1906, he attended both Smith Academy and Milton Academy and wrote "Byronic" poems (Headings 13). At the age of twenty, Eliot found in the Harvard Union Library a book that would alter his life: Arthur Symons's The Symbolist Movement in Literature, which introduced him to the poetry lifestyle (Bush 2).
Eliot graduated from Harvard, and within two years, his poetic career was confirmed. For a short time he became the secretary of Harvard's magazine, the Advocate, then moved to England. Here, Conrad Aiken, a friend, showed some of Eliot's work to Ezra Pound who is not easily awed, and she loved his poetry. Eliot helped to modify poetic diction with Ezra Pound, whom was a critical element in the publishing of Eliot's first works (Ackroyd 55).
In 1915, Eliot was introduced to Vivienne Haigh-Wood, was instantly attracted, and married her that very same year (Ackroyd 61). His parents did not approve of this, especially once they discovered her history of emotional and physical difficulties (Ackroyd 62). This marriage nearly caused the family to crumble; yet, it did mark the beginning of Eliot's English career. Since Vivienne did not wish to cross the Atlantic during a time of war, Eliot was forced to...