Elizabeth Daryush
Encyclopedia
Elizabeth Daryush was an English poet. She was the daughter of Robert Bridges
; her maternal grandfather was Alfred Waterhouse
. She married Ali Akbar Daryush, whom she had met when he was studying at the University of Oxford
and spent some time in Persia; most of her life was spent in Boars Hill
, outside Oxford
. Some of her early work was published as Elizabeth Bridges.
Daughter of British poet laureate Robert Bridges, Elizabeth Daryush had a privileged upbringing in Victorian and Edwardian England. Although she followed her father's lead not only in choosing poetry as her life's work but also in the traditional style of poetry she chose to write, the themes of her work are often critical of the upper classes and the social injustice their privilege levied upon others. This characteristic was not present in her early work, including her first two books of poems, published under the name Elizabeth Bridges, which appeared while she was still in her twenties. According to John Finlay, writing in the Dictionary of Literary Biography, Daryush's "early poetry is preoccupied with rather conventional subject matter and owes a great deal to the Edwardians."
Daryush took her father's experiment in syllabic verse
a step farther by making it less experimental; whereas Bridges' syllable count excluded elidable syllables, producing some variation in the total number of pronounced syllables per line, Daryush's was strictly aural, counting all syllables actually sounded when the poem was read aloud. It is for her successful experiments with syllabic meter that Daryush is best known to contemporary readers.
Beyond its social content, Daryush's work is also recognized for a consistent and well-defined personal vision. As Finlay noted, "For her. . .poetry always dealt with the `stubborn fact' of life as it is, and the only consolations it offered were those of understanding and a kind of half-Christian, half-stoical acceptance of the inevitable." However, he also argued that Daryush's best poems transcend such fatalism, "dealing with the moral resources found in one's own being. . .and a recognition of the beauties in the immediate, ordinary world around us."
Robert Bridges
Robert Seymour Bridges, OM, was a British poet, and poet laureate from 1913 to 1930.-Personal and professional life:...
; her maternal grandfather was Alfred Waterhouse
Alfred Waterhouse
Alfred Waterhouse was a British architect, particularly associated with the Victorian Gothic Revival architecture. He is perhaps best known for his design for the Natural History Museum in London, and Manchester Town Hall, although he also built a wide variety of other buildings throughout the...
. She married Ali Akbar Daryush, whom she had met when he was studying at the University of Oxford
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
and spent some time in Persia; most of her life was spent in Boars Hill
Boars Hill
Boars Hill is a hill hamlet southwest of Oxford, straddling the boundariy between the civil parishes of Sunningwell and Wootton. It was part of Berkshire until the 1974 boundary changes transferred it to Oxfordshire.-History:...
, outside Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
. Some of her early work was published as Elizabeth Bridges.
Daughter of British poet laureate Robert Bridges, Elizabeth Daryush had a privileged upbringing in Victorian and Edwardian England. Although she followed her father's lead not only in choosing poetry as her life's work but also in the traditional style of poetry she chose to write, the themes of her work are often critical of the upper classes and the social injustice their privilege levied upon others. This characteristic was not present in her early work, including her first two books of poems, published under the name Elizabeth Bridges, which appeared while she was still in her twenties. According to John Finlay, writing in the Dictionary of Literary Biography, Daryush's "early poetry is preoccupied with rather conventional subject matter and owes a great deal to the Edwardians."
Daryush took her father's experiment in syllabic verse
Syllabic verse
Syllabic verse is a poetic form having a fixed number of syllables per line regardless of the number of stresses that are present. It is common in languages that are syllable-timed, such as Japanese or modern French or Finnish — as opposed to stress-timed languages such as English, in which...
a step farther by making it less experimental; whereas Bridges' syllable count excluded elidable syllables, producing some variation in the total number of pronounced syllables per line, Daryush's was strictly aural, counting all syllables actually sounded when the poem was read aloud. It is for her successful experiments with syllabic meter that Daryush is best known to contemporary readers.
Beyond its social content, Daryush's work is also recognized for a consistent and well-defined personal vision. As Finlay noted, "For her. . .poetry always dealt with the `stubborn fact' of life as it is, and the only consolations it offered were those of understanding and a kind of half-Christian, half-stoical acceptance of the inevitable." However, he also argued that Daryush's best poems transcend such fatalism, "dealing with the moral resources found in one's own being. . .and a recognition of the beauties in the immediate, ordinary world around us."
Works
- Sonnets from Hafez and other Verses (1921) as Elizabeth Bridges
- Verses (1930) (OUP)
- Verses, Fourth Book (1934)
- Poems (1935) (Macmillan)
- The Last Man and Other Verses (1936)
- Selected Poems (1948) edited by Yvor WintersYvor WintersArthur Yvor Winters was an American poet and literary critic.-As modernist:Winters's early poetry, which appeared in small avant-garde magazines alongside work by writers like James Joyce and Gertrude Stein, was written in the modernist idiom, and was heavily influenced both by Native American...
- Verses: Seventh Book (1971) Carcanet Press
- Selected Poems (1972) Carcanet Press
- Collected Poems (1976) Carcanet Press