Eliots Search

David Westbrook

English III Pre-Ap

December 13, 2005

"Eliot's Search"

Thomas Stearns Eliot was born in 1888 in St. Louis, Missouri. Thus began the journey of a very influential man of American poetry. Eliot had some hard times throughout his life. He was born as the last child of seven. He lived through college with absolutely no social life and with a disgusted boredom academically. He spent most of his younger life in a searchingly depressed state. He was later married and was put through an unhappy marriage with a sickly wife. All of this is evidenced in his writings that are labeled as too personal by many critics. Religion was a very large influence behind Eliot's searchingly personal poetry that is often left out by those that critique his writings. Overall his poetry was held in high esteem and un-debatably had an influence on a change for American poetry.

He was considerably younger than his other siblings so he would spend most of his time in his younger days reading alone. As a result he never developed his social skills which later led to his loneliness in college. He was brought up in a strongly Unitarian home (Gordon, pg. 4-5). Eliot tells of how his Irish nurse had discussed with him the existence of God. The discussion stimulated his early religious thinking that started his later rejection of his Unitarian background. "His fervent nature found no nourishment in Unitarianism and he began to search for an older, stricter discipline." (Sanna, pg. 56)

Eliot in his youth trusted the "inner light which was peoples wonders of their own existence". (Gordon, pg.60) Later he came to realize the dangers of individualism. In his early poetry he shows a longing to withdraw from the world. He is searching for an "explanation of the disordered world" and the moral world inside of him. (Oser) This search is the reason for his exclusion from society and the personal searching of his writings. (Oser, pg.111-113) He started visiting Anglican chapels in London as a quiet place to think during his lunches. He began to have a longing for a stronger "dogmatic theological structure than was to be found in his purely ethnical background" (Oser, Pg. 97) He found this in Anglo-Catholicism which he converted to in 1929.

After his conversion he found "moments of singing happiness that are greatly evidenced in Ash Wednesday and Marina." (Sanna, Pg 67) He was finally able to find some comfort in life through religion, but had spent most of it in "the shadow of its