Posted on November 4, 2025 at 3:22 PM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek
T.S. Eliot won the Nobel Prize in Literature on November 4, 1948, for "his outstanding, pioneer contribution to present-day poetry," according to the prize's website.
To refresh your memory: Eliot’s poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is considered the first Modernist masterpiece in English; he further cemented his reputation with such collections as The Waste Land and Four Quartets.
Check out Ezra Pound's revisions to Eliot's original manuscript of The Waste Land at Literary Hub ...
... and also read an excerpt from What the Thunder Said: How the Waste Land Made Poetry Modern by Jed Rasula in which the author explains why many critics hated the poem when it first came out.
(PS: My favorite band wrote a wonderful song called Letters From The Wasteland, which I'll assume owes at least a whiff of thanks to Eliot's work.)
Categories: Today in Books