William Paton Ker,FBA (30 August 1855 – 17 July 1923), was a Scottish literary scholar and essayist.
Born inGlasgow in 1855, Ker studied atGlasgow Academy, theUniversity of Glasgow, andBalliol College, Oxford.[1][2]
He was appointed to a fellowship atAll Souls College, Oxford, in 1879. He became Professor of English Literature and History at theUniversity College of South Wales, Cardiff, in 1883, and moved toUniversity College London asQuain Professor in 1889.[2] However he retained his links with Oxford and was there almost every week during the 1910s, and available to keen students there. He was later the OxfordProfessor of Poetry from 1920[2] to his death, at 67, of a heart attack while climbing thePizzo Bianco (a summit nearMacugnaga in northern Italy). A plaque commemorates his death in theOld Church cemetery in Macugnaga.[3][4] AW. P. Ker Memorial Lecture is held at Glasgow University in his honour.
He is referred to repeatedly inJ. R. R. Tolkien's essayBeowulf: The Monsters and the Critics.W. H. Auden's discovery of Ker was a turning point:
