Sir Cecil Maurice Bowra (April 8, 1898 – July 4, 1971) was an English classical scholar, teacher, and wit.

He was born in Kiukiang, China to English parents and educated at Cheltenham College.

In 1922, he was appointed fellow of Wadham College at Oxford University, where he became Warden in 1938, and kept that post for the rest of his life. He was also Professor of Poetry 1946–1951 and vice chancellor 1951–1954. He was knighted in 1951.

In his long career as an Oxford don, Bowra had contact with a considerable portion of the English literary world, either as students or as colleagues. The character of Mr Samgrass in Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited is said to be modelled on Waugh's teacher Bowra.

Bowra quotes:

"My dear, buggers can't be choosers", explaining his marriage to a "plain" girl.

"I expect to pass through this world but once and therefore if there is anybody I want to kick in the crotch I had better kick them in the crotch now, for I do not expect to pass this way again."

"With one or two exceptions, colleges expect their players of games to be reasonably literate."

"Splendid couple – slept with both of them", on hearing of the marriage of a well-known literary pair.

"Like our Lord and Socrates, he talked much but published little", speaking of Isaiah Berlin.

In 1992, Wadham College named its Bowra Building in his honor.

Books

• The Heritage of Symbolism (1943)
• From Virgil to Milton (1945)
• The Creative Experiment (1949)
• The Romantic Imagination (1950)
• Heroic Poetry (1952)
• Homer and his forerunners (Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd, Edinburgh, 1955)
• Memories 1898-1939 (1966)
• Greek Lyric Poetry: from Alcman to Simonides (Oxford 2nd revision 2001)
• The Odes of Pindar (1969, Penguin reissue 1982)
• Anthology of Russian Poems

(need rest of books)

Reference

• Hugh Lloyd-Jones, (ed.), Maurice Bowra: A Celebration (London, 1974)
• Noel Annan, The Dons (Chicago, 1999)