MASTER OF VERSE

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 954, 23 April 1930, Page 11

MASTER OF VERSE

POET LAUREATE DEAD AT 85 YEARS

CAREER OF DR. BRIDGES

United P.A.—By Telegraph—Copyrigh LONDON, Tuesday.

The death, has occurred of Dr. Robert Bridges, poet laureate, in his S6th year.

The death of Dr. Robert Bridges removes perhaps the greatest figure from modern literature, a man who, at the age of 85 years, answered the jeers of his critics by producing a masterpiece —a devastating reply to those who criticised his unproductiveness. Dr. Bridges, who was appointed Poet Laureat in 1913, was an exponent of what George Moore called ‘pure poetry,” divesting himself as far as possible of subjective appeal and seeking to isolate objective beauty.

His early poems were privately printed and his work for a long time was not known outside a select circle of admirers. His chief critical works are “Milton’s Prosody” and his essay on Keats. His best verse is to be found in his “Shorter Poems,” “Prometheus the Fire-Giver,” “Eros and Psyche,” “The Growth of Love” (sonnets); “Nero,” an historical tragedy; “Achilles in Scyros,” a drama; “Palicio,” a romantic drama in the Elizabethan manner; “The Return of Ulysses,” a five-apt drama; “The Christian Captives,a tragedy; “The Humours of the Court,” a comedy; “The Feast of Bacchus,” and “Demeter, a Mask.” It was on his 85th birthday that he published his long poem,'“The Testament of Beauty,” which was acclaimed by criticfs as the greatest English poem of our time. In this work the old poet has done triumphantly what none of his juniors have managed to do—he has, assisted by courage, a natural sincerity, a belief in the function of poetry, contrived to bring within the borders of a poem, and avoiding all flatness, all his feelings, knowledge, speculations, interests, hopes and fears. Bridges was educated at Eton and Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and studied medicine at Bart’s, where he became casualty surgeon. In 1882, before he was 40, he retired and went to live a quiet life at Boars Hill, Oxford. Two years later ho married Monica, daughter of Alfred Waterhouse, R.A.