George Gordon

This article is about the 20th-century British academic. For the 19th-century Romantic poet, see Lord Byron.

George Stuart Gordon (1881-1942). Portraait by William Menzies Coldstream (1908-1987). Courtesy ArtUK.

George Stuart Gordon (1 February 1881 - 12 March 1942) was a British academic and literary critic .

Life

Gordon was born at Falkirk, the oldest son and second child of Mary (Napier) and William Gordon, a police superintendant. He was educated at Falkirk High School, and in 1899 entered Glasgow University, where he earned an M.A. in 1903.

In 1902 he won a scholarship to Oriel College, Oxford, where he earned a B.A. in 1906 and an M.A. in 1909. At Oriel he received a First Class in Classical Moderations in 1904, Literae Humaniores in 1906, and the Stanhope Prize for history in 1905.

On 29 June 1909 he married Mary Campbell Biggar, whom he had first met at Glasgow, on 29 June 1909; the couple had four children. After Gordon's death, Mary Gordon wrote a Life of him, and edited some of works for publication.

He was a Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, from 1907 to 1915.

Gordon was Professor of English Literature at the University of Leeds from 1913 to 1922.

He then returned to Oxford, where he was a professor of English literature from 1922 to 1928, President of Magdalen College from 1928 to 1942, Oxford Professor of Poetry from 1933 to 1938, and Vice-Chancellor of the university from 1938 to 1941.

He was one of the Kolbítar, J.R.R. Tolkien's group of readers of Icelandic sagas.[4]

His son George Gordon was a noted physiologist.

Writing

Gordon famously argued that English Literature was capable of having a widespread and positive influence. In his inaugural lecture for his Merton professorship he agued that "England is sick, and … English literature must save it. The Churches (as I understand) having failed, and social remedies being slow, English literature has now a triple function: still, I suppose, to delight and instruct us, but also, and above all, to save our souls and heal the State".

Publications

Non-fiction

• The Fronde: Stanhope Essay, 1905. Oxford, UK: Blackwell / London, Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent, 1905.
• "Theophrastus" in English Literature and the Classics. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1912.
• The Retreat from Mons. Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1917;
  • published in UK as Mons and the Retreat. London: Constable, 1918.
• The Discipline of Letters: An inaugural lecture. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1923.
• Shelley and the Oppressors of Mankind. London: Humphrey Milford for the British Academy, 1923.
• Medium Aevum and the Middle Age. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press (Society for Pure English Tract 19), 1925.
• Companionable Books (Series 1). London: Chatto & Windus, 1927; Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1968.
• Shakespeare's English. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press (Society for Pure English Tract 29), 1928.
• Andrew Lang. London: Humphrey Milford for Oxford University Press, 1928.
• Virgil in English Poetry. London: Humphrey Milford for Oxford University Press, 1930.
• Poetry and the Moderns: Inaugural lecture. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1935.
• Anglo-American Literary Relations. London & New York: Oxford University Press, 1942.
• John Gibson Lockhart : commemoration address delivered in the University of Glasgow on 18th June, 1930. Glasgow: Jackson, 1944.
• Shakespearian Comedy, and other studies. London & New York: Oxford University Press, 1945.
• The Discipline of Letters (edited by Mary C. Gordon). Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1946.
• Robert Bridges (Rede Lecture). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1946.
• More Companionable Books. London: Chatto & Windus, 1947.
• The Lives of Authors (essays). London: Chatto & Windus, 1950; Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1970.

Edited

• Henry Peacham's The Compleat Gentleman (1906) editor
• Richard II (Shakespeare) (1925) editor
• On writing and writers, Walter Alexander Raleigh (1926) editor

Letters

• The Letters of George S. Gordon, 1902-1942 (edited by Mary C. Gordon). London & New York: Oxford University Press, 1943.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

See also

• List of literary critics

Preceded by Ernest de Sélincourt

Oxford Professor of Poetry 1935-1938

Succeeded by Adam Fox

References

• Mary C. Biggar Gordon, The Life of George S. Gordon 1881–1942, 1945.

External links

About

• Biographical sketch of George Stuart Gordon at Magdalen College