September 26

September 26 is the birthdate of Thomas Stearns (T.S.) Eliot, considered one of the most important poets in English of the 20th century. Born in St. Louis, he moved to England in 1914 at age 25 and became a British subject in 1927. "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (1915) marked the beginning of Eliot's career as a highly influential poet; it is viewed as a masterpiece of the Modernist movement. Several major poems of the English language followed, including “The Waste Land” (1922), “The Hollow Men” (1925), “Ash Wednesday” (1930) and “Four Quartets” (1945) as well as seven plays. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948. Prufrock’s angst-filled monologue expressed the longing and regret of one of the most significant voices in modern poetry. Pictured: a famous line from “Prufrock.”