Thomas Stearns Eliot was born in St. Louis, Missouri of New England descent, on Sept. 26, 1888. He entered Harvard University in 1906, completed his courses in three years and earned a master's degree the next year. After a year at the Sorbonne in Paris, he returned to Harvard. Further study led him to Merton College, Oxford, and he decided to stay in England. He worked first as a teacher and then in Lloyd's Bank until 1925. Then he …showed first 75 words of 1255 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1255 total…violent soul.'         In part Five the frustration of reality is described by the abstractions introduced in Part I; life is frustrated at every level, and this accounts for the nature of the land and the character of its people. By placing G-d in a casual relation to this condition, the poem develops an irony which results in the 'whimper'. But the most devastating irony is formal: the extension of game ritual in liturgical form.