T.S. Eliot : His Life and Works 1888-1929 Quiz

Answer: Thomas Stearns

Thomas Stearns Eliot (September 26, 1888 - January 4, 1965) was a poet, dramatist and literary critic.

Answer: St. Louis, Missouri

Lexington, Massachusetts was where Eliot's parents were married. New Bedford, Massachusetts was where his grandfather, William Greenleaf Eliot, was born. Jefferson City is the state capital of Missouri; it has no real correlation to Eliot.

Answer: Smith Academy

Eliot attended Smith Academy from 1898 to 1905. The Smith Academy is a preparatory school for Washington University (not Washington Academy).

Answer: Harvard

Eliot attended Harvard University from 1906 to 1909 (during which time he obtained a BA) and earned a Master's Degree the following year. Upon World War I, Eliot moved to England where he spent much time studying, as well as meeting and marrying his wife Vivienne. Also during that time, he'd been working on his dissertation and finally submitted it to Harvard in 1916.

Despite the fact that it had been accepted, Eliot had not received his Ph.D because he wasn't present to defend it.

Answer: Merton

Eliot attended Merton in 1914, but was unhappy and refused to further his education there.

Answer: Henry Ware Eliot and Charlotte Champe Stearnes

Samuel Eliot, Elizabeth Greenleaf, William Greenleaf Eliot, Abigail Adams Cranch, Thomas Lamb Eliot, and Henrietta Robins Mack are all related to T.S. Eliot from his genealogy.

Answer: Ezra Pound

The magazine "Poetry : A Magazine of Verse" published the poem in June 1915, at the request of Ezra Pound (who was the foreign editor of the magazine). Pound became a mentor and lifelong friend of Eliot. The other poets were all contributors to the magazine.

Answer: "I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled."

"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is also referred to as "Prufrock". It was this poem that turned Eliot into what he ultimately became; one of the most influential poets of his time. A few of the well known poets that influenced Eliot includes Homer, Ezra Pound, and Dante Alighieri (better known as Dante, from "Dante's Inferno", "Purgatorio", etc.)

Answer: Vivienne Haigh-Wood

Tom and Vivienne were married on June 26, 1915. He married Esme on January 10, 1957. Joan Aiken was the daughter of his great friend Conrad Aiken. Dora Black was married to Bertrand Russell, who had a brief affair with Vivienne.

Answer: Matthew Arnold

Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) was the son of Tom Arnold, the famous Headmaster of Rugby School. Matthew was a Victorian poet, writer, and literary critic.
William Empson was a famous critic, one who considered Eliot as one of the greatest literary critics of the 20th century.

Answer: Dover Beach

Written in 1927, "The Journey of The Magi" is quite the opposite of what it sounds like - it was miserable and full of hatred. The poem was published in Eliot's "Ariel Poems" in 1930.

Answer: John Betjeman

Eliot taught Betjeman during World War I. Hopkins, the great Victorian writer, also attended Highgate as did Barfield, who influenced Eliot, C.S. Lewis, Tolkien, and others. Philip Stanhope Worsley also attended Highgate and was the first translator of "The Odyssey" and "The Iliad" (into English).

Answer: Ezra Pound

At the very beginning is written "For Ezra Pound - il miglior fabbro." That translates into "the better craftsman".

Eliot and Joyce were friends, and "The Wasteland" was considered to be a counterpart of Joyce's "Ulysses", published in the same year.

W.H. Auden (an Anglo-American poet) and William Yeats (an Irish poet and dramatist) had both been influenced by Eliot.

Answer: Anglican

On June 29 he converted to Anglicanism and in November he became a British citizen. Also, he decided to drop his American citizenship (during November). In 1928, Eliot summarized his beliefs when he wrote in the preface to his book, "For Lancelot Andrewes", that "the general point of view may be described as classicist in literature, royalist in politics, and Anglo catholic in religion."

Answer: Old Possum

"Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats" is an assortment of Eliot's poems about feline psychology and sociology. A second edition was published in the early 80s that featured illustrations.

Answer: F. H. Bradley

Although Eliot submitted the thesis to Harvard in 1915, he didn't get the Ph.D because he wasn't present to defend it. "Knowledge and Experience in the Philosophy of F. H. Bradley" was eventually published in 1964.
Thomas Hill Green and Bernard Bosanquet were both British idealist philosophers, and Georg Hegel was an influence upon their writings.

Answer: Gerontion

"Gerontion" is a poem by Eliot that was published in 1920. Eliot scholar Grover Smith made a comment of this poem that quotes, "If any notion remained that in the poems of 1919 Eliot was sentimentally contrasting a resplendent past with a dismal present, "Gerontion" should have helped to dispel it." Despite this, the poem is still regarded as antisemitic and harsh Eliot critics have never considered the poem as anything like what has Smith commented.

Answer: Murder in the Cathedral

Eliot had a brief voice segment as a tempter. The movie itself cannot be acquired, but there is a copy in the British Film Institute, yet getting ahold of it isn't the easiest task in the world.

Answer: Harvard Advocate

Several poems and 'songs' were printed in "The Advocate" between 1906 and 1913, including "Circe's Palace", "Before Morning", "Humouresque", and "Spleen".

Answer: Coriolan

Published in 1929 in Faber and Faber's first season, a complete list of the Ariel Poems is "Journey of the Magi", "A Song for Simeon, "Animula", "Marina", "Triumphal March", and "The Cultivation of Christmas Trees".



This quiz has been crafted by Editor mnbates and avid trivia fan gman89!