1. He never wrote for more than three hours each day! This actually makes sense considering he held down a multitude of other jobs (banker, teacher, editor, publisher, etc.) throughout his life. He said, “The danger, as a rule, of having nothing else to do is that one might write too much rather than concentrating and perfecting smaller amounts.”
2. His 1939 book of poetry, Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, was transformed into one of the longest-running Broadway shows of all time. I bet y’all have heard of Cats!?
3. Eliot’s colleague, poet Ezra Pound, helped raise money for Eliot so he could quit his banking job. Pound and others who respected Eliot thought he should put more time into his writing. Eliot had different ideas: he kept his job and didn’t accept the money.
4. During a period of writer’s block, he found another outlet by writing in French (only for a short time).
5. He wrote a poem called “The Triumph of Bulls**t.” “[...] The Oxford English Dictionary credits the poem with being the first time a curse word ever appeared in print.” Oooh!
6. Eliot’s marriage was complicated by his wife’s addiction to ether and her frequent physician and mental issues. “Eliot [...] would later reveal that his state of despair during his first marriage was the catalyst and inspiration for "The Waste Land.”
Huh! Another poet with a bizarre life. What a surprise...
Source: http://mentalfloss.com/article/86011/12-things-you-might-not-know-about-ts-eliot
1 comment:
Since it is the only thing of his so far that we've read, I just wanted to bring up on this reflection of T.S. Eliot, how much I enjoyed the poem of his we read last year: "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."It is a beautifully written poem, and it is clear that he sincerely wrote something that was unprecedented. His words were lyrical and reflective of what more modern poetry looks like. It's definitely interesting as well to hear some of the bizarre facts about his life since even the beautiful language in Prufrock can depict incredibly bizarre scenes. I guess you have to have a weird gene to be a creative writer.
Post a Comment