Publisher's Synopsis
Robert Bridges is best known today for having been the editor and champion of his friend Gerard Manley Hopkins and until now little interest has been paid to his own life and work. This biography seeks to redress the balance by focusing on Bridges' long and full life, and on his achievements as a poet and literary commentator.;Born in 1844, Bridges lived through the social and cultural upheavals of World War I and its aftermath. He first trained and practised as a doctor before publishing volumes of verse and influential critical essays, culminating in 1929 with publication of "The Testament of Beauty", a hugely successful book-length poem. He experimented with verse forms and was greatly interested in orthography and etymology, co-founding the Society for Pure English in 1913, the same year in which he was appointed Poet Laureate. His friendships and correspondence with figures such as Roger Fry, W.B. Yeats, George Santayana, and Hopkins throw new perspectives on their characters, and on Bridges' own fascination with developments in science, philosophy, psychology, music and literature.;Drawing on previously unpublished material and family archives, Catherine Phillips reveals a far more complex and troubled man than has been thought and paints in addition a portrait of an age in transition.
