T.S. Eliot – The Poet Who Gave Cats Secret Names

Have you ever seen the musical Cats, a play about a tribe of felines called the Jellicles? Those characters began as poems written by a playful, puzzle-loving poet named T. S. Eliot, short for Thomas Stearns Eliot. He was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on September 26, 1888, moved to England as a young man, and became one of the most important writers of the 1900s. In 1948 he won the Nobel Prize in Literature “for his outstanding, pioneer contribution to present-day poetry,” according to the Nobel Prize website.

T.S. Eliot Early Life

Eliot’s father, Henry, worked in business. His mother, Charlotte, wrote poems and stories, so books were part of home life from the start. His grandfather, the Rev. William Greenleaf Eliot, was a well-known minister and civic leader who helped found Washington University in St. Louis, which tells you how important education was in the family.

As a child, Eliot wasn’t very athletic. He was born with a double hernia, which kept him from rough play. Instead, he read constantly, turning quiet hours into adventures on the page.

Eliot was an excellent student. He attended Smith Academy in St. Louis, then Harvard University, where he studied literature and philosophy and published early work in student magazines. He spent a year in Paris at the Sorbonne, and in 1914 he went to England for graduate study at Oxford.

After settling in London, Eliot did a bit of everything literary. He taught, worked briefly at a bank, and quickly became a central figure in the city’s writing world. He launched and edited the influential magazine The Criterion and, starting in 1925, served for decades as an editor and director at the publishing house Faber & Faber, helping bring other writers’ books into the world. In 1927 he became a British citizen.

Eliot never stopped being the thoughtful kid who loved language. Even as he wrote serious poems for adults, he also wrote playful verses about cats for families to enjoy.

The Poet

In 1922, Eliot published “The Waste Land,” a poem that captured how confusing the world felt after World War I. Here is the first section of the work:

April is the cruellest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.

Winter kept us warm, covering

Earth in forgetful snow, feeding

A little life with dried tubers.

Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee

With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,

And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,

And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.

Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch.

And when we were children, staying at the archduke’s,

My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled,

And I was frightened. He said, Marie,

Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.

In the mountains, there you feel free.

I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.

Another unforgettable poem is “The Hollow Men,” which ends with the spooky line:

“This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.”

Eliot also wrote poems that are perfect for the holidays and for people who like adventure. “Journey of the Magi” imagines one of the wise men telling the story of traveling to see the baby Jesus.

As he grew older, Eliot wrote four long, thoughtful poems that he later gathered into a single book called Four Quartets. Each part has its own title: “Burnt Norton,” “East Coker,” “The Dry Salvages,” and “Little Gidding.” Together they explore time, memory, and how people search for meaning. Critics often call Four Quartets his greatest work.

But Eliot wasn’t only serious, he also had a silly side. He wrote a whole book of rhyming cat poems, Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. If you like mysteries, try “Macavity: The Mystery Cat,” about a criminal mastermind who’s always one paw ahead of the police. Here’s a brief look at the poem:

Macavity’s a Mystery Cat: he’s called the Hidden Paw—
For he’s the master criminal who can defy the Law.
He’s the bafflement of Scotland Yard, the Flying Squad’s despair:
For when they reach the scene of crime—Macavity’s not there!

Macavity, Macavity, there’s no one like Macavity,
He’s broken every human law, he breaks the law of gravity.
His powers of levitation would make a fakir stare,
And when you reach the scene of crime—Macavity’s not there!
You may seek him in the basement, you may look up in the air—
But I tell you once and once again, Macavity’s not there!

Another fan favorite from his cat book is “The Naming of Cats,” which insists that every cat needs three different names. Eliot even wrote plays. Murder in the Cathedral is probably the most famous, a drama about Archbishop Thomas Beckett.

Eliot died in London on January 4, 1965, but his words are still read, quoted, and performed around the world today.

1. T.S. Eliot won the Nobel Prize for Literature.
2. T.S. Eliot was born with a double hernia, and couldn’t play rough outside, so he read instead
3. T.S. Eliot wrote serious poetry, but he also loved inventing silly names and stories for cats – his “The Naming of Cats – was the inspiration for “Cats.”

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