{{Short description|British classical scholar}} {{EngvarB|date=November 2017}} {{Use dmy dates|date=November 2017}} [[File:Heathcote William Garrod by Rodrigo Moynihan.jpg|thumb|right|Portrait of Garrod by [[Rodrigo Moynihan]], c. 1955]] '''Heathcote William Garrod''' {{post-nominals|country=GBR|CBE|FBA}} ( 21 January 1878 – 25 December 1960) was a British [[classical scholar]] and literary scholar.<ref name="odnb">{{cite ODNB|last1=Mallaby|first1=George|title=Garrod, Heathcote William (1878–1960)|url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/33340|accessdate=17 March 2016|year=2004|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/33340}}</ref>
==Early life and education== Garrod was born in [[Wells, Somerset]], the fifth of six children of solicitor Charles William Garrod and his wife, Louisa (''née'' Ashby).<ref name="odnb"/> He attended [[Bath College (English public school)|Bath College]] and [[Balliol College, Oxford]]. He received the 1900 [[Gaisford prize]] for Greek prose, and in 1901 the [[Newdigate Prize]] for an English poem. Following a first class in the Final Honour School of [[Literae Humaniores]] in the summer term of 1901, he was in October that year elected a [[Fellow]] of [[Merton College, Oxford]], a position he kept for over 60 years.<ref name="MCreg">{{cite book|editor1-last=Levens|editor1-first=R.G.C.|title=Merton College Register 1900–1964|date=1964|publisher=Basil Blackwell|location=Oxford|page=23}}</ref>
==Career== In June 1902 he was appointed to an assistant tutorship at [[Corpus Christi College, Oxford]].<ref>{{Cite newspaper The Times |title=University intelligence |date=19 June 1902 |page=11 |issue=36798| }}</ref> Although educated primarily in classics, Garrod became more interested in English literature. His 1923 work, ''Wordsworth: Lectures and Essays'' was well received and led to his position as [[Oxford Professor of Poetry]] from 1923 to 1928. In 1925, he resigned his tutorship in classics at Oxford for a research fellowship in English, which had been vacant after the death of [[W. P. Ker]]. From 1929 to 1930, Garrod was the [[Charles Eliot Norton Lectures|Charles Eliot Norton professor]] at [[Harvard University]].<ref name="odnb"/>
Garrod published a series of critical studies, essays and lectures on various English writers and poets, including ''The Profession of Poetry'' (1929); ''Poetry and the Criticism of Life'' (1931); ''Keats: a Critical Appreciation'' (1926); and ''Collins'' (1928). His 1939 and 1958 works on [[John Keats]] in the series ''Oxford English Texts'' remains an important book for scholars.<ref name="odnb"/>
==First World War==
During the First World War, he worked on the civilian side, first with the Ministry of Munitions and then in the Ministry of Reconstruction.<ref name="odnb"/> He was appointed a Commander of the [[Order of the British Empire]] (CBE) in the [[1918 New Year Honours]] for his efforts.<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=30460 |date=7 January 1918 |page=369 |supp=y}}</ref>
Though the remark is frequently attributed to others more famous, more reliable sources give him as the person who, when accosted by a woman during the First World War asking why he was not with the soldiers fighting to defend civilization, replied: "Madam, I am the civilization they are fighting to defend."<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=me7V5vIm214C&pg=PA228&lpg ''Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes''], eds. Clifton Fadiman & André Bernard (1985; Little, Brown & Co., 2000), 228. Retrieved 9 December 2009.</ref>
==Honours==
In addition to the CBE, Garrod received honorary doctorates from the University of Durham (DLitt, 1930) and the University of Edinburgh (LLD, 1953). He was elected a Fellow of the [[British Academy]] in 1931.<ref name="odnb"/>
Garrod, who never married, died at the Acland Nursing Home in Oxford on Christmas Day 1960.<ref name="odnb"/>
==Works==
*''[[Statius|Statii]] Thebais et Achilleis'' (Oxford, 1906) editor (second edition in 1926, reprinted in 1951) *''Opvs epistolarvm Des Erasmi Roterdami'' (1906) editor with H. M. Allen *''The Religion of All Good Men: And Other Studies in Christian Ethics'' (1906) *''Manili Astronomicon Liber II'' (1911) *''The Oxford Book of Latin Verse'' (1912) *''Oxford Poems'' (John Lane 1912) *''Einhard's Life of Charlemagne'' (1915) editor with R. B. Mowat *''Wordsworth: Lectures and Essays'' (1923) *''Byron 1824–1924'' (1924) *''The Profession of Poetry'', Inaugural Lecture as Professor of Poetry, University of Oxford, 13 February 1924 (1924) *''Coleridge Poetry and Prose with Essays By Hazlitt, Jeffrey, De Quincey, Carlyle & Others '' (1925) editor *''Keats'' (1926) *''Merton Muniments'' (1928) with [[P. S. Allen]] *''The Poetry of Collins'' (1928) Warton Lecture *''The Profession of Poetry and other lectures'' (1929) *''Poetry and the Criticism of Life'' (1931) *''Ancient Painted Glass in Merton College Oxford'' (1931) *''Tolstoi's Theory of Art'' (1935) [[Taylorian Lecture]] *''Opera Flacci, Q. Horati'' (1941) editor with [[Edward Wickham (priest)|Edward C. Wickham]] *''Epigrams'' (1946) *''List of the Writings of H. W. Garrod'' (1947) *''John Donne; Poetry and Prose with Izaac Walton's Life. Appreciations By Ben Jonson, Dryden, Coleridge and Others'' (1948) *''Genius Loci and other essays'' (1950) *''Poetical Works of John Keats'' (1956) *''Study of Good Letters'' (1963)
==References== {{Reflist}}
==Additional sources==
*J.A. Smith, ''The Nature of Art : An Open Letter to the Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford'', Oxford : Oxford University Press (1924) *John Jones, "Heathcote William Garrod. 1878–1960," Proceedings of the British Academy 48 (1962) 357–370 *J. Carey, ''The Unexpected Professor : An Oxford Life in Books'', London : Faber & Faber (2014) 138-42
==External links== * {{Gutenberg author | id=39500}} * {{Internet Archive author |sname=Heathcote William Garrod}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Garrod, HW}} [[Category:1878 births]] [[Category:1960 deaths]] [[Category:People from Wells, Somerset]] [[Category:British classical scholars]] [[Category:Fellows of Merton College, Oxford]] [[Category:Fellows of the British Academy]] [[Category:Oxford Professors of Poetry]] [[Category:Classical scholars of the University of Oxford]] [[Category:Harvard University faculty]] [[Category:Commanders of the Order of the British Empire]]