Hear actual recordings of T.S. Eliot narrating his 1922 masterpiece "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" and "The Waste Land." Thomas Stearns Eliot (September 26, 1888 - January 4, 1965) was a US-born British poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, literary critic and editor. Considered one of the 20th century's major literary figures, he is a central figure in English-language Modernist poetry. Through his trials in language, writing style, and verse structure, he reinvigorated English poetry and, in 1948, was honored with the Nobel Prize in Literature.