H-N Oxford and Cambridge Writers and Literature
P.G. Wodehouse, T.S. Eliot, J.R.R. Tolkein, C.S. Lewis, and More...
Continuing from the A-G Guide to Literature and Writers of Oxbridge, the English Universities of Cambridge and Oxford are famed as educational institutions. Each university boasts graduates who went on to be politicians, scientists, and, among other notable professions, writers. But taking a closer look at the writers and writings produced by the minds inspired by the environments of either Oxford or Cambridge, one has to wonder if there is a causal connection between the amount of fairytale, fantasy, and fatal fiction produced by the atmosphere of Oxbridge.
Of course, there are many prose, poetry, and plays written about alternate realities, travels through time and space, and generally bizarre situations, and perhaps, it is true that intellectuals are inclined toward the unusual. However, whether Oxford and Cambridge attract the unique mind or create a mind warped by experience, the graduates and works of the two universities can be creative.
Hundred Acre Wood
Alan Alexander Milne (A.A. Milne) was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. He became a noted writer, but like his idol, J.M. Barrie, who created Peter Pan, Milne is best known for his creation of a fictional children’s land. Milne based his famous characters Christopher Robin and Winnie-the-Pooh on his own son and his boy’s actual stuffed toys.
Inklings
This was the name of an informal literary group which net at The Eagle and Child Pub in Oxford. Among the members were J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. Both Tolkien, graduate of Exeter College, and Lewis, graduate of University College, would become famous for their literary creations of alternate universes and realities.
Jeeves and the World of Bertie Wooster
Jeeves, the perfect and all-knowing servant, and his more addle brained master, Bertram Wooster are not written as roaming the streets of either oxford or Cambridge, but Bertie is said to be a product of Magdalen College, Oxford. Equally most of Bertie’s halfwit friends are said to be graduates of either university.
It is cleverly juxtaposed that the “well-educated” upper-class are far more foolish than the well-read and intellectual valet Jeeves, whom many of the characters go to for assistance.
The creator of Jeeves, P.G. Wodehouse gained admittance to Oxford, but was unable to attend due to cost, which may be why Wodehouse writes about the characters from Oxbridge without setting them in Oxford or Cambridge itself. Yet, Wodehouse captures a reality so mystifyingly unbelievable that it seems like a fairytale for adults.
Kit Marlowe
Christopher Marlowe, often referred to as “Kit,” was a contemporary playwright to William Shakespeare. Marlowe attended Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. Perhaps his most famous work is the play The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus (c.1589, published 1604). The work explores the crossing between life and death through a man who sells his soul. Despite the fame of his work, Marlowe is almost more well known due the still suspicious circumstances of his early death.
Lemuel Gulliver of Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
The character of Lemuel Gulliver is said to have been raised in Oxfordshire and been educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. In the parody novel Gulliver’s Travels (1726), Lemuel voyages to many fanciful far away places, satirizing society of the day. Yet, author Jonathan Swift, who had attended Hertford College, Oxford, is yet another Oxonian author to have created alternate reality and civilizations.
Milton
John Milton was educated at Christ’s College, Cambridge, and his most famous work paradise Lost (1667) was written while he resided in Chalfont St. Giles, which is not far from Oxford. Paradise Lost explores the fall of man, and it was of great inspiration to the modern novelist Philip Pullman, who attended Exeter College, Oxford, and partly set his series of fantasy and parallel worlds, His Dark Materials (1995-2000) against the backdrop of a fictional college of Oxford.
Noble Prize Winner T.S. Eliot
American-born Thomas Stearns Eliot was partly educated at Merton College, Oxford. He is one of the most often mentioned poets of the twentieth century, and his poetry utilizes the idea of “stream of consciousness” in which thoughts are written as they flow rather than being ordered. His most famous work is the experimental The Waste Land (1922). It was written at a time when both he and his mentally and physically unwell wife, Vivien Haigh-Wood were each suffering from frail nerves.
The guide continues with O-T Oxford and Cambridge Writers and Literature, including Oscar Wilde, Sylvia Plath, the Romantic Poets, and more…
King's College, Cambridge
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