some, it was the top of Eliot’s work, but to others it was missing something that his earlier works had. In any event, “Four Quartets” proved to everyone how good of a poet he was. This let to him being awarded both the Order of Merit and The Nobel Prize for Literature.In January 1957, Eliot stunned virtually everyone that knew him, because with no prior announcement, he married Valerie Fletcher, his secretary. In his marriage with Valerie, he enjoyed an emotional and physical closeness that he had not known from his previous marriage. Unfortunately, his newfound emotions would be short-lived because, after a few years of declining health, he died on January 4th, 1965 of emphysema. His death came a week before his 8th wedding anniversary.It is almost impossible to overstate Eliot’s influence or his importance to 20th Century poetry. Through his essays, and especially through his own poetic practice, he played a major role in establishing the modernist conception of poetry. First and last, it was through the example of his own superb poetry that he carried the day, and the poetry will survive undivided as the details of his career withdraw into literary history....
