James Kenneth Stephen
Encyclopedia
Edward VII of the United Kingdom
Edward VII was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910...
.
Early life
Stephen was the second son of Sir James Fitzjames StephenJames Fitzjames Stephen
Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, 1st Baronet was an English lawyer, judge and writer. He was created 1st Baronet Stephen by Queen Victoria.-Early life:...
, barrister-at-law, and his wife Mary Richenda Cunningham. James Kenneth Stephen was known as 'Jem' among his family and close friends; he was first-cousin to Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf
Adeline Virginia Woolf was an English author, essayist, publisher, and writer of short stories, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century....
(née Stephen).
He was a King's Scholar
King's Scholar
A King's Scholar is a foundation scholar of one of certain public schools...
at Eton
Eton College
Eton College, often referred to simply as Eton, is a British independent school for boys aged 13 to 18. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor"....
, where he proved to be a highly competent player of the Eton Wall Game
Eton Wall Game
The Eton wall game is a game similar to football and Rugby Union, that originated from and is still played at Eton College. It is played on a strip of ground 5 metres wide and 110 metres long next to a slightly curved brick wall, erected in 1717....
; and then went up to King's College, Cambridge
King's College, Cambridge
King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college's full name is "The King's College of our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge", but it is usually referred to simply as "King's" within the University....
, again as a King's Scholar. In the Michaelmas term of 1880, he was President of the Cambridge Union Society
Cambridge Union Society
The Cambridge Union Society, commonly referred to as simply "the Cambridge Union" or "the Union," is a debating society in Cambridge, England and is the largest society at the University of Cambridge. Since its founding in 1815, the Union has developed a worldwide reputation as a noted symbol of...
. In 1883 he became tutor to Prince Albert Victor
Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence
Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale was a member of the British Royal Family. He was the eldest son of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales and Alexandra, Princess of Wales , and the grandson of the reigning monarch, Queen Victoria...
, Duke of Clarence and Avondale, and was made a Fellow of King's College in 1885. He was a renowned intellectual; and it was said that he spoke in a pedantic, but highly articulate and entertaining manner.
Poetry
Stephen became a published poet, his work being identified by the initials J. K. S. He wrote collections of poems in Lapsus Calami and Quo Musa Tendis both published in 1891. One of his poems from Lapsus Calami and other verse concludes with a famous quote:To R. K.
Will there never come a season
Which shall rid us from the curse
Of a prose which knows no reason
And an unmelodious verse:
When the world shall cease to wonder
At the genius of an Ass,
And a boy's eccentric blunder
Shall not bring success to pass:
When mankind shall be delivered
From the clash of magazines,
And the inkstand shall be shivered
Into countless smithereens:
When there stands a muzzled stripling,
Mute, beside a muzzled bore:
When the Rudyards cease from kiplingRudyard KiplingJoseph Rudyard Kipling was an English poet, short-story writer, and novelist chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. Kipling received the 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature...
And the Haggards Ride no more.
J. K Stephen was at Cambridge at the same time as the distinguished antiquarian and writer of ghost-stories, Montagu R. James
M. R. James
Montague Rhodes James, OM, MA, , who used the publication name M. R. James, was an English mediaeval scholar and provost of King's College, Cambridge and of Eton College . He is best remembered for his ghost stories, which are regarded as among the best in the genre...
, and mentions him at the end of a curious Latin celebration of then-current worthies of 'Coll. Regale' (King's College):
Vivat J.K. Stephanus,
Humilis poeta!
Vivat Monty Jamesius,
Vivant A, B, C, D, E
Et totus Alphabeta!
Stephen wrote a satirical pastiche of Thomas Gray
Thomas Gray
Thomas Gray was a poet, letter-writer, classical scholar and professor at Cambridge University.-Early life and education:...
's Ode to the Distant Prospect of Eton College pillorying Eton for being Tory.
A poem which gave him a reputation as a misogynist is In the Backs (The Backs
The Backs
The Backs is an area to the east of Queen's Road in the city of Cambridge, England, where several colleges of the University of Cambridge back on to the River Cam, their grounds covering both banks of the river. The name "the Backs" refers to the backs of the colleges...
is a riverside area of Cambridge), where he describes a woman he does not know but to whom he takes a violent dislike:
...I do not want to see that girl again:
I did not like her: and I should not mind
If she were done away with, killed, or ploughed.
She did not seem to serve a useful end :
And certainly she was not beautiful.
However many of his other poems show that he may not have been as misogynistic as previously believed.
Stephen was a member of the Cambridge "Apostles"
Cambridge Apostles
The Cambridge Apostles, also known as the Cambridge Conversazione Society, is an intellectual secret society at the University of Cambridge founded in 1820 by George Tomlinson, a Cambridge student who went on to become the first Bishop of Gibraltar....
.
Death
Stephen suffered a serious head injury in an accident in the winter of 1886/1887 which may have brought on the bi-polar disorder from which he suffered. His cousin Virginia Woolf suffered from the same disorder in later years. Stephen was eventually committed to St Andrew's HospitalSt Andrew's Hospital
St Andrew's Hospital in Northampton, England is a psychiatric hospital run by a non-profit-making, charitable trust. It is by far the largest mental health facility in UK, providing national specialist services for adolescents, men, women and older people with mental illness, learning disability,...
, a mental asylum in Northampton.
In January 1892 the former Royal tutor heard that his erstwhile pupil, the 28-year-old Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence had died of pneumonia at Sandringham, after contracting influenza. On hearing the news, Stephen refused to eat, and died twenty days later, aged 32. His cause of death, according to the death certificate
Death certificate
The phrase death certificate can describe either a document issued by a medical practitioner certifying the deceased state of a person or popularly to a document issued by a person such as a registrar of vital statistics that declares the date, location and cause of a person's death as later...
, was mania.
Eton Legacies
Stephen was noted for his prodigious size and physical strength. At Eton, he was a legendary player of the Wall GameEton Wall Game
The Eton wall game is a game similar to football and Rugby Union, that originated from and is still played at Eton College. It is played on a strip of ground 5 metres wide and 110 metres long next to a slightly curved brick wall, erected in 1717....
. He played for College on St Andrew's Day four times: in 1874, 1875, 1876 and 1877. In the last two years he was Keeper (or captain) of the College Wall. College beat the Oppidans by 4 shies to nil in his first year as Keeper, and by 10 shies to nil the next year. Ever after, the King's Scholars have honoured J K Stephen's memory with a toast at the Christmas Soc Supper - "in piam memoriam, J. K. S." (In pious memory of J. K. S.).
Stephen was recalled in less pious memory in a play by former Eton housemaster and Old Etonian, Angus Graham-Campbell; entitled Sympathy for the Devil, it premiered at the Eton Drama festival in 1993. This was based on the notion that Stephen could have been one of the Jack the Ripper suspects; this theory has been dismissed, because he would have been unable to return to Cambridge in time for lectures the following morning.
Stephen's poem The Old School List from Quo Musa Tendis is included in the front pages of H. E. C. Stapleton's Eton School Lists 1853-1892, and the author refers to him in the preface as 'an Etonian of great promise, who died only too early for his numerous friends'. During his time at Eton, Stephen was a friend of Harry Goodhart
Harry Goodhart
Harry Chester Goodhart was an English amateur footballer who played as a forward in four FA Cup Finals for Old Etonians, before going on to become Professor of Humanities at the University of Edinburgh.-Early life and education:...
(1858–1895), who became an England
England national football team
The England national football team represents England in association football and is controlled by the Football Association, the governing body for football in England. England is the joint oldest national football team in the world, alongside Scotland, whom they played in the world's first...
international footballer and later a Professor at the University of Edinburgh
University of Edinburgh
The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1583, is a public research university located in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The university is deeply embedded in the fabric of the city, with many of the buildings in the historic Old Town belonging to the university...
. Goodhart is referred to as "one of them's wed" in the last verse of The Old School List:
There were two good fellows I used to know.
--How distant it all appears!
We played together in football weather,
And messed together for years:
Now one of them's wed, and the other's dead
So long that he's hardly missed
Save by us, who messed with him years ago:
But we're all in the old School List.
Collections
- Select Poems 1926 Augustan Books of Modern Poetry
- Lapsus Calami JKS Cambridge 1891
- Quo Musa Tendis Cambridge 1891
- Lapsus Calami and other verses 1896