W. P. Ker


William Paton Ker, FBA, was a Scottish literary scholar and essayist.

Life

Born in Glasgow in 1855, Ker studied at Glasgow Academy, the University of Glasgow, and Balliol College, Oxford.
He was appointed to a fellowship at All Souls College, Oxford, in 1879. He became Professor of English Literature and History at the University College of South Wales, Cardiff, in 1883, and moved to University College London as Quain Professor in 1889. He retained, however, his links with Oxford and was there almost every week during the 1910s, making himself available to keen students there. He was later the Oxford Professor of Poetry from 1920 to his death, at 67, of a heart attack while climbing the Pizzo Bianco. A plaque commemorates his death in the Old Church cemetery in Macugnaga. A W. P. Ker Memorial Lecture is held at Glasgow University in his honour.

Influence

He is referred to repeatedly in J. R. R. Tolkien's essay Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics. W. H. Auden's discovery of Ker was a turning point:

Works