Photos: Remembering T.S. Eliot on his birthday

T.S. Eliot, one of twentieth century’s most influential poets was born in Missouri, America on September 26, 1888. He believed that poetry should represent the complexities of cultures and his famous works, ‘Prufrock (1917)’ and ‘The Waste Land (1922)’ are remarkable for their modernist, self-conscious prose. On his birth anniversary, we look at some moments from his life in photographs.

Updated on: Sep 26, 2017 3:07 PM IST

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Writer T.S. Eliot (1888 - 1965) takes a reflective puff at a cigarette before starting work, November 17, 1948. (Keystone Features / Getty Images)

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Eliot was also an accomplished linguist. He’s seen here at the blackboard at the Institute for Advance Study at Princeton, New Jersey, November 15, 1948. (Keystone Features / Getty Images)

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T. S. Eliot ( far right) after receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature, Stockholm, Sweden, December 13, 1948. Looking on are members of the Swedish royal family (front, left to right) Prince Bertil (1912 - 1997), Crown Princess Louise (Louise Mountbatten, 1889 - 1965), Crown Prince (later king) Gustaf VI Adolf (1882 - 1973) and Princess Sibylla (1908 - 1972). (Keystone / Hulton Archive / Getty Images)

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‘The Waste Land’ was written during the aftermath of WW1 and was perceived differently in different countries and eras. In Europe, it was seen as a lament for modern civilization. The kind of immigrant Eliot was, he’d probably have enough trouble in present day Britain, given he hung around Soho unemployed after his course of study at Oxford. (Hulton Archive / Getty Images)

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The Reverend Canon Fenton Morley, Precentor of Southwark Cathedral (left), T.S. Eliot and Donald Lowe (right), the Mayor of Southwark, following a commemorative service to mark the opening of the Shakespeare Festival. A series of one-night-only plays by Shakespeare were presented at Duthy Hall in London in this photo dated April 29, 1957. (Ron Burton / Keystone / Getty Images)

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T. S. Eliot with his second wife Valerie (1926 - 2012), returning from their French honeymoon on the BEA (British European Airways) Airspeed AS 57 Ambassador, ‘Sir Walter Raleigh,’ February 01, 1957. (Ronald Dumont / Express / Hulton Archive / Getty Images)

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In Southampton, much later in life, with his second wife Valerie, March 21, 1961. (Evening Standard / Hulton Archive / Getty Images)

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On the opening night of his play in Britain, ‘The Elder Statesman’, September 1958. (Evening Standard / Hulton Archive / Getty Images)

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In this photograph dated June 14, 1956, Eliot is seen arriving in Britain from America on board the Queen Mary. (Evening Standard / Getty Images)

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Perhaps more than any other poet of his time, Eliot’s literary works balanced tradition and modernity, something that can be thought of as his legacy. (Hulton Archive / Getty Images)