It was back in the summer when I discovered this ravishing little book by Robert Bridges, Britain’s poet laureate from 1913 to 1930. In the interim between two photo-shoots, I thought I’d take advantage of some free time by exploring the old town, with its mix of Medieval, Tudor and Georgian architecture, and of course its colossal cathedral. During my exploration of the cathedral and its surroundings I happened upon a tiny bookshop, nestled right at the back. Filled with second-hand novels, essays, biographies and history books, ‘The Spirit of Man’ with its sober sage green cover and distinct gold calligraphy caught my eye.
The front page reads “The Spirit of Man – An Anthology in English & French from the Philosophers & Poets made by the Poet Laureate in 1915 & dedicated by gracious permission to His Majesty the King.” Underneath is a small illustration of Adam from Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel. I was immediately struck by the fact this book possessed a definite Christian foundation, I later discovered when reading the biography of Robert Bridges that he was a man whose inspiration came from the scriptures, much in the vein of C.S. Lewis. A man devoted to God and whose work was intrinsically linked to a deep faith in the divine.
Robert Bridges – Britain’s Poet Laureate from 1913 to 1930.
This edition of ‘The Spirit of Man’ was from 1927, only a few years prior to Bridges death. There’s something melancholic about Bridges, a poet who only found real recognition late in life, when his poems were discovered by King George V. In the preface you can see that he is an unusual character, a tour-de-force who has compiled all these poems with such love and care.
He begins “This book was compiled with a special purpose, and if it should not satisfy those for whom it was intended, no preface can save it; but that does not forbid some words of explanation. First then, the reader is invited to bathe rather than to fish in these waters: that is to say, the several pieces are to be read in context; and it is for this reason that no titles nor names of authors are inserted in the text, because they would distract the attention and lead away the thought and even overrule consideration” A most unusual way to construct a poetry collection, but then Bridges was no ordinary poet, aside from the fact he stands very much apart from Modern English Verse, he was a man who angered many purists, particularly for his book on John Milton – ‘Milton’s Prosody’, in which he laid out his theory that Milton’s style was syllabic.
The compilation itself is laid out into myriad of philosophical questions, for example sadness, lost ideals, vanity, spiritual desire, idea of God, beauty etc. He chose carefully the poems he included under each title, with works from poets like Keats, Wordsworth and Virgil, authors like the Bronte sisters, Dostoyevsky and Jalaluddin, philosophers like Plato, Thucydides and Spinoza, all the greats whose words have weaved their way into the heart of civilisation.
‘The Spirit of Man’ is a cultural tome of sheer brilliance, with the divine at its core, it seeks to answer numerous pressing questions, with snippets from great minds across the globe, from England to Greece, Persia to India.