Prince, Frank Templeton

(1912-2003)

   Born in Kimberley, South Africa, and educated there, he graduated B.Litt. with first-class honors in 1934 from Balliol College, Oxford. He was visiting fellow at Princeton University, New Jersey, and served in the British Army Intelligence Corps from 1940 to 1946. He joined the English department at Southampton University in 1946 and was professor from 1957 to 1974. He then taught in Jamaica, the United States and North Yemen, and from 1968 to 1969 was visiting fellow at All Souls College, Oxford. He delivered the Clark lectures in Cambridge (1972-73) and received the E.M. Forster award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1982.

   His poetry is more widely read in America than it is in Britain. His two autobiographical works are Memoirs of Oxford (1970) and Walks in Rome (1987). He died in Southampton. Some of his poetry publications: Poems, 1938. Soldiers Bathing and Other Poems, 1954. The Doors of Stone: Poems, 1938-1962, 1963. Collected Poems, 1935-1992, 1993. Some of his poems: "Afterword on Rupert Brooke," "At Beaulieu," "For Thieves and Beggars," "Memoirs in Oxford," "Yüan Chfin Variations."

   Sources: Collected Poems, 1935-1992, of F.T. Prince. The Sheep Meadow Press, 1993. Golden Treasury of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language. Francis Turner Palgrave, ed. Oxford University Press, 1964, Sixth edition, updated by John Press, 1994. Guardian Unlimited Obituary of F.T. Prince by Anthony Howell. Friday, August 8, 2003 (http://www.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,3604,1014413,00.html). The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000.