Jan. 4, 1965 - T. S. Eliot (pictured in 1948), who gave new meaning to English-language poetry, died today at his home in London. He was 76 years old.
Eliot was an American, born in St. Louis. He moved to England at the beginning of World War I and became wholly identified with Britain, even becoming naturalized in 1927.
Nevertheless, when President Johnson recently awarded the Medal of Freedom to leaders in American literature and public life, Eliot was among those honored. He did not make the trip to the U.S., however, to receive the award.
The influence of Eliot began with the publication in 1917 of his poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” Perhaps his most significant contribution came five years later in the lengthy poem “The Waste Land.”
Perhaps the most quoted lines of any 20th-century poet writing in English were written by Eliot as the conclusion to “The Hollow Men” (1925): “This is the way the world ends; Not with a bang but a whimper.”
Eliot was a convert to Anglo-Catholicism, and his religious belief showed up strongly in his later works.
Eliot won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948 and was awarded the Order of Merit by Britain in the same year.
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