Philip Hobsbaum (born 29 June 1932) is an academic, poet and critic. He is known principally as the instigator of The Group — in fact, several incarnations or groups in Cambridge, London, Belfast, and Glasgow — a type of poets' workshop. The name in some sense alludes to The Movement grouping of poets, and makes possible reference to a role as a successor. In reality The Group was something quite different, an exercise in practical criticism and mutual support, where the Movement had little tangible, public existence. There was some slight overlap between the two

Hobsbaum was born in London, into a Jewish family, and brought up in Yorkshire. He read English at Downing College, Cambridge, where he was taught by F. R. Leavis. He was in London teaching from 1955 to 1959, at which time The Group proper was active. He went in 1959 to Sheffield University to do doctoral research, under William Empson; the London Group continued until 1965, chaired by Edward Lucie-Smith .

From 1962 to 1966 he had an academic position at Queen's University, Belfast. At this time he met and helped to support the emerging poets John Bond, Seamus Heaney, Michael Longley , Derek Mahon and Stewart Parker .

In 1966 he moved to the University of Glasgow, becoming a Professor there in 1985.

Works

• A Group Anthology (1963) editor with Edward Lucie-Smith
• The Place's Fault (1964) poems
• Snapshots (1965)
• In Retreat (1966) poems
• Coming Out Fighting (1969) poems
• A Theory of Communication (1970)
• Women and Animals (1972) poems
• A Reader's Guide To Charles Dickens (1972)
• Tradition and Experiment in English Poetry (1979)
• A Reader's Guide to D H Lawrence (1981)
• Essentials Of Literary Criticism (1983)
• A Reader's Guide to Robert Lowell (1988)
• William Wordsworth: Selected Poetry & Prose (1989) editor
• Metre, Rhythm And Verse Form (1995)