PRINCE, F(rank) T(empleton) 1912-2003

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born September 13, 1912, in Kimberley, Cape Province, South Africa; died August 7, 2003, in Southampton, England. Educator and author. Prince was a prominent poet best known for his much-anthologized piece "Soldiers Bathing." He was a graduate of Balliol College, Oxford, receiving his B.A. there in 1934; he published his first collection, Poems, in 1938. The war found him serving in the British Intelligence Corps as a cryptographer for six years, and after returning home he had some difficulty publishing his works. He joined the University of Southampton as a lecturer in 1946, becoming a reader in 1955 and full professor of English in 1957; he also served as dean of the arts faculty from 1962 to 1967. The 1950s saw the release of his Soldiers Bathing and Other Poems (1954) and The Stolen Heart (1957). Syntactically complex, Prince's verses were usually free verse in form and were notable for their lyrical, often leisurely quality. Leaving Southampton in 1974, Prince became an English professor at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica from 1975 to 1978. It was around the 1970s, too, that his poems began to gain a larger audience, yet many of his later collections were released by small presses. One of his most acclaimed books at this time was Drypoints of the Hasidim (1975). His later career included two years at Brandeis University as Fannie Hurst Professor, and stints as a visiting professor at Washington University, Sana'a University in North Yemen, and Hollins College during the early 1980s. He retired in 1984. The recipient of an E. M. Forster award in 1982, Prince was the author of over a dozen poetry books, including Memoirs in Oxford (1970), Afterword on Rupert Brooke (1976), Walks in Rome (1987), and Collected Poems, 1935-1992 (1993). He also edited several works by Shakespeare and Milton, and his book of literary criticism, The Italian Element in Milton's Verse (1954) is considered by some to be one of the most important works of literary scholarship of the twentieth century.

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

BOOKS

Contemporary Poets, 7th edition, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 2001.

PERIODICALS

Independent (London, England), August 8, 2003, p. 18.

Times (London, England), August 8, 2003.