Bridges on the cover of Time in 1929

Robert Seymour Bridges, OM, (October 23, 1844 – April 21, 1930) was an English poet, holder of the honour of poet laureate from 1913. Image File history File links Time-magazine-cover-robert-bridges. ... Image File history File links Time-magazine-cover-robert-bridges. ... For other Orders see Order of Merit (disambiguation). ... October 23 is the 296th day of the year (297th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Jan. ... April 21 is the 111th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (112th in leap years). ... Year 1930 (MCMXXX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link is to a full 1930 calendar). ... Motto: (French for God and my right) Anthem: God Save the King/Queen Capital London (de facto) Largest city London Official language(s) English (de facto) Unification    - by Athelstan AD 927  Area    - Total 130,395 km² (1st in UK)   50,346 sq mi  Population    - 2006 est. ... The poor poet A poet is a person who writes poetry. ... A Poet Laureate is a poet officially appointed by a government and often expected to compose poems for state occasions and other government events. ... Year 1913 (MCMXIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar). ...

Life

Bridges was born in Walmer, Kent, and educated at Eton College and Corpus Christi College, Oxford.^[1] He went on to study medicine at St Bartholomew's Hospital, and intended to practice until the age of forty and then retire to write poetry. However, lung disease forced him to retire in 1882, and from that point he devoted himself to writing and literary research.^[2][3] Location within the British Isles Walmer is in Dover District, Kent in England: located on the coast, the parish of Walmer is 6 miles (10 km) north-east of Dover. ... This article is about the county in England. ... The Kings College of Our Lady of Eton beside Windsor, commonly known as Eton College or just Eton, is a public school (privately funded and independent) for male students, founded in 1440 by Henry VI. It is located in Eton, Berkshire, near Windsor in England, situated north of Windsor... College name Corpus Christi College Named after Corpus Christi, Body of Christ Established 1517 Sister College Corpus Christi College President Sir Tim Lankester JCR President Binyamin Even Undergraduates 239 Graduates 126 Homepage Corpus Christi College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. ... The King Henry VIII Gate at Barts, which was constructed in 1702. ...

Bridges' literary work started long before his retirement, with his first collection of poems being published in 1873. In 1884 he married Monica Waterhouse, daughter of Alfred Waterhouse, and spent the rest of his life in rural seclusion, first at Yattendon, Berkshire, then at Boar's Hill, Oxford, where he died. The poet Elizabeth Daryush was his daughter. ^[4] The Natural History Museum in South Kensington, London, has an ornate terracotta facade typical of high Victorian architecture. ... Yattendon is a village and civil parish in Berkshire, England. ... Berks redirects here. ... Oxford is a city and local government district in Oxfordshire, England, with a population of 134,248 (2001 census). ... Elizabeth Daryush (1887-1977) was an English poet. ...

Literary Work

Bridges was known for his technical mastery of prosody. In the book Milton's Prosody, he took an empirical approach to examining Milton's use of blank verse, and developed the controversial theory that Milton's practice was essentially syllabic. He considered free verse to be too limiting, and explained his position in the essay "Humdrum and Harum-Scarum." His own efforts to "free" verse resulted in the poems he called 'Neo-Miltonic Syllabics' which were collected in New Verse (1925). The meter of these poems was based on syllables rather than accents, and he used it again in the long philosophical poem "The Testament of Beauty" (1929), for which he received the Order of Merit. His best-known poems, however, are to be found in the two earlier volumes of Shorter Poems (1890, 1894). He also wrote verse plays, with limited success, and literary criticism, including a study of the work of John Keats.^[5][6] Prosody may mean several things: Prosody consists of distinctive variations of stress, tone, and timing in spoken language. ... Miltons Prosody, or in full, Miltons Prosody, with a chapter on Accentual Verse and Notes is a book by Robert Bridges. ... Blank verse is a type of poetry, distinguished by having a regular meter, but no rhyme. ... Syllabic verse is a poetic form having a fixed number of syllables per line or stanza regardless of the number of stresses that are present. ... Free verse (also at times referred to as vers libre) is a term describing various styles of poetry that are not written using strict meter or rhyme, but that still are recognizable as poetry by virtue of complex patterns of one sort or another that readers will perceive to be... Humdrum and Harum-Scarum: A Lecture on Free Verse is an essay by the poet Robert Bridges, first published in November 1922 in both the North American Review and the In it Bridges explains what he regards as the adverse conditions that free verse imposes upon a poet: loss of... Neo-Miltonic Syllabics is a group of poems written by Robert Bridges between 1921 and 1925, and collected in his book New Verse (1925). ... The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view. ... Literary criticism is the study, discussion, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. ... ...

Despite being made poet laureate in 1913, Bridges was never a very well-known poet and only achieved his great popularity shortly before his death with "The Testament of Beauty". However, his verse evoked response in many great English composers of the time. Among those to set his poems to music were Hubert Parry, Gustav Holst, and later Gerald Finzi.^[7] // Ezra Pound in 1913 Harold Monro founds the Poetry Bookshop in London Ezra Pound travels to London to meet William Butler Yeats, whom he considered the only poet worthy of serious study; from that year until 1916, the two men wintered in the Stone Cottage at Ashdown Forest, with Pound... Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry (February 27, 1848 – October 7, 1918) was an English composer, probably best known for his setting of William Blakes poem, Jerusalem. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Gerald Raphael Finzi (July 14, 1901 – September 27, 1956) was a British composer, whose popularity has increased considerably in the years since his death. ...

At Corpus Christi College, Bridges became friends with Gerard Manley Hopkins, who is now considered a superior poet but who owes his present fame to Bridges' efforts in arranging the posthumous publication (1916) of his verse.^[8] The Best ideal is the true/ And other truth is none. ...

Medical career

Robert Bridges OM is the only medical graduate (he was elected to the Fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians of London in 1900) to have held the office of Poet Laureate. Educated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford and St Bartholomew's Hospital he practised as a casualty physician at his teaching hospital (where he made a series of highly critical remarks of the Victorian medical establishment) and subsequently as a full physician to the Great (later Royal) Northern Hospital. He was also a physician to the Hospital for Sick Children.^[9]

Hymnody

Bridges made an important contribution to hymnody with the publication in 1899 of his Yattendon Hymnal, which he created specifically for musical reasons. This collection of hymns, although not a financial success, became a bridge between the Victorian hymnody of the last half of the 19th century and the modern hymnody of the early 20th century.

Bridges translated important historic hymns and many of these were included in Songs of Syon (1904) and the later English Hymnal, 1906. Several of Bridges translations are still in use today:

• Ah, Holy Jesus (Johann Heermann, 1630)
• All My Hope on God Is Founded (Joachim Neander, c. 1680)
• O Gladsome Light (Phos Hilaron)
• O Splendor of God's Glory Bright (Ambrose,4th cent.)
• When morning gilds the skies (stanza 3; Katholisches Gesangbuch, 1744)^[10]

Johann Heermann (11 October 1585 - 17 February 1647), German poet and hymn-writer. ... Joachim Neander (Neumann) (1650 - May 31, 1680) was a Calvinist teacher who became famous for creating the words to the church choral Praise to the Lord, the Almighty (German: Lobet den Herren, den mächtigen König der Ehren) in 1679. ...

Poems

• London Snow

Melancholia

The Evening Darkens Over

Major Works

Poetry

• The Growth of Love (1876;1889)
• Prometheus the Firegiver: A Mask in the Greek Manner (1884)
• Nero (1885)
• Eros and Psyche: A Narrative Poem in Twelve Measures (1885;1894). A story from the Latin of Apuleius.
• Return of Ulysses (1890)
• Shorter Poems, Books I - IV (1890)
• Shorter Poems, Books I - V (1894)
• Ibant Obscuri: An Experiment in the Classical Hexameter
• The Necessity of Poetry (1918)
• October and Other Poems (1920)
• New Verse (1925)
• The Tapestry: Poems (1925)
• The Testament of Beauty (1929;1930)^[13]

Criticism and Essays

• Milton's Prosody, With a Chapter on Accentual Verse (1893).
• Keats (1895)
• The Spirit of Man (1916)
• Collected Essays, Papers, Etc. (1927-36)

Notes

1. ^ Bridges, Robert
2. ^ Hymnody, Robert Bridges
3. ^ Robert Bridges
4. ^ Robert Bridges
5. ^ Robert Seymour Bridges
6. ^ OM
7. ^ Robert Bridges
8. ^ Robert Seymour Bridges
9. ^ Medical career
10. ^ Hymnody
11. ^ Melancholia
12. ^ The Evening Darkens Over
13. ^ Major Works

References

Wikisource has an original article from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica about:

Bridges, Robert

• Bridges, Robert: The Poetical Works of Robert Bridges, Oxford Editions of Standard Authors, Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, 1936.
• Phillips, Catherine: Robert Bridges: A Biography, Oxford University Press, 1992. ISBN 0-19-212251-7
• Stanford, Donald E.: In the Classic Mode: The Achievement of Robert Bridges, Associated University Presses, 1978. ISBN 0-87413-118-9

Image File history File links Wikisource-logo. ... The original Wikisource logo. ... Encyclopædia Britannica, the 11th edition The Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition (1910–1911) is perhaps the most famous edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. ...

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Robert Bridges

• Robert Bridges' Grave
• Works by Robert Bridges at Project Gutenberg