William Paton Ker (August 30, 1855 - July 17, 1923) was a Scottish literary scholar and essayist.

He was born in Glasgow in 1855. He studied at Glasgow Academy, the University of Glasgow and Balliol College, Oxford.

He was appointed to a fellowship at All Souls College, Oxford in 1879.He became Professor of English Literature at the University College of South Wales, Cardiff in 1883; and moved to University College London as Quain Professor in 1889. He was the Oxford Professor of Poetry from 1920 to his death.

Works

• Epic and Romance: Essays on Medieval Literature (1897); second edition, 1908.
• The Dark Ages ^*
• Sturla the Historian (1906)
• Tennyson (1909)
• English Literature: Medieval n(1912)
• Two Essays (1918)
• Sir Walter Scott (1919)
• Medieval English Literature
• The Art of Poetry (1923)
• Form And Style In Poetry (1928)
• On Modern Literature
• Collected Essays (1968) edited by Charles Whibley

He is mentioned in W. H. Auden's essay (he later took the same poetry chair at Oxford) Making, Knowing, and Judging.

Fellows of All Souls College, Oxford | Former students of Balliol College, Oxford | UCL academics