Maurice Bowra

Sir Cecil Maurice Bowra (born April 8, 1898 in Jiujiang , China , † July 4, 1971 in Oxford ) was a classical philologist .

Life

Cecil Maurice Bowra was born the son of a British customs officer in the Chinese service in Jiujiang on the Yangtze River in China. From 1903 he spent his youth in his British homeland. In 1917 he did military service on the French front, so that he could only begin studying classical philology in Oxford after the peace treaty . Here he first became a fellow and tutor.

Bowra was Warden of Wadham College since 1938 . In the same year he was accepted into the British Academy , whose president he was from 1958 to 1962. From 1946 to 1951 he was a poetics professor there and from 1951 to 1954 he was also Vice Chancellor of Oxford University.

Scientific activity

In addition to his administrative duties, Bowra dealt with ancient Greek literature . Among other works, he wrote works on the Iliad (1930), on early Greek poetry (1936), on Sophocles (1944), on Pindar (1964) and on Periclean Athens (1971).

Bowra was also active in comparative literary studies , on which he also authored several works, including 1952 'Heroic Poetry', a comparative study of heroic poetry of all times and peoples.

Honors

In addition to his early admission to the British Academy in 1938, Bowra was accepted on June 4, 1969 as a foreign member of the German order Pour le Mérite for science and the arts. In addition, he was raised to the non-hereditary knighthood in 1951 . Eight universities from four countries awarded him an honorary doctorate . In 1960 he was elected an honorary foreign member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters .

literature

Robert E. Lerner : Ernst Kantorowicz. A biography . Looked through and expanded. Translation Thomas Gruber. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 2020, ISBN 978-3-608-96199-7

Individual evidence

^ Maurice Bowra: hero poetry. A comparative phenomenology of heroic poetry of all races and times. Stuttgart 1964.
↑ The Order Pour le Merite for Science and the Arts. Volume III, The Members of the Order. Lambert Schneider Verlag, Gerlingen 1994, p. 72.
^ Honorary Members: Maurice Bowra. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed March 7, 2019 .

personal data
SURNAME	Bowra, Maurice
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Bowra, Cecil Maurice
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	British classical philologist
DATE OF BIRTH	April 8, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH	Jiujiang , China
DATE OF DEATH	4th July 1971
Place of death	Oxford

[1] Maurice Bowra: hero poetry. A comparative phenomenology of heroic poetry of all races and times. Stuttgart 1964.

[2] The Order Pour le Merite for Science and the Arts. Volume III, The Members of the Order. Lambert Schneider Verlag, Gerlingen 1994, p. 72.

[3] Honorary Members: Maurice Bowra. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed March 7, 2019 .