STEPHEN

See also:

• PHILLIPS
• PHILLIPS, ADELAIDE (1833-1882)
• PHILLIPS, EDWARD (163o-1696)
• PHILLIPS, JOHN (1800—1874)
• PHILLIPS, SAMUEL (1814—1854)
• STEPHEN PHILLIPS (1868– )
• PHILLIPS, THOMAS (1770-1845)
• PHILLIPS, WENDELL (1811-1884)

PHILLIPS (1868– )  , British poet and dramatist, was born on the 28th of July 1868 at Somertown near Oxford, the son of the Rev . Stephen Phillips, precentor of Peterborough Cathedral . He was educated at Stratford and Peterborough Grammar Schools, and entered Queen's College, Cambridge; but during his first term at Cambridge, when F . R . Benson's dramatic company visited the town, he joined it, and for six years played various small parts . In 1890 a slender volume of verse was published at Oxford with the title Primavera, which contained contributions by him and by his cousin Laurence Binyon and others . In 1894 he published Eremus, a long poem of loose structure in blank verse of a philosophical complexion . In 1596 appeared Christ in Hades, forming with a few other short pieces one of the slim paper-covered volumes of Elkin Mathews's " Shilling Garland." This poem arrested the attention of watchful critics of poetry, and when it was followed by a collection of Poems in 1897 the writer's position as a new poet of exceptional gifts was generally recognized . This volume contained a new edition of " Christ in Hades," together with " Marpessa," " The Woman with the Dead Soul," " The Wife " and shorter pieces, including the fine lines " To Milton, Blind." The volume won the prize of £too offered by the Academy news-paper for the best new book of its year, ran through half a dozen editions in two years, and established Mr Phillips's rank as poet, which was sustained by the publication in the Nineteenth Century in 1898 of his poem " Endymion." George Alexander, the actor-manager, moved perhaps by a certain clamour among the critics for a literary drama, then commissioned Mr Phillips to write him a play, the result being Paolo and Francesca (1900), a drama founded on Dante's famous episode . Encouraged by the great success of the drama in its literary form, Mr Alexander produced the piece at the St James's Theatre in the course of 19ot . In the meantime, Mr Phillips's next play, Herod: a Tragedy, had been produced by Beerbohm Tree on the 31st of October 1900, and was published as a book in 1901; Ulysses, also produced by Beerbohm Tree, was published in 1902; The Sin of David, a drama on the story of David and Bathsheba, translated into the times and terms of Cromwellian England, was published in 1904; and Nero, produced by Beerbohm Tree, was published in 1906 . In these plays the poet's avowed aim was, instead of attempting to revive the method of Shakespeare and the Elizabethans, to revitalize the method of Greek drama .

Paolo and Francesca (which admitted certainly one

scene on an Elizabethan model) was the most successful, the subject being best adapted to the lyrical cast of Mr Phillips's poetical temperament; but all contained fine poetry, skilfully stage-managed by a writer who had practical experience of stage craft . See the section on Stephen Phillips in Poets of the Younger Generation, by William Archer (19o2); also the articles on "Tragedy and Mr Stephen Phillips," by William Watson, in the Fortnightly Review (March 1898) ; " The Poetry of Mr Stephen Phillips," in the Edinburgh Review (January 1900); " Mr Stephen Phillips," in the Century (January 1901), by Edmund Gosse; and " Mr Stephen Phillips," in the Quarterly Review (April 1902), by Arthur Symons . For bibliography up to July 1903, see English Illustrated Magazine new series, vol. xxix. p . 442 .