High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Robert Bridges` Theory of Elision is a theory of elision developed by the poet Robert Bridges, while he was working on a prosodic analysis of John Milton`s poems Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes. Bridges describes his theory in thorough detail in his 1921 book Milton`s Prosody. With his definition of poetic elision, Bridges is able to demonstrate that no line in Paradise Lost contains an extra unmetrical syllable mid-line; that is, any apparent extra mid-line syllable can be explained as an example of Bridges` elision.