Maurice Bowra

English classical scholar, literary critic and academic (1898–1971)

Sir Cecil Maurice Bowra (8 April 1898 – 4 July 1971) was an English classical scholar, literary critic and academic, 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.

Quotations

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  • I'm a man more dined against than dining.
    • Parodying King Lear's "more sinned against than sinning" (act 3, sc. 2). Qtd. in John Betjeman, Summoned by Bells (1960), ch. 9 — Knowles (2009)
  • Buggery was invented to fill that awkward hour between evensong and cocktails.
    • Cartwright (2008); or was "useful for filling that awkward time between tea and cocktails" — Mitchell (2009), p. 147
  • Splendid couple—slept with both of them.
    • On hearing of the engagement of a well-known literary pair. — Wilson (2009)
  • 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
  • Where there's death, there's hope.
    • Bowerstock (2009)
  • Can't help you. Pity. Slept with him once—should have asked him then.
    • When asked by an undergraduate for help with translating a passage by Apollinaire, whom Bowra had met whilst in France during the First World War. — Atticus (2018)


Disputed

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  • Buggers can't be choosers
    • Explaining his engagement, later called off, to a "plain" woman, poet and Somerville alumna Audrey Beecham, niece of conductor Thomas Beecham — Hollis (1976), p. 22. "Allegedly", according to Mitchell (2009), p. 144
  • 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. — Doniger (2000), p. 193
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Wikipedia
Wikipedia has an article about:
  • Wendy Doniger, The Bedtrick: Tales of Sex and Masquerade (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000)
  • Christopher Hollis, Oxford in the Twenties (London: Heinemann, 1976)
  • Elisabeth Knowles, "Maurice Bowra", Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, 7th ed. (Oxford University Press, 2009)
  • Hugh Lloyd-Jones, ed. Maurice Bowra: A Celebration (London: Olympic Marketing Corp., 1974)
  • Leslie Mitchell, Maurice Bowra: A Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009)
  • Atticus (Roland White), The Sunday Times (11 November 2018)