T.S. Eliot (1888 -1965) – American writer and poet

Thomas Stearns Eliot was born in St. Louis, Missouri, United States of America on 26th September 1888. His paternal grandfather, William Greenleaf Eliot, moved to St. Louis, Missouri, to establish a Unitarian Christian church there. His father, Henry Ware Eliot, was a successful businessman, president and treasurer of the Hydraulic-Press Brick Company in St. Louis. His mother, Charlotte Champe Stearns, who wrote poetry, was a social worker which, at that time, was a new profession in the USA. Eliot was the last of six surviving children. Known to family and friends as Tom, he was the named after his maternal grandfather, Thomas Stearns.

From 1898 to 1905, Tom attended Smith Academy, the boys college preparatory division of Washington University, where his studies included Ancient Greek, Latin, French, and German. He began to write poetry when he was 14, under the influence of Edward FitzGerald's translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.

After graduating from Smith Academy, Tom attended Milton Academy in Massachusetts for a preparatory year, where he met Scofield Thayer, who later published “The Waste Land”. Tom studied at Harvard College from 1906 to 1909, earning a Bachelor of Arts in an elective programme similar to comparative literature in 1909 and a Master of Arts in English literature the following year.  Due to his year at Milton Academy, Eliot was allowed to earn his Bachelor of Arts (BA) after three years instead of the usual four.

Tom worked as a philosophy assistant at Harvard from 1909 to 1910, before moving to Paris where, from 1910 to 1911, he studied philosophy at the University of Paris. He attended lectures by Henri Bergson and read poetry with Alain-Fournier – author of the book “ Le Grand Meaulnes”.  In 1911 Tom returned to Harvard to study Indian philosophy and Sanskrit. While he was a member of the Harvard Graduate School, Tom fell in love with Emily Hale.  Tom was awarded a scholarship to Merton College, Oxford University, UK in 1914. He first visited Marburg in the German Empire, where he planned to take a summer programme, but when the First World War broke out he went to the University of Oxford instead.

In 1914, at the age of 25 Tom moved to England.  He became a British subject in 1927 at the age of 39, converted to Anglicanism, and renounced his American citizenship.

During The First World War Tom did not serve in the military, as he was an American citizen ineligible for the British draft and he also had a congenital double hernia that prevented active service (though he made a late, unsuccessful attempt to enlist in the U.S. Navy in 1918. Instead, he lived and worked through the war years in London, engaged in teaching, writing, and banking:

T.S. Eliot died on 4th January 1965. 

Sources: Michael Portillo’s Great British Railway Journeys  

Wikipedia and photo from https://greatwarfiction.wordpress.com/tseliots-letter-to-the-nation/

 

Hermann Plagge (1888 – 1918) – German writer and poet

With thanks to AC Benus for finding this poet for us

Hermann Plagge was born on 11th June 1888, in Weener/Ostfriesland, Germany. He was the fourth child of farmer and cattle dealer Otto Plagge and his wife Margaretha Henderika. Hermann had nine siblings and was the only child in his family to attend university

Educated initially at a primary school in his birthplace, Herman went on to study at the Royal Gymnasium in Leer. He passed his Abitur (university entrance examination) there at Easter. From the summer semester of 1908 to the winter semester of 1908/09, he studied Modern Philology in Munich.  From 1st May 1909 to 6th March 1913, he continued his studies at the Royal Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin.   In the spring of 1913, he left the university without graduating, receiving a leaving certificate.

At the outbreak of the First World War, Hermann immediately joined the German army and fought mostly on the front lines. 

Unlike most of his fellow poets, Hermann did not rejoice at the outbreak of war. He immediately recorded his experiences as a soldier with remarkable detachment, documenting his observations with sober objectivity. The pathos typical of the time remained foreign to him. He avoided absurd exaggerations, did not adhere to traditions, and wrote without rhyme and with remarkable freedom. He developed his own style and moved within the early transition from Expressionism to New Objectivity.

Hermann survived the war but drowned while swimming in Mainz on 16th September 1918.

Source:  Wikipedia