T.S. Eliot’s full name was Thomas Sterns Eliot. T.S. Eliot was born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1888 on September 26, 1888. He had attended Smith Academy in St. Louis and then Louis Academy in Massachusetts as he grew up. A little after the 1900’s came around Eliot had started to see his poems and short stories being printed. For college Eliot had gone to Harvard University in 1906. He graduated 3 years later with a Bachelor of Arts degree. Once graduated Eliot was a philosophy assistant at Harvard for 1 year. After that year was up he left for France. While in Europe from 1911-1914 he studied Sanskrit and read about Indian philosophy. He sadly wasn’t able to finish his oral exam for his Ph.D at Harvard but shortly after he married Vivienne Haigh-Wood. He first became a school teacher but shortly later changed jobs to becoming a bank clerk where he would then leave that job in 1925. After this Eliot had been working on many pieces of poetry over a period of time of his life. Because of his major influence in poetry, criticism, and drama T.S. Eliot had received the Order of Merit and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948. He then shortly died on January 4, 1965.

One of T.S. Eliot’s most greatest works is, “The Hippopotamus”. This poem was about T.S. Eliot expressing himself on his negative feelings towards the Church of England. In the poem it is called, “The Hippopotamus”, because he is comparing the Church of England and a Hippopotamus. The hippo in this comparison represents the common people who are living their lives and working for money to buy food and keep shelter and all of the necessities. Meanwhile the Church is gathering up money from the regulars that attend. Unlike the hippo the Church doesn’t have to work for its income.

Here are some quotes from T.S. Eliot.

“The True Church can never fail for it is based upon a rock.” (T.S. Eliot, The Hippopotamus)

“I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.” (T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock)

“The soul of Man must quicken to creation.”(T.S. Eliot, The Rock)

“Only those who risk going to far can possibly find out how far one can go.”(T.S. Eliot, preface, Transit of Venice)

The impact and influence that T.S. Eliot spread throughout his work was inspiring in itself. The first poem of the period and of Eliot’s important works was, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” This poem was one of many that appeared in his book called Poetry that came out in 1915. Prufrock and other observations help establish T.S. Eliot as a leading poet of his day.

My initial reaction of T.S. Eliot was that there was nothing special about him. Once I started reading his work for this presentation he then started to meet my expectations and then as I started reading some of the things that he has written in other poems he started to exceed my expectations and blow my mind.

My essential question is “How can religious literature impact modern society?”


In the articles that I have read one of them that is , “The Heritage Foundation”, and it says the religious practice has an enormous potential for addressing today’s social problems. Another article by, “New Historian”, says that religion is a personal matter but the position it holds and society has become subject of debate.