 | Professor David Womersley
Thomas Warton Professor of English Literature, University of Oxford (H5) English literature of the long eighteenth century, especially Gibbon, Swift, Burke and Johnson; sixteenth-century historiography and historical drama; the history of literary criticism; the theory and practice of textual editing
My background is probably not unusual for academics of my generation. Neither of my parents went to university, and I went to the local direct grant grammar school, where I received what I now recognise was a rigorous education, but one shorn of all frills. Going to Cambridge was the pivotal moment, marking as it did a great expansion of my intellectual and imaginative life. My research has been the result of lucky chances and the pursuit of hunches, although looking back over it I can glimpse some recurrences and patterns, as well as enduring and developing concerns. Election to the Academy is very gratifying, because it is unsought and arises from recognition on the part those whom one admires and from whom one has learnt. But it is also satisfying because it is an opportunity to repay some of the educational benefit one has received. I have been sustained throughout my career by institutions built up over time through countless individual acts of philanthropy. By involving myself in the important work of the Academy, I can make a contribution, however modest, to the educational fabric of the nation in the humanities and social sciences. |
