Maurice Bowra: Difference between revisions
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==External links== |
==External links== |
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* {{Find a Grave|31844067}} |
* {{Find a Grave|31844067}} |
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* [http://byron.nottingham.ac.uk/resources/digital/foundation%20lectures/bowra.html C. M. Bowra, ''The Lyrical Poetry of Thomas Hardy''] – 1946 Byron Foundation Lecture |
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20110813000609/http://byron.nottingham.ac.uk/resources/digital/foundation%20lectures/bowra.html C. M. Bowra, ''The Lyrical Poetry of Thomas Hardy''] – 1946 Byron Foundation Lecture |
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* [http://www.aristarchus.unige.net/CPhCl/en/Database Catalogus Philologorum Classicorum] |
* [http://www.aristarchus.unige.net/CPhCl/en/Database Catalogus Philologorum Classicorum] |
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Revision as of 11:52, 22 January 2018
Sir Cecil Maurice Bowra | |
---|---|
The Very Reverend John Lowe | |
Succeeded by | Alic Halford Smith |
Personal details | |
Born | Jiujiang, China | 8 April 1898
Died | 4 July 1971 Oxford, England | (aged 73)
Alma mater | New College, Oxford |
Military career | |
Allegiance | ![]() |
Service/ | ![]() |
Years of service | 1917–1918 |
Unit | Royal Artillery |
Battles/wars | World War I
|
Sir Cecil Maurice Bowra
Early life and education
Birth and boyhood
Bowra was born in
The family returned to England in 1903, travelling via Japan and the United States, and settled in the
In 1909 the Bowra brothers journeyed across Europe and Russia by train to visit their parents in
Cheltenham College
Bowra boarded at
World War I
By 1916 Bowra's father was Chief Secretary of the Chinese Customs and resided in Beijing in a household with thirty servants.
Bowra departed from Beijing in September and on his way home spent three weeks in
After his return to England he began training with the OTC in Oxford
Bowra was left with a lifelong hatred of war and military strategists, and seldom mentioned the war afterwards.[27] He later told Cyril Connolly, "Whatever you hear about the war, remember it was far worse: inconceivably bloody – nobody who wasn't there can imagine what it was like."[28] Anthony Powell wrote that Bowra's wartime experiences "played a profound part in his thoughts and inner life,"[29] and records that when a cruise ship they were travelling on held a ceremony to place a wreath in the sea as it passed the Dardanelles Bowra was so affected that he retired to his cabin.[30] Following the Second World War he was accommodating to returning servicemen who wished to study at Oxford, telling one applicant who was worried about his deficiency in Latin, "No matter, war service counts as Latin."[31]
Undergraduate years
In 1919 Bowra took up a scholarship he had won to
Academic career
In 1922 Bowra was elected a fellow of Wadham College, Oxford,[3] with the support of the Regius Professor of Greek, Gilbert Murray,[35] and appointed Dean of Wadham shortly afterwards.[36] When Murray vacated his chair in 1936 Bowra and others believed that Bowra himself was most likely to succeed him,[35] but Murray recommended E. R. Dodds as his successor, rejecting Bowra because of "a certain lack of quality, precision and reality in his scholarship as a whole".[37] Some believed that the real reason was a whispering campaign over Bowra's "real or imagined homosexuality".[38]
Bowra became a
During the
Bowra was Professor of Poetry at Oxford from 1946 to 1951.[33] He wrote of the election for the post that "The campaign was very enjoyable and C. S. Lewis was outmanoeuvred so completely that he even failed in the end to be nominated, and I walked over without opposition. Very gratifying to a vain man like myself."[45]
Bowra spent the academic year 1948–49 at
Bowra was at Harvard when the post of
Bowra was President of the British Academy from 1958 to 1962.[3] His tenure was marked by two achievements:[51] he chaired the committee that produced the Report on Research in the Humanities and the Social Sciences, which resulted in a grant for those purposes from HM Treasury;[51] and he helped to establish the British Institute of Persian Studies in Tehran.[52]
In his long career as an Oxford don Bowra had contact with a considerable portion of the English literary world, either as students or as colleagues. The character of Mr Samgrass in Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited is said to have been modelled on Bowra.[53] Cyril Connolly, Henry Green, Anthony Powell and Kenneth Clark knew Bowra quite well when they were undergraduates. Clark called Bowra "the strongest influence in my life".[54][55] Waugh marked his friend's election as Warden of Wadham by presenting him with a monkey-puzzle tree for his garden.[56]
Bowra and George Alfred Kolkhorst were avowed arch-enemies,[citation needed] though both were friends of John Betjeman. Betjeman records his appreciation of Bowra in his verse autobiography Summoned by Bells, in which he evokes an evening spent dining with Bowra in a passage that concludes: "I wandered back to Magdalen, certain then,/ As now, that Maurice Bowra’s company / Taught me far more than all my tutors did."
Though he was not in any sense religious, Bowra signed the petition (in favour of the
Verse
Bowra had learned the value of verse during the First World War.[56] Cyril Connolly wrote that Bowra "saw human life as a tragedy in which great poets were the heroes who fought back and tried to give life a meaning".[58] Bowra was an important champion of Boris Pasternak, lecturing on his work and nominating him repeatedly for the Nobel Prize in Literature.[59]
However, Bowra was never able to fulfil his wish to be accepted as a serious poet himself.
Green with lust and sick with shyness,
Let me lick your lacquered toes.
Gosh, oh gosh, your Royal Highness,
Put your finger up my nose,
Pin my teeth upon your dress,
Plant my head with watercress.
Only you can make me happy.
Tuck me tight beneath your arm.
Wrap me in a woollen nappy;
Let me wet it till it's warm.
In a plush and plated pram
Wheel me round St James's, Ma'am.
Let your sleek and soft galoshes
Slide and slither on my skin.
Swaddle me in mackintoshes
Till I lose my sense of sin.
Lightly plant your plimsolled heel
Where my privy parts congeal.
The
Two poems on Patrick Leigh Fermor were omitted from the book, in deference to their subject's wishes, but were published after his death in 2011. (They are available at http://berlin.wolf.ox.ac.uk/dugdale/bowra/websiteplf.pdf.)
Sexuality
Bowra was
Retirement and death
Bowra retired in 1970, but continued to live in rooms in the college that had been granted to him in exchange for a house he owned.[39] He became an honorary fellow of Wadham and was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Civil Law.[33] He died of a sudden heart attack in 1971[64] and was buried in Holywell Cemetery, Oxford.[65]
Honours
In addition to his
Bowra was knighted in 1951 and was appointed a
In 1992
Quotations
- "Buggers can't be choosers" (explaining his engagement, later called off, to a "plain" girl, Audrey Beecham, niece of the conductor)[66]
- "I am a man more dined against than dining" (parodying King Lear's "more sinned against than sinning")[67]
- "
- "Splendid couple — slept with both of them" (on hearing of the engagement of a well-known literary pair)[70]
- "Though like Our Lord and Socrates he does not publish much, he thinks and says a great deal and has had an enormous influence on our times" (about Isaiah Berlin)[71]
- "I don't know about you, gentlemen, but in Oxford I, at least, am known by my face" (allegedly after being observed bathing naked at Parson's Pleasure and covering his face rather than his privates)[72]
- "Where there's death, there's hope."[73]
Bibliography
- Pindar's Pythian Odes (1928), co-translator with H. T. Wade-Gery
- The Oxford Book of Greek Verse (1930), co-editor with Gilbert Murray, Cyril Bailey, E. A. Barber and T. F. Higham
- Tradition and Design in the Iliad (1930)
- Ancient Greek Literature (1933)
- Pindari Carmina (1935; 2nd edition 1947)
- Greek Lyric Poetry: From Alcman to Simonides (Oxford 1936, 2nd revision 2001)
- The Oxford Book of Greek Poetry in Translation (1937), co-editor with T. F. Higham
- Early Greek Elegists (1938), the Martin Lectures at Oberlin College
- The Heritage of Symbolism (1943)
- A Book of Russian Verse (1943), editor (a collection of translations, none by Bowra)
- Sophoclean Tragedy (1944)
- From Virgil to Milton (1945)
- A Second Book of Russian Verse (1948) editor (a collection of translations, none by Bowra)
- The Creative Experiment (1949)
- The Romantic Imagination (1950)
- Heroic Poetry (1952)
- Problems in Greek Poetry (1953)
- Inspiration and Poetry (1955)
- Homer and His Forerunners (Thomas Nelson, 1955)
- The Greek Experience (1957)
- Primitive Song (1962)
- In General and Particular (1964)
- Pindar (1964)
- Landmarks in Greek Literature (1966)
- Poetry and Politics, 1900–1960 (1966), the Wiles Lectures at the Queen's University, Belfast
- Memories 1898–1939 (1966)
- The Odes of Pindar (1969, reissued 1982), translator
- On Greek Margins (1970)
- Periclean Athens (1971)
- Homer (1972)
- New Bats in Old Belfries, or Some Loose Tiles (2005), ed. Henry Hardy and Jennifer Holmes, with an introduction by Julian Mitchell
Bowra also wrote a foreword to Voices From the Past: A Classical Anthology for the Modern Reader, ed. James and Janet Maclean Todd (1955), as well as forewords to other works.
Notes
- ISBN 978-0-19-956840-6.
- ^ Mitchell (2009), p. 3
- ^ a b c d e f Mitchell (2004)
- ^ Mitchell (2009) p. 5
- ^ Mitchell (2009), p. 4
- ^ Mitchell (2009), pp. 3, 9
- ^ Mitchell (2009), p. 10
- ^ Mitchell (2009), p. 12
- ^ Mitchell (2009), p 11
- ^ Lloyd Jones, p. 22
- ^ Mitchell (2009), p. 13; Lloyd-Jones, p. 22
- ^ Mitchell (2009), p. 15
- ^ a b c d e Lloyd-Jones, p. 23
- ^ Nelson, p. 76
- ^ Mitchell (2009), pp. 15–16
- ^ a b Mitchell (2009), p. 16
- ^ Mitchell (2009), pp. 16–17
- ^ a b Mitchell (2009), p. 18
- ^ Mitchell (2009), p. 21
- ^ Mitchell (2009) p. 27
- ^ a b c Mitchell (2009), p. 28
- ^ Mitchell (2009) p. 29
- ^ Mitchell (2009), p. 32
- ^ Mitchell (2009), p. 35
- ^ Mitchell (2009), p. 36
- ^ a b c d e f g Lloyd-Jones, p. 24
- ^ Hollis p.18
- ^ Cyril Connolly in Lloyd-Jones, p. 44
- ^ In Lloyd-Jones, p. 95
- ^ In Lloyd-Jones, p. 103
- ^ Mitchell (2009), p. 45
- ^ a b c Hollis, p. 20
- ^ a b c d e f g h Times obituary, 3 July 1971, reprinted as Chapter 1 in Lloyd-Jones.
- ^ Memorial Address, in Lloyd-Jones, p. 17
- ^ a b Mitchell (2009), p. 83
- ^ Lewis, Jeremy. Cyril Connolly: A Life.
- ^ Mitchell (2009), p. 84
- T. W. Adorno.
- ^ a b Mitchell (2009), p. 305
- ^ a b Annan (1999), p. 143
- ^ a b Hollis, p. 34
- ^ Mitchell (2009) p. 236.
- ^ Hollis, p. 36.
- ^ a b Mitchell (2009), pp. 241-42.
- ^ Annan (1999), p. 163
- ^ Mitchell (2009), pp. 290–91
- ^ a b c Kenneth Wheare, in Lloyd-Jones, p. 123
- ^ Kenneth Wheare, in Lloyd-Jones, ppp. 123-24
- ^ Kenneth Wheare, in Lloyd-Jones, p. 127
- ^ Mitchell (2009), p. 261
- ^ a b Mortimer Wheeler, in Lloyd-Jones, p. 130
- ^ Mortimer Wheeler, in Lloyd-Jones, pp. 131-33
- ^ Mitchell (2009), p. 190
- ^ Jeremy Lewis, Cyril Connolly: A Life, Jonathan Cape 1997
- ^ Kenneth Clark, Another Part of the Wood, Harper & Row 1974, p. 99
- ^ a b c Mitchell (2009), p. 237
- ^ Mitchell (2009), pp. 316–17
- ^ Cyril Connolly, in Lloyd-Jones, p. 46.
- ^ Mitchell (2009), p. 115
- ^ Mercurius Oxoniensis (perhaps Hugh Trevor-Roper), in Lloyd-Jones, p. 42.
- ^ a b Jones (2005)
- ^ a b Annan (1999), p. 165
- ^ Mitchell (2009), p. 123
- ^ Mitchell (2009), p. 307
- ^ Mitchell 2009, p. 308
- ^ Hollis, p. 22. "Allegedly," according to Mitchell (2009), p. 144
- ^ Knowles
- ^ Cartwright (2008)
- ^ Mitchell (2009), p. 147
- ^ Wilson
- Noel Annanquoted in Lloyd-Jones, p. 53.
- ^ Doniger (2000) p. 193
- ^ G.W. Bowersock, 2009. "Unquiet Flows the Don," The New Republic, [review of Mitchell (2009), October 5.
References
- )
- Cartwright, Justin (2 March 2008). "Oxford: Does Brideshead still exist?". Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 8 September 2009.
- ISBN 0-226-15642-7.
- ISBN 0-434-34531-8.
- Jones, Lewis (20 November 2005). "Let me lick your lacquered toes". Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 8 September 2009.
- Knowles, Elisabeth. "Maurice Bowra". Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 15 December 2009.
- ISBN 978-99908-12-37-4.
- Mitchell, Leslie (2004). "Bowra, Sir (Cecil) Maurice (1898–1971)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Retrieved 8 September 2009.
- Mitchell, Leslie (2009). Maurice Bowra: A Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-929584-5.
- Nelson, Claudia (2007). Family Ties in Victorian England. Praeger Publishers. ISBN 0-275-98697-7.
- Wilson, Frances (2009). "The Sunday Times Christmas books: biography". The Times. Retrieved 15 December 2009.
External links
- Maurice Bowra at Find a Grave
- C. M. Bowra, The Lyrical Poetry of Thomas Hardy – 1946 Byron Foundation Lecture
- Catalogus Philologorum Classicorum