Author Abercrombie Lascelles

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Lascelles Abercrombie (also known as the Georgian Laureate, linking him with the "Georgian poets") (January 9, 1881 – October 27, 1938) was a British poet and literary critic,[1] one of the "Dymock poets". He was born in Ashton upon Mersey[2] and educated at the University of Manchester. Before the First World War, he lived for a time at Dymock in Gloucestershire, part of a community that included Rupert Brooke and Robert Frost. Edward Thomas also visited. In 1922, he was appointed Professor of English at the University of Leeds. In 1929 he moved on to the University of London, and in 1935 to a prestigious readership at Oxford University.[2] He wrote a series of works on the nature of poetry, including The Idea of Great Poetry (1925) and Romanticism (1926). He also published several volumes of original verse, largely metaphysical poems in dramatic form, and a number of verse plays. His poems and plays were collected in 'Poems' (1930). In the same year he published separately his most a

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mbitious poem, 'The Sale of Saint Thomas' in six 'Acts'. [2] A number of fellow poets and professors of literature (including Oliver Elton and Una Ellis-Fermor) admired the sublimity of his themes and his ability to clothe metaphysical thought in vivid imagery, but others found his verse confused and turgid. His writings on the theory of literature, in contrast, are lucid, but suffered from a lack of dialogue with other theorists. His critical studies of Hardy (1912) and Wordsworth (published posthumously) are still sometimes referred to, but otherwise his work is forgotten. He is remembered because of his contacts with Edward Marsh, Rupert Brooke, and other 'Georgian' poets. However, the title 'the Georgian laureate' appeared only after his death, and only in encyclopedia articles, which crib from one another. Because of the utter distinctiveness of his verse, his great intelligence and his unbridled imagination, he is likely, however, to be rediscovered from time to time. He was the brother of the architect Patrick Abercrombie. His son was the cell biologist Michael Abercrombie.

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