Maurice Bowra
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Sir Cecil Maurice Bowra (pronounced /ˈbaʊrə/) (8 April 1898 – 4 July 1971) was an English classical scholar, academic, and known for his wit. He was Warden of Wadham College, Oxford, from 1938 to 1970, and served as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford from 1951 to 1954.
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[edit] Early life and education
He was born in Jiujiang, China to English parents. His father was Cecil Arthur Verner Bowra (1869-1947) of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs. Maurice was educated at Cheltenham College, and New College, Oxford, where he began his studies in 1915. He served in the Royal Field Artillery from 1917, returning to Oxford to complete his degree. He took a first class in Honour Moderations in 1920 and a 1st class in Literae Humaniores in 1922. He became a Doctor of Letters of the University of Oxford in 1937 and was later awarded, honoris causa, the higher degree of Doctor of Civil Law.
[edit] Academic career
In 1922, he was appointed Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford; he became Warden (head of the college) in 1938, and kept that post until 1970, when he was succeeded by Stuart Hampshire. He was also Professor of Poetry 1946–51 and Vice-Chancellor 1951–54. He was President of the British Academy 1958–62.
He spent the academic year 1948–9 at Harvard as the Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry and gave the 1955 Andrew Lang lecture.
In addition to his Oxford degrees, he received honorary doctorates from the universities of Dublin, Hull, Wales, Harvard, Columbia, St Andrews, Paris, Aix and Teheran.
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 be modelled on Bowra. Waugh attended Hertford College (1922-24), and so, was in no sense, Bowra's pupil; indeed they scarcely knew one another at that time, whereas Cyril Connolly, Henry Green and Anthony Powell appear to have known Bowra quite well when they were undergraduates.
A close friend once commented that Bowra had cut himself off from posterity, "as his prose was unreadable and his verse was unprintable." This was set half-right by the publication in 2005 of New Bats in Old Belfries, a collection of satires on friends and enemies written between the 1920s and 1960s. Here is his parody of John Betjeman, who had become choked with emotion on being presented the Duff Cooper Prize by Princess Margaret in 1958:
- "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 […] 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 […] Lightly plant your plimsolled heel / Where my privy parts congeal."
The Telegraph, echoing poet Cecil Day Lewis on the man himself, warned that the book, like strychnine, was best taken in small doses.[1]
For all that they had in common, Bowra and George Alfred Kolkhorst were avowed arch-enemies, though both were friends of John Betjeman.
Though not in any sense religious, Bowra signed the petition (in favour of the Tridentine Catholic Mass) that became informally known as the Agatha Christie indult and regularly attended the Church of England services of his college chapel.
Bowra was buried in Holywell Cemetery, Oxford.
[edit] Honours
He was knighted in 1951. He was appointed a Companion of Honour in 1971. He was also a Commander of the Legion of Honour in France, a Knight Commander of the Royal Order of Phoenix in Greece, and recipient of the order "Pour le Mérite" in West Germany.
In 1992, Wadham College named its new Bowra Building in his honour.
[edit] Quotations
"My dear, buggers can't be choosers." (explaining his engagement, later called off, to a "plain" girl, Audrey Beecham, niece of the conductor)
"I am a man more dined against than dining." (parodying The Tempest's 'sinned against than sinning')
"Buggery was invented to fill that awkward hour between evensong and cocktails."
"I expect to pass through this world but once and therefore if there is anybody I want to kick in the crotch I had better kick them in the crotch now, for I do not expect to pass this way again."
"With one or two exceptions, colleges expect their players of games to be reasonably literate."
"Splendid couple — slept with both of them", (on hearing of the marriage of a well-known literary pair).
"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." (writing about Isaiah Berlin)
"My dear, in Oxford I am known by my face", (allegedly after being caught skinny-dipping in the River Cherwell and placing his hands over his face rather than his privates)
[edit] Bibliography
- Pindar's Pythian Odes (1928) translator with H. T. Wade-Gery
- Oxford Book of Greek Verse (1930) 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)
- Greek Lyric Poetry: from Alcman to Simonides (Oxford 1936, 2nd revision 2001)
- Oxford Book of Greek Poetry in Translation (1937) editor with T. F. Higham
- Early Greek Elegists (1938) Martin Lectures at Oberlin College
- The Heritage of Symbolism (1943)
- A Book of Russian Verse (1943) editor
- Sophoclean Tragedy (1944)
- From Virgil to Milton (1945)
- 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 and Sons Ltd, Edinburgh, 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) Wiles Lectures, The Queen's University, Belfast
- Memories 1898-1939 (1966)
- The Odes of Pindar (1969, Penguin reissue 1982) translator
- On Greek Margins (1970)
- Periclean Athens (1971)
- Homer (1972)
- Anthology of Russian Poems
- New Bats in Old Belfries, or Some Loose Tiles (2005)
- He also wrote the foreword to Voices From the Past by James and Janet Todd published by Phoenix (London) in 1955
[edit] References
[edit] Further reading
- Annan, Noel (1999). The Dons. London: HarperCollins. ISBN 0002570742.
- Hollis, Christopher (1976). Oxford in the Twenties. London: Heinemann. ISBN 0434345318.
- Hugh Lloyd-Jones, ed (1974). Maurice Bowra: A Celebration. London: Olympic Marketing Corp. ISBN 9789990812374.
- Mitchell, Leslie (2009). Maurice Bowra: A Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0199295845.
| Academic offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by John Frederick Stenning |
Warden of Wadham College, Oxford 1938–1970 |
Succeeded by Stuart Hampshire |
| Preceded by The Very Reverend John Lowe |
Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University 1951–1954 |
Succeeded by Alic Halford Smith |
