Robert Bridges

Robert Bridges ( born October 23, 1844 in Walmer, Kent, † April 21, 1930 in Boar's Hill, Oxford) was an English poet.

Robert Bridges was born into a family with land ownership. He attended Eton College and the University of Oxford. There his friendship began with Gerard Manley Hopkins, whose poems he published in 1916. From 1869 to 1882 he worked as a medical student and physician in London hospitals. He married in 1884 Mary Monica Waterhouse and spent the rest of his life in domestic seclusion, first in Yattendon, Berkshire, then in Boar's Hill. There he devoted himself to poetry, contemplation and the study of prosody. His fame he owes to in Shorter Poems (1890, 1894) published poems in particular. In New Verse (1925 ), he experimented with a meter, which was based mainly on syllables. This he also used for his long philosophical poem The Testament of Beauty. Bridges was Poet Laureate from 1913 until his death.

Works

• Shorter Poems (1890, 1894)
• New Verse (1925 )
• The Testament of Beauty ( 1929)