The years 1915 to 1925 were eventful ones for Eliot; he married Vivienne Haigh-Wood in 1915, he taught school, he worked in the Foreign Department of Lloyd's Bank, and in 1922 he became the editor of the Criterion and, of greatest importance, saw the publication of The Waste Land (1922), a poem whose originality shook the foundations of the literary world. During this period he also completed his doctoral dissertation on the philosopher F.H. Bradley but did not return to Harvard to take the Ph.D. degree.
During the next five years Eliot's life changed in several ways. In 1925 he left Lloyd's bank and joined the publishing firm of Faber and Gwyer (later Faber and Faber), where he eventually became a director. Also, in 1927 he became a British citizen and was received into the Church of England, the latter a tangible sign of the central importance of the spiritual in his life. Finally, with Sweeney Agonistes in 1926, he began writing drama, an area which had long fascinated him and which was to be a lifelong and consuming interest.
