Sunday, May 15, 2022
England Hath Need of Thee
Leslie Mitchell, Maurice Bowra: A Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 71-72, with note on p. 328:
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As he put it, 'It is to be hoped that some Aristophanic satirist will arise and mock the bores and bullies of today. In the meantime we can get considerable comfort from the incorrigible and high-minded satirist, who cared little for good taste or respectability, and flung fine handfuls of mud at a number of unpleasantly self-righteous people.' Sadly, England honoured the wrong people: 'English education has taught us to attribute nobility of character to those who would repress and deny. To Aristophanes these men were crooks and cranks.'22
22. Oxford Magazine, 4 May 1933, 612.