Robert Bridges

Robert Seymour Bridges (1844–1930) was an English poet and physician who served as Poet Laureate from 1913 until his death. He wrote metrical experiments and helped bring Gerard Manley Hopkins’s poetry to publication.

Prosody: The study of rhythm, meter, and sound patterns in poetry. Bridges’s experiments with English meter drew on close analysis of poetic rhythm.
Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom: An official poet appointed by the British monarch to compose verse for public and royal occasions. Bridges held the office from 1913 until his death in 1930.
Oxford University: A collegiate research university in Oxford, England. Bridges studied at Corpus Christi College before pursuing medicine.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson: A leading Victorian poet who served as British Poet Laureate from 1850 to 1892. Tennyson’s public reputation formed the tradition Bridges inherited as laureate.
The Growth of Love: A sequence of sonnets by Robert Bridges, first published in 1876. The sequence exemplifies his sustained work in traditional lyric forms.
Sprung rhythm: A poetic meter based primarily on the number of stressed syllables in a line. Bridges edited and promoted Gerard Manley Hopkins’s use of this distinctive meter.
Gerard Manley Hopkins: An English Jesuit priest and poet known for innovative imagery and sprung rhythm. Bridges preserved Hopkins’s poems and arranged their posthumous publication.
Corpus Christi College, Oxford: A college of the University of Oxford founded in 1517. Bridges studied classics there, a foundation for his later poetic practice.
John Masefield: An English poet and writer who succeeded Robert Bridges as Poet Laureate in 1930. Masefield followed Bridges in the laureateship and represented a different poetic generation.
Shorter Poems: A collection of Robert Bridges’s shorter poetry, published in 1890. It gathered poems that display his range before his laureateship.

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Alfred AustinRelated: Bridges succeeded Austin after his death.