​PHILLIPS, STEPHEN (1868-), British poet and dramatist, 2-as born on the 28th of July 1868 at Somertown near Oxford, the son of the Rev. Stephen Phillips, preceptor 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 w as published at Oxford with the title Przrnavera, which contained contributions by him and by his cousin Laurence Binyon and others In 1894 he published Erernus, a long poem of loosc structure in blank verse of a philosophical complexion. In 1896 appeared Christ in Hades, forming with a few other short pieces one of the slim paper-covered volumes of Elkin Matheus'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 wr1ter'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 £100 offered by the Academy newspaper for the best new book of its year, ran through half a dozen ed1t1ons in two years, and established Mr Phill1ps's rank as poet, which u as sustained by the publication 1n 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 I()OI In the meantime, Mr Ph1llips's next play, Herod: a Tragedy, had been produced by Beerbohm Tree on the 31st of October 1000, and as published as a book in 1901; Ulysses, also produced by Beerbohm Tree, was published in 1902; The Sin of Daizd, a drama on the story of David and Bathsheba, translated into the times and terms of Cromwellian England, was published in 1904, and Ne/0, produced by Beerbohm Tree, was publisl1ed in 1906 In these plays the poet's avowed aim was, instead of attempting to revix e the method of Shakespeare and the Elizabethans, to revitalize the method of Greek drama. Paolo and F razzcesca (11 hich admitted certainly one scene on an Elizabethan model) 11 as 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 Genera/zon, by W1ll1am Archer (1902), also the articles on “ Tragedy and Mr Stephen Phillips, " by N71lll3.lTl Vlatson, in the Fortnzghtly Revzew (March 1898); “The Poetry of Mr Stephen Phillips, " in the Edenburgh Review (January 1900); “ l/lr Stephen Phillips, " in the Century (January 1901), by Edmund Gosse; and “ Mr Stephen Phillips, " in the Quarterly Renew (April 1902), by Arthur Symons For b.bl1ogrz=phv up to July 1903, see Englrsh Illustrated Magazene new series, l. xxix. p. 442.