U-Z Oxford and Cambridge Writers and Literature

Utopia, Vanity Fair, Sassoon, Huxley, and Zuleika Dobson

Mar 22, 2009 M.L. Costa

Two universities, each subdivided into many colleges - spire inspirations for many writers and works of fantasy...fatal, freakish, and fairytale stories from Oxbridge.

Continuing from the O-T 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.

Utopia by Sir Thomas More

Greater thinker and intellectual Sir Thomas More, who was famously martyred by Henry VIII during the English reformation of the mid-1500s, was educated at the then Canterbury Hall, Oxford. In 1516, Utopia was completed and published. It is famous as a depiction of being able to achieve an idealized society guided by education and intellect.

Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

Although this is a traditional mid-nineteenth century novel, it is unusual due to it not having a hero. The title refers to a town where there is a constant fair for indulgence. Although Thackeray, who attended Trinity College, Cambridge, intended the novel as a commentary on society, it can be paralleled to the regular criticism that academics indulge themselves by forver remaining in the ivory towers of a university.

War Poets

During World War I, poetry exposing the horrors and realities of the “War to End All Wars,” began to be written by many of the disillusioned or angry soldiers. This created a shift toward a new way and mood of writing. Among these poets were Oxbridge educated Siegfried Sassoon (Clare College), who survived the war, and Edward Thomas (Lincoln College, Oxford), who fell in 1917. The deaths of men like this highlighted to the public the loss of a generation.

X used in spelling Aldous Huxley

Huxley was educated at Balliol College, Oxford, and he is most famous for writing novels such as Brave New World (1932). Set in the future, it warns of the dangerous of the over use of technology, and Huxley referred to the work as a “negative utopia” or dystopia.

Year of Birds by Iris Murdoch

A Year of Birds (1978) was the first of two books of poetry by Jean Iris Murdoch, who normally wrote novels such as Under the Net (1954). Her written work has been said to be both intense and bizarre. She was educated at both Somerville College, Oxford and Newnham College, Cambridge, but after produing a noticeable volume of work she became plagued by Alzheimer’s disease.

Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm

Published in 1911 as a satire of undergraduate life at Oxford, it is the only novel by Beerbohm, who was educated at Merton College, Oxford. It tells the story of a femme fatale who drives many suitors to suicide. The deaths of all the undergraduates, probably realistically, go unnoticed by the fictional academics, and Zuleika continues to entice trouble to the end.

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